Brett Milano | |
---|---|
Born | 1957 (age 66–67) |
Occupation(s) | Writer, music journalist |
Website | www |
Brett Milano (born 1957) is an American music critic, columnist and author, based in Boston.
Milano attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, before relocating to Boston in 1980 and earning a graduate degree in journalism at Boston University. [1] For three years in the early 1990s, he worked in Los Angeles doing A&R and publicity for Alias Records and Rhino Records. [2] : 172 He also worked for Harmonix as a writer, editor, and researcher for its Rock Band video game. [3]
According to the Boston Globe , Milano is a veteran music critic whose 2007 book, The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock and Roll, "should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding Boston's unique contribution to rock 'n' roll." [4]
Milano entered the Boston music scene in the 1980s as a music journalist. [1] He was a long-time columnist for the Boston Phoenix , as well as the Boston Globe and Sound & Vision magazine. Milano has also written for publications such as Billboard , Pulse, and the College Media Journal . [5] In 2013, he became the editor of OffBeat , where he has written about music since 2005. [3]
Turning his hand to fiction, Milano is the author of two short stories anthologized in the 2011 and 2012 volumes of Tales from the House Band, a series of books edited by Deborah Grabien. [6] [7]
Milano has been interviewed in documentary films as an authority on rock music, [8] and has written liner notes for albums by Todd Rundgren, the Cars, and the Smithereens. He compiled and annotated the 1993 Rhino Records CD release D.I.Y.: Mass. Ave: The Boston Scene (1975–83), a compilation of Boston punk history. His fourth book, a biography of Game Theory's Scott Miller, was published in October 2015.
The Boston Globe wrote that Milano's book The Sound of Our Town (2007) depicts Boston's "diversity of scenes and attitudes, much of it driven by the constant influx of college students and transplants", creating a "healthy dissonance" that defined the Boston rock sound. [4]
The book was written over the course of two years, though Milano had been collecting material for several years beforehand. [1] Milano's approach to the problem of structuring the book to reflect the typical chaos of a local music scene was "to at least give a mention to every great band I could ... without making it just a laundry-list of bands," in an effort to "catch the spirit of the time and places, and tell some of the more important band histories, and have it flow as a story." [1]
Milano's biography of Scott Miller, Don't All Thank Me at Once: The Lost Genius of Scott Miller, was published in October 2015. [9] [2] Milano described the book as one that not only tells the story of Miller and his bands Game Theory and The Loud Family, but also explores "the college and indie-rock explosion of the 1980s and 1990s," and how some influential artists "managed to fall through the cracks." [9]
In the aftermath of Miller's death in April 2013, Milano submitted an initial proposal for a book about the album Lolita Nation to Bloomsbury, the publishers of the 33⅓ book series. [10] The series' editor rejected the topic as too non-commercial for that series, but provided "enough encouragement" that Milano decided to go further with the project, to write "a real proper biography, and try to get a handle on who Scott was and how that played into the music he made." [10]
Explaining his motivations for writing the book, Milano stated, "Like a lot of people I was pretty shaken up by his sudden and self-inflicted death in 2013, and thought he should be honored in some way... there’s some earthshaking music here that I have to tell people about." [11] Citing comparisons to Big Star and Nick Drake in a 2016 interview, Milano expressed his hopes and expectation that Miller's music will be rediscovered, bringing Miller "after-the-fact acclaim." [11]
Milano continues to live in the Boston area, and was married in 2013. [12]
Since September 2016, Milano and Rocker Magazine editor-in-chief Erin Amar have co-hosted a monthly rock and roll trivia night at various venues in the Boston area. [13] [14]
Books:
Stone Temple Pilots is an American rock band formed in San Diego, California, in 1989. Originally consisting of Scott Weiland, brothers Dean (guitar) and Robert DeLeo, and Eric Kretz (drums), the band's lineup remained unchanged from its formation until the firing of Weiland in February 2013. Vocalist Chester Bennington joined the band in May 2013 but left amicably in November 2015. In 2016, STP launched an online audition for a new lead vocalist; Jeff Gutt was announced as STP's new lead singer on November 14, 2017.
The Cars were an American rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek, Benjamin Orr, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes (keyboards), and David Robinson (drums). Ocasek and Orr shared lead vocals, and Ocasek was the band's principal songwriter and leader.
A groupie is a fan of a particular musical group who follows the band around while they are on tour or who attends as many of their public appearances as possible, with the hope of meeting them. The term is used mostly describing young women, and sometimes men, who follow these individuals aiming to gain fame of their own, or help with behind-the-scenes work, or to initiate a relationship of some kind, intimate or otherwise. The term is also used to describe similarly enthusiastic fans of athletes, writers, and other public figures.
Pamela Des Barres is an American rock and roll groupie, writer, musician, and actress. She is best known for her 1987 memoir, I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, which details her experiences in the Los Angeles rock music scene of the 1960s and 1970s. She is also a former member of the experimental Frank Zappa-produced music group the GTOs.
