Email Author Rob Harvilla

Awards

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published November 3, 2009

  ""On Michael Jackson's 'This Is It'"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published December 8, 2009

  "Go See Phish at Least Once"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published October 13, 2009

  "On 50 Cent's Self-Help Book"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published August 5, 2008

  "A Running Diary of Hip-Hop Superfest Rock the Bells"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 17, 2008

  "Ride the Plastic Lightening"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published November 26, 2008

  "Why Chinese Democracy's Fine Print is Way More Fun than the Record Itself"

• 2008 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published November 1, 2007

  "The Fey Highwayman"

• 2008 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published August 9, 2007

  "The Disorientation of Lauryn Hill"

• 2008 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published March 8, 2007

  "Hot Hot Heat"

• 2008 - Deadline Club Awards/New York City Society of Professional Journalists, published March 8, 2007

  "Hot Hot Heat"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 18, 2006

  "Spankmaster and Servant"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published August 21, 2006

  "Get Busy Living"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published July 5, 2006

  "Crazy For You, But Not That Crazy"

• 2006 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published August 17, 2005

  "Powerpop for Now People"

• 2006 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published March 30, 2005

  "The Titmaster Tommy Lee"

• 2006 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published July 20, 2005

  "Race Against Rockism"

More

2006 Stories by Rob Harvilla

• Harlem Globetrotters

  published December 26, 2006

  "I just love Harlem," gushes David Schommer, holding court in the gorgeous, hookah-laden fifth-floor apartment- and home studio he now uses to... More >>

• Music

  published November 28, 2006

  Alarming mail Receiving a package with nine copies of the new Primitive Radio Gods record. Aw, man, musta gotten trashed... More >>

• Sketches of Pain

  published November 21, 2006

  Listen. The greatest feeling I ever had in my life—with my clothes on—was when I first heard Diz & Bird together in St. Louis,... More >>

• Music

  published November 7, 2006

  Unfortunate Monikers Trying to decide which is worse: Sarah Assbring's real name or her artistic alias, El Perro Del Mar. "You... More >>

• Pulling Dylan Out by the Roots

  published November 7, 2006

  We'd been sleepwalking through the big-shot Bob Dylan tribute hoedown for roughly an hour and a half, clapping politely-to-semi-enthusiastically... More >>

• Just Like a Woman

  published October 31, 2006

  You should go to more shows in the apartments of total strangers. Swap out pissy bouncers and will-call debacles and $18 beers for friendly,... More >>

• Music

  published October 31, 2006

  FRIED COKE Fried Coke? Dude. CRITICAL BOONDOGGLE The gleefully savage reviews doled out to... More >>

• Stuff You Need to Know About to Avoid Ostracism

  published October 24, 2006

  ERRANT BODY LANGUAGE John Cougar Mellencamp's habit of lifting his acoustic guitar over his head mid-strum to indicate enthusiasm... More >>

• Is This It?

  published October 17, 2006

  Let us in the goddamn club, Mr. Boorish Doorman, or we will administer velvet-rope burn so severe you will consume your Thanksgiving dinner via... More >>

• Music

  published October 17, 2006

  ABRUPT ALT-ROCK RESURGENCE The frightening realization that the best powerpop record of 2006 is the Gin Blossoms' Major Lodge... More >>

• Stuff You Need to Know This Week in Order to Avoid Ostracism

  published October 10, 2006

  Economic Indicator The ignoble demise of Tower Records. Funeral bouquets of plastic flowers will be manufactured for a... More >>

• Walk Unafraid

  published October 3, 2006

  As we ascend the PATH station escalator leading to a strange and unfamiliar land, a friendly stranger stands waiting at the summit, a sort of... More >>

• Stuff You Need to Know This Week to Avoid Ostracism

  published October 3, 2006

  Critical Boondoggle The Hold Steady write a new album called Monkey Pissing in Its Own Mouth While Listening to Jet Down in... More >>

• They Got Next

  published September 26, 2006

  We rock critics are a trendwhorish lot, our enthusiasms fickle and fleeting. We regard hot new genres as merely so many entries in an Aural... More >>

• Music

  published September 26, 2006

  ( Emerging Artistic Icon) The triumphant return of "Weird Al" Yankovic. A comeback more spiritually and culturally vital than... More >>

• Out of Step, Out of Time

  published September 19, 2006

  "Do you think the Dos Equis sponsorship is a coincidence?" my wise and wiseass colleague asks, warily regarding his complimentary bottle of... More >>

• Spankmaster and Servant

  published September 12, 2006

  And now, some dating advice from Kool Keith. "The girls in New York gotta go back to the '80s, and socialism," advises Kool Keith, wearing a... More >>

• Dancing With Themselves

  published September 5, 2006

  Let's start with the terrified little kid, maybe six or seven, with the snappy periwinkle shirt, slick dark hair, and coal-black eyes that... More >>

• Start Making Sense

  published August 22, 2006

  When confronted with Apple's new "PC vs. Mac" ads—the bumbling, hapless, stiff-suited chump playing the problematic PC and a calm, casual,... More >>

• Get Busy Living

  published August 15, 2006

  "The elderly have so much to offer, sir. They're our link with history." "I don't want to be your goddamn link, damn you. I want to feel... More >>

• Raw Shit and Rubber Duckies

  published August 1, 2006

  I got this idea for a TV sports craze: Bad Golf. Stand-up comedians rag on the stultifying dullness of your average British Open partly... More >>

• Sweet Naive Emotion

  published July 18, 2006

  My favorite song on Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend, the 15-year-old powerpop classic lovingly reissued last month, is the album's worst.... More >>

• Avoid Yr. Idols

  published July 11, 2006

  I'm 85 to 90 percent certain Jason Lytle did not angrily hang up on me in mid-sentence during our hilariously awkward phone... More >>

• Jesus Is My Hype Man

  published July 4, 2006

  Reverend Timothy Holder, honorable 51-year-old white pastor of the South Bronx's Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, would like it... More >>

• Crazy for You, but Not That Crazy

  published June 27, 2006

  We should worship Madonna for her perpetual willingness to look, sound, and act ridiculous. For if we do, she will never disappoint us. So here we... More >>