Whatever Happened to Captain Snaps?

It took three months, four phone messages and countless mutual friends hassling Joe Stevens to get an interview with him, even though he lives three blocks from me in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and doesn't have much to do all day. To pin him down, I had to find him in person.

The day after Thanksgiving, my kid and I were strolling to Caffe Kilim and finally found Stevens sitting on a bench out front. White-haired, sharp-eyed, wearing a black cap and dark clothes, he sat with nimble fingers clutching a coffee cup and yakked with the other patrons. He looked like a character, but not the kind that stands out.

When I introduced myself, he gave me an affable grin. He was willing to talk: before, he told me, he didn't want to do press because he had nothing to promote. But this time, he had a show going up at the Press Room, so sure, let's set a time.

Stevens photographs rock stars. He's also shot news, for underground and radical papers in the 1960s and 70s, and he used to make Super8 films while he was road managing a world tour for Miriam Makeba. But since the mid-60s, his main gig has been rock-- and his photos are jawdropping. Johnny Cash warming up in his dressing room at Carnegie Hall. Paul McCartney in the early 70s on a bad hair day. more...

Air
Pocket Symphony
[Astralwerks; 2007]
Rating: 6.6/10

Air like to let you know what kind of album you're in for with the first couple of bars of their opening tracks. Moon Safari faded up with bongos on "La Femme D'Argent", setting the stage for a loose and hep journey into space-age atmospherics. The "do-do-thWACK" S&M whip of the drum machine opening to "Electronic Performers", on the other hand, thrust us into the stiffer, shinier, more adventurous world of 10,000 Hz Legend, wherein Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel sounded as if they'd been inhaling some of Dean and Gene Ween's Scotchgard. Talkie Walkie broke the percussion-only trend by pairing its opening beat with a strummed acoustic guitar and a stately piano refrain, introducing their warmest, brightest, and most song-oriented album. And on Pocket Symphony, the opening message is equally clear: The fluttering percussion on "Space Maker", hovering all alone, sounds like it's bouncing off hard, cold surfaces. Which would seem to suggest that this will be Air's quietest and most austere offering. more...