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carlzoilus.bsky.social
Carl Wilson
@carlzoilus.bsky.social
3.2K followers 790 following 1.1K posts
Music critic for Slate, freelance writer/editor/etc in Toronto (and available for work!), author of Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, founding associate of Trampoline Hall.
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carlzoilus.bsky.social
Wed Nov 19, 5:30 pm ET, the Popular Music Books online series features Allison Bumstead on teen fan mags' role in early rock journalism & politics, plus Peter Richardson on how Bay Area activism fed into the advent of Rolling Stone. To join us, see here: iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...
The bright-orange-forward rainbow cover of TeenSet, Teen Fan Magazines, and Rock Journalism: Don't Let the Name Fool You, by Allison Bumsted, with a graphic of a tween in sixties-style hair and jacket. The cover of Peter Richardson's Brand New Beat: The Wild Rise of Rolling Stone magazine, featuring a black-and-white photo of a man leaning back reading an early tabloid-format issue of Rolling Stone with Neil Young on the cover in a cowboy hat.
November 17, 2025 at 3:27 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
As part of Hilobrow's "Skank Your Enthusiasm" series on ska, I wrote a short piece about my conflicted history with the genre's post-punk revival waves, via Madness's 1979 signature cover of Prince Buster's 1964 "One Step Beyond." www.hilobrow.com/2025/11/04/s...
A screenshot of the introductory text for Hilobrow's SKANK YOUR ENTHUSIASM series, featuring the cover of Madness's single "One Step Beyond" with the band members doing their "nutty train" style of dance, in a line with their chests pressed to each other's backs. The text reads "One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite ... ska records! Playlist here. Series edited by Josh Glenn."
November 5, 2025 at 7:34 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
LIVING THROUGH HISTORY: Wed Nov 5, 5:30 pm ET in the Popular Music Books series, blues harpist Jerry Portnoy (Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton) & label exec Dan Beck (Michael Jackson) discuss their new memoirs w/ Lauren Onkey (GWU, NPR). Come! Bring your questions! iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...
The cover of Dancing With Muddy: Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, & My Lucky Life in and out of the Blues depicts author Jerry Portnoy blowing harmonica live on stage next to Muddy Waters in an undated photo. The cover of "You've Got Michael": Living through HIStory depicts author Dan Beck talking to Michael Jackson in the 1990s, with Jackson dressed in head-to-toe shiny silver and sunglasses, arms folded, with two V-shaped black electric guitars hanging on the wall behind him.
November 3, 2025 at 9:54 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Tomorrow (Wed), 5:30 pm, in the online Popular Music Books series: Masha Salazkina & Usha Iyer on "The Global Phenomenon of BONEY M," the group whose Eurodisco-Caribbean sound went worldwide in the 1970s-80s, except in the U.S.! To join the discussion: iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...
Four members of Boney M (three women and a main) in flamboyant stage outfits, the man in a panama hat and the women in glittering headbands. The logo reads "50 years of Boney M."
October 28, 2025 at 9:26 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Goodnight, maestro
October 27, 2025 at 1:41 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
A loud sigh of lamentation: Rest in Pandemonium to Nobuo Kubota of CCMC, great Toronto artist of sound and vision, 1932-2025.
From a recent exhibition at MOCA Toronto, a work of Nobuo Kubota's showing three rows of three pictures of his grey-haired face, pink and half-transparent, with his mouth in various positions and expressions of sound-making.
October 3, 2025 at 5:43 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
I'm part of this event Tuesday (Oct 7) celebrating Jeff Weiss's new book WAITING FOR BRITNEY SPEARS, a memoir reckoning with his part in the L.A. gossip press in the 00s. It's at the Annex Hotel, 296 Brunswick, Toronto - panel starts at 7:30, followed by some live Britney covers! Please join us!
A poster for the Waiting for Britney Spears event Tues Oct 7 in Toronto at the Annex Hotel, doors at 6 pm, panel at 7:30 pm, featuring author Jeff Weiss in conversation with Natalie Harmsen (CBC) and Carl Wilson (Slate) - all three are pictured. Presented by Lore and Outtaline. $10
October 2, 2025 at 7:10 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
ATTN Canadian govt: The case against Kneecap in the UK has been thrown out, not just on a technicality but because the judge said the charge was "as unjustified as it was flawed." Now let them come play here and express their opinions to their fans as freely as our Constitution mandates.
