Ashley Naftule

Little Richard was one of history’s greatest screamers. Forget the lyrics to his songs: his “wooo’s” do all the real talking. You don’t even need to know how “Tutti Frutti” was originally a song about topping (the original lyrics went “Tutti Frutti/Good booty”) because you can hear the raw sex in those woo’s. “The thrill of singing about such a topic lingered in the recording,” Sasha Geffen wrote about the song in Glitter Up The Dark: How Pop Music Broke The Binary. The real story of Little R...

Music Feature | The AV Club

Film Essay | Bright Wall/Dark Room

Julee Cruise Interview/Profile Piece | Pitchfork

Music Guide/Artist Profile | Bandcamp

Permanent Records Music Essay | The AV Club

Music Interview | Phoenix New Times

Film Essay | Bright Wall/Dark Room

Wrestling Essay | Fanbyte

Essay on Patti Smith's "Gloria" for the March Faxness essay tournament

"Let me show you something," a sample barks at the beginning of Dr. Octagon's "Blue Flowers." An alter-ego of underground rap icon Kool Keith, Dr. Octagon's exploits as a time-traveling, sociopathic gynecologist were chronicled in 1996's Dr. Octagonecologyst. The album is a distillation of all of Keith's obsessions: science fiction, Surrealist imagery, and pornography. "Blue Flowers" is both Dr. Octagonecologyst's most sedate and most unnerving song. Animated by a haunting violin concerto by ...

Book Essay | The AV Club

Music Essay | The AV Club

Concert Review | Consequence

Author Interview | Longreads