Essays and articles

  • “Through the Wreckage: On Joe Molloy’s Acid Detroit,” Los Angeles Review of Books, August 19th, 2023.

  • “Flogging a Dead Android: What Was/Is Cyberpunk?” Originally appeared in Imago #2, 2022/2023. Published online June 6th, 2023.

  • “Radical Memory and Mike Davis’ Final Work: Whose Dreams? Whose History?” Originally published in Against the Current No. 223, March/April 2023. Published online March 1st, 2023.

  • “Music, Space, Time: A Series of Non-Experiences,” 1968 Press blog, October 3rd, 2022.

  • “Belonging Nowhere: Cynthia Cruz’s The Melancholia of Class,” Protean, April 20th, 2022.

  • “A Theory of the Imagination and/or an Imaginative Theory: The Case For Critical Irrealism,” originally appeared in Imago #1, 2021. Published online March 16th, 2022.

  • “To Gogh or Not to Gogh,” Popula, March 7th, 2022.

  • “In End-Stage Capitalism, NFT Owns You!” Imago, February 7th, 2022.

  • “Out In the Open, a Hidden City,” Imago, August 31st, 2021.

  • “Uncanny Valleys: Notes On the Future of Los Angeles,” originally appeared in Salvage #9, Autumn/Winter 2020. Published online July 21st 2021.

  • “As You Were,” Real Life, May 20th, 2021.

  • “Speak of Revolution: A Review of The Situationist International: A Critical Handbook,” Protean, May 11th, 2021.

  • “Monopoly Music,” originally appeared in Jacobin #41, spring 2021. Published online April 27th, 2021.

  • “A New Union of Musicians Is Taking On Spotify,” Jacobin, April 12th, 2021.

  • “Utopische Negation,” Melodie & Rhythmus, March 2021 (translated into German by Bastian Tebarth).

    • Published in English under the title “Refusal Music” at New Politics, April 6th, 2021.

  • “Giving Up the Ghost: On the Legacy of Mark Fisher,” Los Angeles Review of Books, March 19th, 2021.

  • “Musicians Need to Organize Collectively, as Workers,” Jacobin, January 16th, 2021.

  • “Disruptions, or, Something to (Urgently!) Learn,” Solidarity webzine, January 8th, 2021.

  • “Appalachian Nightmare,” Melodie & Rhythmus, January 2021 (translated into German by Bastian Tebarth).

    • Published in English under the title “The Saint of Lost Causes: On the Life of Justin Townes Earle” in Against the Current, number 210, January/February 2021.

  • “Spotify’s Streaming Model Is Based on Exploitation,” Jacobin, December 8th, 2020.

  • “The FBI’s War On Folk Music,” Jacobin, November 22nd, 2020.

  • “Punk Versus Reagan,” Jacobin, November 9th, 2020.

  • “The Soundtrack To Our Age of Decay,” Jacobin, November 8th, 2020.

  • “The Political Poetics of Linton Kwesi Johnson,” The Common Reader, November 7th, 2020.

  • “Apocalypse Songs: On the Music of Algiers,” PubLab, August 7th, 2020.

  • “Live Free and Die: Notes On American Exterminism,” Historical Materialism blog, July 14th, 2020.

  • “Pretty Faces Who Care,” originally appeared in Jacobin #37, spring 2020. Published online May 18th, 2020.

  • “John Prine’s Human Touch,” Jacobin, April 25th, 2020.

  • “Life Beyond a Plague,” Locust Review, March 25th, 2020.

  • “Meet the Socialist Power-Pop Band Whose Music Blasted Out at Bernie Rallies,” Jacobin, March 21st, 2020. 

  • “You Say You Want a Revolution,” originally appeared in Jacobin #36, winter 2020. Published online February 19th, 2020. 

  • “Reclaiming Los Angeles,” Jacobin, February 15th, 2020. 

  • “Andy Gill (1956 – 2020),” Jacobin, February 4th, 2020. 

  • “Ballet Against Austerity,” Jacobin, January 15th, 2020.

  • “Desert Dreams + Commie Cowboys,” originally appeared in Locust Review #1, fall 2019. Published online December 9th, 2019.  

  • “A Forgotten Country,” originally appeared in Jacobin #35, fall 2019. Published online November 25th, 2019.  

  • “The Music of Twenty-First Century Uprisings,” Jacobin, November 21st, 2019. 