September 27, 2025 at 9:35 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Toronto friends, if you know of a decent apartment available for rent *right now* - or even, temporarily, a room or sublet or other stopgap - for less than about $1900, please please let me know. This is for a friend in the arts community in urgent need. DM me and I will pass the info along!
September 24, 2025 at 4:48 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Once & for all, let's specify what "poptimism" was & wasn't, and why many people can't stop blaming it for every cultural change of the past 20 years. Most recently the esteemed Kelefa Sanneh, who's often (wrongly) said to have started it! Today in @slate.com
slate.com/culture/2025...
A screenshot of the headline of an article by Carl Wilson, reading, "Criticism's Biggest Strawman: What was 'poptimism,' and why are people still saying terrible things about it?" It's illustrated by a picture of a straw-stuffed scarecrow in a field, wearing a Taylor Swift T-shirt.
September 24, 2025 at 1:24 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Sadly tomorrow's scheduled Popular Music Books session with Wadada Leo Smith and Nina Sun Eidsheim has to be postponed due to illness. Nothing too severe, I hasten to say. A new date will be announced soon. Meanwhile please send healing vibrations WLS's way.
Musician Wadada Leo Smith, seen holding his trumpet in one hand and the other touching his greying beard with his head leaned back, eyes closed beatifically, in concert. Photo from 2016 by M. Jackson.
September 23, 2025 at 8:58 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
On CBC this a.m., talked about how the new "Joni's Jazz" box set remixes her story: jazz as Joni's "going electric," as her alternative to where guys were taking rock... + how weird the early-mid-70s were. (W/ a shoutout to @annkpowers.bsky.social's "Traveling" ofc.)
www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...
Joni Mitchell around the time she began playing mainly with jazz musicians, c. 1974, pictured in sepia with flowers in her long blonde hair, leaning in to a microphone.
September 10, 2025 at 12:14 AM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
The online Popular Music Books series returns Wed (Sep 10) at 5:30 pm ET with a special five-author panel on musicals, on Broadway & beyond - w/ Joanna Dee Das, Ryan Donovan, Liza Gennaro, Jeff Magee, & Liz Wollman. Full info: iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...
A scene from the Broadway revival of "Gypsy" featuring a young girl in a white dress studded with red crosses kicking one leg up over her head while singing with mouth wide open. Behind her, a backdrop reads "EXTRA EXTRA" in newspaper style, plus an American-flag motif.
September 9, 2025 at 5:06 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Last reminder that my chat with Cathrin Bradbury about her new book and the editing-vs.-writing continuum - coming out of our decades-long working relationship - is tonight, starting a bit after 6:30 pm at Flying Books. Please join us, Torontonians!
A pink promo poster for the "Author Social" event Wed July 23, 6:30-8 pm at Flying Books in Toronto, 371 Queen St. West (at "Neverland"). It features writer/editors Cathrin Bradbury and Carl Wilson (pictured), discussing Bradbury's new book THIS WAY UP: Old Friends, New Love, and a Map for the Road Ahead. (Also pictured.)
July 23, 2025 at 5:46 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
The farewell Sabbath concert now reminds me of Bowie's self-conscious exit - and like him, Ozzy was a progenitor of countless cultural descendants and in every state one of the outsized personalities of Rock-qua-Rock, from high phase to decline-and-fall. Rest in Power Chords, John Michael Osborne.
Ozzy Osborne depicted with wings and vampire teeth, all in black, extending a grasping hand to the viewer. (Image borrowed from The Guardian.)
July 22, 2025 at 7:08 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Massive Attack does an excellent job of putting the Vylan controversy in perspective (from their Insta).
July 2, 2025 at 6:53 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
... You mean it becomes a global centre of creativity, profit, and culture that's the dream and envy of all the world?
June 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Pete also has a 33 1/3 book coming out in the fall about the B-52s' COSMIC THING so you can also ask him about that!
