I’ve discussed many of the ways that comics and rock and roll have intersected over the years, but there’s one particular type I’ve forgotten to mention ’til now: The blatant cash-in. The Monkees were the hottest thing around in 1967,…
Author: Patrick A. Reed
Mariachi El Bronx, Legendary Shack Shakers, Two Man Gentleman Band: Live at Brooklyn Bowl, 6/28/2011
On Tuesday June 28th, Brooklyn Bowl hosted a special concert promoted by Sailor Jerry rum. It was a strange bill, each act perfectly compatible with the image of the Sailor Jerry brand, but having very little in common with one…
Gene Colan, 1926-2011
Gene Colan passed away a few days ago. I can’t possibly do justice to this man’s life and career in the space of a few lines of type. He was one of the finest artists ever to grace comic books. …
Harry Belafonte: “Gloria”
In 1961, Harry Belafonte returned his attentions to the strain of music that had made him a household name. Jump Up Calypso was Belafonte’s third album of West-Indies-styled tunes (following 1956’s Calypso and 1957’s Belafonte Sings Of The Carribean), and…
Pop Music Comics: Twenty-Seven, Li’l Depressed Boy
Image Comics has a well-earned reputation as a home for both mainstream superhero titles and artist-driven alternative works, and over the past decade have published some of the most exciting and enjoyable comics I’ve run across. Many of these have…
Pop Music Comics: Red Rocket 7
Rock and roll often borrows from the wondrous milieu of comic books, adopting costumes, characters, names, and incidental iconography… Album covers, lyrical content, concert posters, concert staging, and even artists’ identities themselves are filtered through four-color prisms, building the mythology…
Urge Overkill: Live at The Bowery Ballroom, 5/17/2011
Urge Overkill visited The Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday night, touring in support of their new LP “Rock & Roll Submarine” (reviewed here). The band stepped onstage just past ten p.m., and proceeded to unleash an hour and a half of…
Pop Music Comics: Saturday Morning
Pop music and comic books share many sensibilities and influences, and often cross over in unexpected and interesting ways. Comic artists illustrate album covers, bands utilize four-color imagery in videos and live shows, musicians try their hands at writing and…
Album Review: Urge Overkill – “Rock And Roll Submarine”
Yes, this album is called Rock & Roll Submarine. It’s a ridiculous title, and that’s only fitting; Urge Overkill, better than most anyone, have always personified and reveled in the inherent absurdities of rock and roll. And they’ve finally returned. …
Pop Music Comics: Sonic Disruptors
Comic Books and Rock & Roll have a complex and entangled relationship, full of shared influences, common history, and thematic cross-pollination. Both started as disposable forms delivered in small doses, became emblematic of youth culture and rebellion in the cold…