John Shand Posts

November 13, 2018 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Venue 505, October 31 7/10   Reviewing by resort to comparison always seems lame, but Forq defeats me. It’s not that the band overtly copies anyone specific, but rather that the whole concert flares with sounds and ideas you’ve heard before. Happily they are often ones you don’t expect to…

November 11, 2018 / Album Reviews - Archive

NIM DONG (Art As Catharsis) 9/10 This has such diverse influences at work that it could easily have become like a dish with too many ingredients and no restraint in the spicing. Instead it casts a spell all its own. The opening title track is already attractive enough, but in…

November 10, 2018 / Theatre Reviews - Archive

Old Fitz Theatre, October 21 7.5/10 Two highly intelligent American musicians – Joan Baez and Marc Ribot – have told me in interviews this year that Trump’s US is already a fascist state. This exaggerates symptoms of a potential metamorphosis towards fascism, most obviously via racism, scapegoating minorities, discrediting the…