Name: Jon Sobel
Dateline: New York City
Weblog: jonsobel.com [RSS]
Articles: 350
First Published: Thursday, January 15, 2004
Last Published: Saturday, July 19, 2008
Jon Sobel is Blogcritics' theater editor, reviews NYC theater frequently, and writes a regular round-up of independent music releases. He is also a computer professional, musician, and small-time concert promoter in New York City. (His original band, Whisperado, can be blogcriticized at will, and you can also find him playing bass and singing in the Kings County Blues Band.)Currently listing articles 350-301:
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Music Review: Indie Round-Up - Anya Singleton, Emory Joseph, Parlour Steps, Kalliopi— Anya Singleton rocks with soul, while Emory Joseph applies a youthful bounce to the Garcia-Hunter canon.
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Theater Review (NYC): Bouffon Glass Menajoree— This parody of the Tennessee Williams classic is grotesque in the original and best sense of the word.
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Music Review: Indie Round-Up - Grascals, V-Project, Roots of Creation, Amelia White, Smiling Strangers— From bluegrass and reggae jams to alt-country and "three-minute" pop, this week's round-up has something for nearly everyone.
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Book Review: In the Woods by Tana French— This multilayered story combines the gritty worldliness of a police procedural with the eerie chills of a psychological thriller.
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Charlie Black and the Politics of Fear— All Charlie Black did was acknowledge some uncomfortable facts.
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Music Review: Indie Round-Up - J.J. Appleton, Gandalf Murphy, Gary Morgan and PanAmericana!— Womblike melodies and lush yet elemental arrangements trick out Gandalf Murphy's excellent new disc.
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Theater/Burlesque Review (NYC): Revealed— Bawdy fun in the East Village.
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Music Review: Chuck Leavell, Live in Germany: Green Leaves & Blue Notes Tour 2007— The Rolling Stones' keyboardist may be a "musicians' musician," but there's something for almost everyone on his new two-CD live set.
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Theater Review (NYC): All Kinds of Shifty Villains: A Carnival Noir— A hallucinating gumshoe, a sinister clown, and a femme fatale collide in this shifty new play.
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Concert Review: Strawbs and Judith Owen at BB Kings, NYC— Strawbs is on tour with their classic early 1970s lineup.
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Music Review: Swamp Cabbage - Squeal— Rootsy, southern-fried blues doesn't come much more boggy than this.
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Theater Review (NYC): Three on a Couch by Carl Djerassi— A nervous shrink, a devilish plot, revenge, and a mango fuel the American premiere of Carl Djerassi's dark comedy.
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John McCain: A Man Without Principle— John McCain has gone back on his positions on every issue on which his national reputation had rested.
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Music Review: John Mayall - Live at the Marquee and The Masters— Two re-releases document the influential British bluesman's creative reinvention in 1969.
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Theater Review (NYC): Standing Clear— The show's creators use subway vignettes to make us look closely at ourselves - and to laugh at what we see.
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Music Review: Indie Round-Up - Stone Coyotes, Bloom, Preston, Sugar Blue— The Stone Coyotes' stark naturalness is what makes them so good.
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Theater/Dance Review (Brooklyn NY): The Judgment of Paris by Austin McCormick and Company XIV— This dazzling new dance-theater piece incorporates elements of pre-ballet Baroque dance.
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So You Think John McCain Can't Dance?
— "Straight-talker" McCain is as cynical and conniving a political animal as any of them, and better at it than most.
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Book Review: Sonnets by William Shakespeare (New Edition from Pushkin Press)— This new edition is a good reminder of the still-intimate relationship between literature and physical objects.
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Music Review: Stray Cats - Rock Therapy and Blast Off Reissues— The Stray Cats' late 80s reunion albums, reissued on Hep Cat Records, are worth another listen.
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Theater Review (NYC): Henry James's The Aspern Papers, Adapted by Martin Zuckerman— Henry James' suspenseful tale of duplicity, set in a backwater of Venice, comes luridly to life on stage.
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Theater Review (NYC): Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle— Cast and crew's great cleverness and enormous talent make Brecht's masterpiece pulsate with the outsized, exaggerated energy of real life.
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Music Review: Hayes Carll - Trouble In Mind— Hayes Carll has a decisive answer to those faux-devotional slick country songs like "Jesus Take the Wheel."
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Stars Honor Bill Withers and Our Time, an Artistic Home for People Who Stutter— Our Time Theatre Company provides an artistic home for kids and teens who stutter.
