In answer to Matthew d’Ancona’s question “Where is it now, I wonder?” (The Culture). Well for music it’s New York or more specifically Brooklyn, the epi center of the alt-pop resurgence which is dominating my current music buying & gigging.  Bands like Yeasayer, MGMT, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Atlas Sound have moved the genre on to exciting new heights and the more grungy TV on the Radio and Interpol, have added a harder edge. LCD Soundsystem my band of the decade and the new most exciting band to come out of NYC since the Talking Heads command  the scene, in the marvelous ‘New York, I Love You’ they pay homage to their beloved New York and Lou Reed.

Meanwhile like Edmund White & Patti Smith, James Wolcott – recalls the NYC of the Seventies, “a time when artists’ lofts were inhabited by actual artists, every subway car held potential drama, and legends from Lennon to Warhol and Garbo walked the streets”.