
Ben Ratliff
BEN RATLIFF
1. Sonic Youth (Irving Plaza, New York, Nov. 29, 2002) PS to last year’s list: Succinct and complex, with all the iconic poses, sounds, and gestures in top form and gooniness at a minimum. A great rock band—then and forever.
2. Nancy Wilson (Alice Tully Hall, New York, Jan. 13) A real warrior of pop, or jazz, or whatever. One minute she’s delivering middlebrow standards, the next she drowns you in radical subdivisions of a single vowel.
3. Johnny Paycheck tribute (Elbo Room, San Francisco, Mar. 19) You can go through life without noticing the cult of Paycheck, and then . . .
4. Allman