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Theater Review (NYC): Arthur Kopit's Chamber Music and The Day the Whores Came Out to Play Tennis— Susan B. Anthony, Joan of Arc, and Amelia Earhart fear an attack from the men's ward.
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Theater Review (NYC): Dirt— An Iraqi immigrant who knows he cannot be loved invites hatred and abuse instead, because at least it's something.
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Theater Review (NYC): Elizabeth Rex by Timothy Findley— All's well that ends well - except for poor Essex, of course.
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Theater Review (NYC): Hostage Song— Two war hostages are wrenched into a space so unreal that erupting into song seems as sensible as anything else.
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Music Review: Rachel Taylor Brown - Half Hours with the Lower Creatures— The poetry of 21st century disillusionment, packed neatly into a plastic disc.
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Music Review: Indie Round-Up - Michael Veitch, Josh Fix, Keith Killgo— Josh Fix's densely produced, rocking, accessible pop will remind some listeners of Ben Folds.
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Theater Review (NYC): Almost An Evening by Ethan Coen, with F. Murray Abraham and Mark Linn-Baker— F. Murray Abraham as a hilarious, thundering Jehovah in Ethan Coen's first Off-Broadway play.
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Music DVD Review: Tangerine Dream - Live at Coventry Cathedral 1975— This extended psychedelic music video of a very cool (and important) band is not, however, a live Tangerine Dream concert.
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Music Review: Indie Round-Up - Gordone, Rush, Blatt, Segal, VonderHaar— Leah-Carla Gordone's best songs are whizzing worlds of twelve-string soulfulness.
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Theater Review (NYC): A (Tooth) Fairy Tale— It takes a special council of the heavies of faerydom to figure out how to set things right.
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Theater Review (NYC): TBA by Carla Ching— A gifted writer locks himself in his apartment and creates worlds from within.
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Music Review: Indie Round-Up - Spitzer's Folly, Sky Cries Mary, and Down the Line— Who but Sky Cries Mary could make a compelling chorus with just the words "Here comes the 5 Train"?
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Eliot Spitzer: Irresistible Stupidity, Immoveable Standards— The American press, and a portion of the populace, demand that politicians be as pure as clergymen. (Okay, bad example.)
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Theater Review (NYC): Great Hymn of Thanksgiving and Conversation Storm at the Frigid Festival— The play's deliberately fractured action careens between genuinely dramatic intensity and inexplicable weirdness.
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Theater Review (NYC): STUCK! at the Frigid Festival— Kiki's frazzled morning slams to a halt when she gets locked in the basement bathroom of a Starbucks.
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Music Review: Indie Round-Up - Nackman, English, Means, Handcuffs, Soul Summit— Alex Nackman crafts shimmery, hooky songs; The Handcuffs combine 80's new wave with 00's crunch on their catchy, highly appealing tracks.
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Book Review: Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems by John Ashbery— Always playing, Ashbery writes inexplicable sentences in utterly graceful English.
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Music DVD Review: Fairport Convention: Maidstone 1970— An interesting but minor addition to the historical record of the British folk-pop movement.
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Christina Ricci Goes Prosthetic in New Screen Fable Penelope— This new fairytale movie starring Christina Ricci is a feel-good flick with a twist.
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Music Review: Idina Menzel - I Stand— The Broadway star needs a collaborator who's hungry to succeed, not Glen Ballard.
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Theater Review (Brooklyn, NY): Macbeth with Patrick Stewart— Patrick Stewart and Rupert Goold's Macbeth has top-notch acting, of course, but also flair and humor and bonechilling thrills.
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Theater Review (NYC): The Play About the Naked Guy— It spoofs Off-Broadway and the gay club scene, yet it's a delicious entertainment for everyone.
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Music Review: Indie Round-Up - No Girls Allowed Edition— Steve Northeast crafts energetic and emotional hard rock songs loaded with raspy guitars and cataclysmic rhythms.
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Theater Review (NYC): Conjur Woman - A Folk Opera— A harrowing trip into the heart of darkness courtesy of a bag of charms, a rope, and Shelia Dabney's worldly-dark voice.
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Theater Review (Bronx, NY): Agnes of God— The ghost of America circa 1979 retains its power to haunt.
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Theater Review (NYC): Glimpses of the Moon at the Oak Room in the Algonquin Hotel— From the first Gershwinian piano chords, we know we're in for a roaring good time in this jazzy 1920's tale.
All BC Articles