A confession: I typically do not enjoy either memoirs by or biographies about musicians.  I read a lot of them – and man, there are a lot of ’em – but it’s generally a chore.  I would must rather listen to the music that’s being parsed.  I generally don’t care where people grew up and what jobs their parents did – boring!  However, I slog through in order to glean the odd tidbit that I can pass along in radio shows and every once in a while the subject matter and the writing rise to the level of the gateway music.  That brings us to the books I’ve displayed haphazardly atop a table normally used for cookbooks at the McNally Jackson bookstore in Soho who were kind enough to indulge me…

We’ve got books memoirs by Elvis Costello, Chrissy Hynde, and Carrie Brownstein (who will be in town next month with her band) and a biography about Sam Phillips by Peter Guralnick who is best known for his two volume examination of Elvis Presley.  We’ve also got a biography on Tom Petty penned by Warren Zanes who was in a dynamite rock band himself The Del Fuegos and these days works with Steven Van Zandt in the Rock n Roll Forever Foundation.  We’ve got cultural criticism from Richard Hell and a piece of work from Patti Smith that resists any of the traditional literary categories.

There are always a lot of difficult decisions at Montreal Jazz Festival (because many appealing shows are scheduled at the same time) and the 2014 event is no different – but when Tony Bennett and Elvis Costello are in town, that’s a no-brainer…

American blues musician Kenny Wayne Shepherd shows off chops and a mean rhythm section while Montreal Jazz Festival has depth and breadth.

…you know, the ones I saw!

1 Dinosaur Jr; Irving Plaza
2 Metallica; Apollo
3 Robert Plant; Prospect Park
4 Erykah Badu; BAM
5 Elvis Costello & The Roots; Brooklyn Bowl
6 The Hives; Irving Plaza
7 Tom Morello; Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room
8 Television; Rough Trade NYC
9 Charles Bradley; Apollo
10 Gary Clark Jr; Apollo

1 Nick Cave; Push The Sky Away
2 Smith Westerns; Soft Will
3 The White Buffalo; Shadows, Greys & Evil Ways
4 Queens of The Stone Age; Like Clockwork
5 Clairy Browne & The Bangin’ Rackettes; Baby Caught the Bus
6 Elvis Costello & The Roots; Wise Up Ghost
7 David Bowie; The Next Day
8 Richard Thompson; Electric
9 Foxygen; We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic
10 Palma Violets; 180

Elvis Costello & The Roots celebrated the release of their collaborative album Wise Up Ghost with a show at the 600 person capacity Brooklyn Bowl. Audio of entire performance at WFUV.org.

It’s good but I’ll never listen to it!