  • “How Many More Homeless Subway Sopranos Are Out There?” Jacobin, November 17th, 2019. 

  • “Joe Biden Wants to Take Away Your Music,” Jacobin, August 31st, 2019. 

  • “Who Cares What Army?” originally appeared in Jacobin #34, summer 2019. Published online August 27th, 2019. 

  • “David Berman and the Re-Enchantment of Life,” Jacobin, August 21st, 2019.  

  • “Why the Clash Matter,” Jacobin, May 13th, 2019. 

  • “Fuck Your Decorum,” Red Wedge, January 7th, 2019. 

  • “Shake the City: Experimental Theses on Space and Time, Music and Crisis,” originally appeared in Red Wedge #5, spring 2018. Published online December 11th, 2018. 

  • “True Grit: From Weird Mascot to Eldritch Revolutionary,” Red Wedge, October 19th, 2018. 

  • “Riots and Reality: Sorry to Bother You and Radical Irrealism,” Red Wedge, August 3rd, 2018. 

  • “After Left Melancholia: A Winding Walk Through the Wreckage,” written with Adam Turl, originally appearing in Red Wedge #4, winter 2017. Published online April 30th, 2018. 

  • “Review of China Mieville’s October: The Story of the Russian Revolution,” Chicago Review, January 22nd, 2018.

  • “Words, War, Words: Bertolt Brecht’s War Primer,” originally appeared in Red Wedge #3, summer 2017. Published online October 31st, 2017. 

  • “Bono Kills the Planet,” originally appeared in Jacobin #26, summer 2017. Published online August 15th, 2017. 

  • “Laughing at Rich Kids,” Jacobin, May 4th, 2017. 

  • “A 21st Century Popular Avant-Garde,” Red Wedge, March 3rd, 2017. 

  • “The Ghost Ship is Our Triangle Fire,” written with Adam Turl, Red Wedge, December 16th, 2017. 

  • “The Resistible Rise of Donald Trump: Two Performances,” Red Wedge, November 25th, 2016. 

  • “Freedom’s Call,” originally appeared in Jacobin #24, fall 2016. Published online November 8th, 2016. 

  • “The Comedy is Over,” Red Wedge, October 29th, 2016. 

  • “Slaves of Futures Past,” Red Wedge, 4th, 2016. 

  • “Dancing on Phyllis Schlafly’s Grave,” Red Wedge, September 6th, 2016. 

  • “Alton Sterling’s Right to the City,” Jacobin, August 7th, 2016. 

  • “Hollywood’s End Times,” Jacobin, July 30th, 2016.  

  • “Super Official Marx,” Jacobin, July 8th, 2016. 

  • “All Power to the Imagination,” Jacobin, May 9th, 2016. 

  • “The Prince Position,” Jacobin, April 24th, 2016. 

  • “Metal’s Bleeding Edge,” Jacobin, March 17th, 2016. 

  • “Donald Trump and the Aesthetics of Fascism,” In These Times, January 28th, 2016.  

  • “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” Jacobin, January 20th, 2016. 

  • “Fellow Traveler Frank,” Jacobin, December 29th, 2015. 

  • The Metamorphosis at 100,” Jacobin, October 31st, 2015. 

  • “New Anthems of Resistance: Hip-Hop and Black Lives Matter,” In These Times, August 21st, 2015.  

  • “Review of Groove: An Aesthetic of Measured Time,” Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, June 10th, 2015. 

  • “On Barrel Rolls and Judge Dredd: The Aesthetics of Being a Cop,” Red Wedge, June 9th, 2015. 

  • “The Shape of Baltimore’s Segregation,” Red Wedge, May 7th, 2015. 

  • “Towards a Communist Futurism… But What Kind?,” Red Wedge, March 20th, 2015. 

  • “The Spirit Politic,” Red Wedge, October 29th, 2014.   

  • “Songs of Emptiness,” Jacobin, October 7th, 2014. 

  • “Change the People,” originally appeared in Jacobin #14, spring 2014. Published online, June 1st, 2014. 

  • “Fred Ho’s Far Out, Radical Journey,” Jacobin, April 21st, 2014. 

  • “RIP Oderus Urungus,” Red Wedge, March 24th, 2014. 

  • “On White Thugs Like Michael Dunn and the Scapegoating of Hip-Hop,” Red Wedge, February 15th, 2014. 

  • “The Sound of the Small C,” Jacobin, January 30th, 2014.