Keven McAlester

Documentary films that take rock or pop music as their subject rarely succeed as anything more than extended-play cheerleading. Take the concert films The Last Waltz or Stop Making Sense, for instance. No matter how impeccably directed the films may be, no matter how visually striking moments of them are,...

Fifteen minutes into Velvet Goldmine, director Todd Haynes's love letter to England's glam-rock scene of the late '60s/early '70s, the film has already promised to be many things: a missing-person mystery, a meticulous period piece, an essay on sexually liberated dandyism, a quasi-musical, a portrait of the Machiavellian as an...

Heading north on Highland Avenue in Los Angeles, 7/10/98, 8:49 p.m.: En route to first Bauhaus show in 15 years. Thought: If most recent spate of high-profile band reunions has proved anything, it's that simpering nostalgia and artistic desperation are not unique to a specific generation. Used to be that...

Various Artists Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women in Music Arista When the ticket windows closed for the final time last fall, Lilith Fair had become the most successful festival tour of 1997, both financially and artistically. By then, Lilith founder Sarah McLachlan had gracefully ascended to the status of...

The typical Stereolab tune goes something like this: two chords, a tick-a tick-a metronomic beat, a couple of buzzing analog synths and Laetitia Sadier's voice delivering a sugary melody in an often indecipherable mix of French and English. It's an instantly identifiable sound, something few '90s pop bands have succeeded...