May 26, 2025 at 8:15 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Tues May 26, 5 pm ET, in the Popular Music Books online series, author Pete Crighton talks about THE VINYL DIARIES, about growing up collecting records in the AIDS era, w/ great queer comic Carolyn Taylor (Baroness Von Sketch)! To join us iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...
The cover of Pete Crighton's The Vinyl Diaries: Sex, Deep Cuts, and My Soundtrack to Queer Joy. Canadian sketch comic Carolyn Taylor sits on an orange upholstered sofa, resting her chin on her hand.
May 26, 2025 at 8:15 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Pete Crighton also has a 33 1/3 book on the B-52s' COSMIC THING coming out in the fall, so you can ask about that too!
The blue cover of Pete Crighton's 33 1/3 series book on the B-52s' COSMIC THING, with the album cover picturing the band in bright colours with guitars and conga drums inset in the upper right corner.
May 26, 2025 at 8:12 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
I also talked about Wallen as well as Maren Morris, Lana Del Rey and other developments in country/"country" this morning on CBC's Commotion - find it where you get your podcasts!
May 16, 2025 at 10:07 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
This Tues, May 13 @ 5 pm ET in the Popular Music Books zoom series: Benjamin Tausig on 60s-70s Thai nightlife in the shadow of the Vietnam war, via the tale of queer Black pianist Maurice Rocco. Talking w/ Kanjana Thepboriruk and Elliott Powell. Join us! iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...
The cover of Benajmin Tausig's BANGKOK AFTER DARK: Maurice Rocco, Transnational Nightlife, and the Making of Cold War Intimacies. With a picture of Rocco at the piano.
May 9, 2025 at 8:31 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Tomorrow! Tue Apr 22, 5 pm ET in the Popular Music Books series: @askjerseth.bsky.social talks tech & cultural "presets" - in radio, samplers, AutoTune, vocaloids, Instagram, AI ... - w/ Catherine Provenzano. In memory of @jonathansterne.bsky.social. Join us: iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...
The picture says "In Memoriam, Jonathan Sterne, 1970-2025," with a picture of the late McGill University sound-studies theorist in a bright orange-pink button-up shirt, smiling warmly with crossed arms.
April 21, 2025 at 6:35 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
This Tues Apr 15 in the Popular Music Books series, 5 pm ET - @dandipiero.bsky.social & @holmesjessica.bsky.social talk with @robinjames.bsky.social about their books in progress on "big feelings" and depression in todays indie and pop music. Join us! iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...
The cover of Dan DiPiero's BIG FEELINGS: QUEER & FEMINIST INDIE ROCK AFTER RIOT GIRL, depicts a graphic-art figure with a guitar and an exploding head of red and blue colour, on a lavendar background. A picture of Jessica A. Holmes, the author of work-in-progress The Musical Vernacular of Depression, smiling while browsing at a bookshelf. Robin James, the author of "Resilience & Melancholy: pop music, feminism, neoliberalism," looks into the camera with her swooping blue-dyed hair and chunky black glasses.
April 11, 2025 at 6:58 PM
carlzoilus.bsky.social
Tomorrow (Tues) at 5 pm ET in our books series: One-song books! @mayaangela.bsky.social on "Ne Me Quitte Pas," @mikebarthel.bsky.social on "Party in the U.S.A." & @jasonschneidermedia.com on "Hey Joe," mod'd by @eweisbard.bsky.social ("Hound Dog"). Join us: iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...
Cover of Duke Singles Series book "Ne Me Quitte Pas" by Maya Angela Smith, with the subtitle, "A song by Jacques Brel and interpreted by Nina Simone and others." The cover is a green-and-black pattern of musical notes. Miley Cyrus with a microphone stand, standing in front of an American flag, representing the song "Party in the U.S.A." The orange cover of Jason Schneider's "That Gun in Your Hand: The Strange Saga of 'Hey Joe' and Popular Music's History of Violence," with a foreword by Lenny Kaye. It features an illustration with Jimi Hendrix in the centre, surrounded by other artists who have covered the song. The cover of "Hound Dog" by Eric Weisbard in the Duke University Press "Singles" series. It features a pattern of burgundy-and-black lines in a spiral pattern of wavy lines like an op-art painting.
March 31, 2025 at 5:21 PM