Rockin’ at the Dailies
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Both the Trib and the Sun-Times have been shoring up their popular culture coverage of late. Best new feature: Greg Kot’s column “First take” in the “Friday” section of the Tribune, billed on its premiere (October 23) as “a column of news, notes and commentaries on the pop music scene.” The first two entries were pretty interesting critical features on Paul K. and Joe Ely. Kot followed those up with a Sunday “Arts” section profile that saw him zooming around Manhattan in the back of Neil Young’s limo. In a little more than two years on the job, Kot has single-handedly revivified the paper’s music writing; he now regularly provides the Trib with intimate coverage of prestige acts like Young, U2, and Bruce Springsteen, and does it over and above his extremely conscientious coverage of rap and local bands. (Aside from some free-lancer weaknesses, it’s difficult to fault the Trib on anything popwise: it was the only paper in town to cover the underpublicized but by-all-accounts steamy Parliament-Funkadelic reunion concert at the south side’s New Regal Theatre. We didn’t even have it in the Reader’s music listings.) Logically you’d expect to find Kot’s new column in the “Friday” section’s music ‘n’ movies insert “Take 2.” Instead it’s up at the front of “Friday,” where even its name seems to comment contemptuously on the pointless balkanization of the section. The music coverage in “Take 2” is actually quite thorough, but the section-within-a-section-within-a-section bit makes it seem an afterthought.
By the way, the Hitsville photo department struggled mightily to get a picture of Kot and DeRogatis, but like most pop critics they were too humble to show their faces. After being reminded of the public’s right to know, however, they did allow rock ‘n’ roll photographer Paul Natkin to make this portrait of their feet. Which is which? Send your guesses; we’ll print the answer.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Paul Natkin–Photo Reserve.
