JoE Silva came to music journalism in the early 90's via poverty and isolation. Having accepted a government posting to Key West with his growing family, new records and concert tickets were suddenly impractical and out of reach. He could have reverted to his teenage practice of scamming publicists for freebies without an actual byline, but that hardly seemed reasonable at his age. So he and a friend launched QRM, the Southeast's Alternative Music Review. Hundreds of interviews and far fewer ads sales later, their backers decided to invest their time and money elsewhere, and JoE was forced to sally forth on his own. Since that time he has covered artists ranging from the completely obscure to Paul McCartney for a number of periodicals and websites - some still in existence and others long resigned to history. Currently he's the host/producer for both WUGA's Just Off The Radar (a pop music survey for the NPR affiliate in Athens, GA) and Roll Tape! (a live performance program heard on Georgia Public Broadcasting). In the future, there should be a book...or two.
Considering how far I’d once tread down his wormhole, I was surprised to find that I’d missed out on the whole “The Tuss is really Richard D. James” intrigue. For AFX (née Aphex Twin…) followers, even semi-confirmed stirrings from our … Continue reading
Because I ignored my mother’s warning and stared directly into Julian Cope’s eyes in the mid-90′s, a proclivity for progressive German rock was visited upon me that I have since been unable to shake. I hadn’t been old enough to … Continue reading
Shock. I simply could not believe it when the National Public Radio announcer made reference to the fact that Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was the most publicly played (meaning via jukebox…) song in U.K. history for the … Continue reading
It’s an arbitrary thing, ratings…but occasionally their subjectivity collapses to the naked singularity of the completely laughable. What sort of baseline are pop critics working from when another less than stellar U2 record fetches a five star rating from Rolling … Continue reading
As a New York City teen, the biggest one of two major musical regrets that I harbor to this day, is not having gotten a closer to hip hop’s nascent flashpoint. The nooks and crannies of the Bronx where it … Continue reading
Athens loses one of its best…post-punk six-stringer Randy Bewley of Pylon. Tributes from friends, family, and fellow musicians here: http://tinyurl.com/dyz7mh If you never knew their sound, click on Episode#204 here (first track after intro): http://justofftheradar.com/?page_id=6