The Loud Family was a San Francisco-based power pop band formed in 1991 by songwriter and guitarist Scott Miller, who previously led the 1980s band Game Theory. The Loud Family released six studio LPs and one live LP from 1991 through 2006. After Miller's death in 2013, three Loud Family members participated in recording sessions for Supercalifragile (2017), Miller's posthumous Game Theory album.
Mistle Thrush was a female-fronted 1990s alternative rock band based in Boston, Massachusetts. They've been described by the Boston Herald as The Cure-meets-Fairport Convention. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe wrote that Valerie Forgione, the band's singer, has "some of the most versatile pipes since the dream-pop heyday of Kate Bush" and that the "band remains a local treasure". During the band's heyday, their songs frequently charted in CMJ's Top 200. According to the band's website, they're on hiatus but their last album was released in February 2002. In January 2011, they reunited to play their first concert since 2003. Forgione's current project is called Lovina Falls.
The Rathskeller was a live music venue in Boston that was open from 1974 to 1997. It was considered the "granddaddy" of Boston rock venues.
The Middle East is an entertainment complex consisting of five adjacent dining and live music venues in the Central Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its three dedicated concert spaces, Upstairs, Downstairs, and Sonia, sit alongside ZuZu and The Corner, two restaurants that also host live music. Having featured a huge variety of musicians since 1987, the establishment was described in 2007 as "the nexus of metro Boston's rock-club scene for local and touring bands" by the Boston Phoenix.
Scott Warren Miller was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known for his work as leader of the 1980s band Game Theory and 1990s band The Loud Family, and as the author of a 2010 book of music criticism. He was described by The New York Times as "a hyperintellectual singer and songwriter who liked to tinker with pop the way a born mathematician tinkers with numbers", having "a shimmery-sweet pop sensibility, in the tradition of Brian Wilson and Alex Chilton."
The Downbeat 5 is a Boston-based rock band started in 1999 by former DMZ guitarist J. J. Rassler and his then-wife, Jen,. The band's music draws on 1960s girl group sounds, garage rock, and rougher-edged British Invasion bands like The Rolling Stones.
The Proletariat are a punk rock band from Southeastern Massachusetts, whose heyday was during the 1980s, when they were active in the early Boston hardcore scene, sharing the bill with many of the best punk and hardcore punk acts of the time, despite their recorded output having a decidedly non-hardcore aesthetic; the Proletariat show more strongly the musical influences of early British post-punk bands such as Wire and the Gang of Four in their fractured guitar sound and Marxist-themed lyrics.
Edward Hyson, known professionally as Oedipus, is an American radio personality. Oedipus's radio career began in 1975 as a DJ at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s college station WTBS. He gained notoriety as the pink-haired DJ who created the first punk rock radio show in America, introducing punk and new wave music to Boston and to the country. He did the first radio interviews with the Ramones, Talking Heads and The Damned, and conducted on-air conversations with The Clash, Public Image Ltd, Suicide and many others.
Deborah Grabien is an American novelist and essayist. Her works cross several genres, including murder mysteries, supernatural thrillers, utopian fantasies, etc. Her novel Plainsong is a religious fantasy featuring the Wandering Jew and a female Messiah. Grabien is currently a reviewer and guest editor for Green Man Review.
The Nervous Eaters, one of Boston's first punk rock / rock and roll bands with Steve Cataldo on vocals and guitar, Robb Skeen on bass, and Jeff Wilkinson on drums. Forming in 1973 they had used the name some years earlier, but had not performed live under it. As the Rhythm Assholes, they had backed local rock legend Willie Alexander on his single "Kerouac" and in concert. After a name change, they made their debut at the hub of the city's alternative music scene, the Rathskeller—known as the Rat—in March 1976. Their first single, "Loretta", appeared later that year on the club's Rat label.
"It's Only Love" is a song by American rock band Cheap Trick, which was released in 1986 as the lead single from their ninth studio album The Doctor. It was written by guitarist Rick Nielsen and lead vocalist Robin Zander, and produced by Tony Platt. The song failed to chart in the US. Despite the commercial failure of the song, the music video is notable for the use of American Sign Language.
Music: What Happened? is a book of music criticism by Scott Miller, leader of the bands Game Theory and The Loud Family. Published in 2010, it was described by Billboard as "a well-received critical overview of 53 years of rock history".
T.T. the Bear's Place was a live music venue in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts that operated from 1973 until July 25, 2015.
Don't All Thank Me At Once: The Lost Pop Genius of Scott Miller is a 2015 biography of pop musician Scott Miller, written by Brett Milano.
The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock and Roll is a 2007 book about the distinctive rock music scene of Boston, Massachusetts. It was written by Brett Milano, a Boston-based music critic and columnist.
Clea Simon is an American writer. She is the author of World Enough, a psychological suspense thriller set in the Boston music scene, and the Blackie and Care, Theda Krakow, Dulcie Schwartz, Pru Marlowe, and Witch Cats of Cambridge cozy feline mysteries. Her non-fiction books include Madhouse: Growing Up in the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings, Fatherless Daughters and Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection between Women and Cats.