Kill Your Idols

By chicago_chris in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 15, 2004 5:39PM

The Roger Ebert of local pop music critics, Jim DeRogatis brings his love for unadulterated, three-chord rawk every week to the Sun-Times and Sound Opinions, "the world's only rock 'n' roll talk show" – on WXRT on the radio dial and WTTW on the tube. He's an opinionated free spirit in the tradition of his idol Lester "the uncool" Bangs (a.k.a. Philip Seymour Hoffman in Almost Famous), whom he immortalized in the biography Let It Blurt.

So it should come as no surprise that DeRo's latest project is editing the new essay collection Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsider the Classics. The book is pretty much what it sounds like: a whole lotta canon bashing and deconstruction of great albums, from Pet Sounds to Exile on Main Street to Nevermind. The book's website describes it succinctly: "Thirty-five of the best rock writers of Generations X and Y each weigh in on an album that's universally considered 'a classic' – but which they think sucks."

Friday night, DeRo and his coeditor Carmél Carrillo – along with other contributors Dave Chamberlain, Allison Augstyn, Chris Martiniano, Bobby Reed, Chrissie Dickinson, Bob Mehr, and Anders Smith Lindall – will host a free reading/discussion at Quimby's, one of this city's best independent bookstores. The idol-killing starts at 8.