Posted by Bud on April 21, 2010 at 10:22:06:
From Phil Rosenthal @ The Chicago Tribune:
UPDATED: Rock critic Jim DeRogatis on Monday told the Chicago Sun-Times he is quitting the newspaper. He will become a blogger for Chicago Public Radio, home to his nationally syndicated radio program since 2005.
Sun-Times editors did not respond immediately to outside inquiries about his resignation, which was confirmed by soon-to-be former colleagues, and it is not known how, when or if the newspaper plans to replace him.
Columbia College, for which DeRogatis will become a full-time instructor, said in a statement Tuesday that DeRogatis expects his last day at the paper will be May 5 and he will start the new blog on June 1.
It is the second time DeRogatis has exited the Sun-Times, where he started in 1992. He left in 1995 to join Rolling Stone, a job that lasted eight months, and was back at the Sun-Times in three years.
DeRogatis' official Sun-Times title was "pop music critic." His reputation, however, was built through championing acts outside the mainstream, such as the Flaming Lips, rather than the most popular of "pop," which he seemed to view suspiciously.
While he typically vented his outsized disappointment with youthful indignation, even now in his 40s, he also occasionally would surprise with effusive praise. "Yes, it's redundant, and yes, it's slightly stupid, but stupid is brilliant," he wrote of a 2008 AC/DC offering, "Black Ice." "These blue-collar heroes, much like their spiritual brethren in the punk genre, the Ramones, are a lot like beer: There's no such thing as having too much in the fridge."
DeRogatis, the husband of Carmel Carrillo, a Chicago Tribune entertainment editor, has been as dogged in his reporting as he has been in his criticism when incensed. Notable examples have included accusations against singer-songwriter R. Kelly, the ramifications of corporate sponsorship in rock, the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger and the Performance Rights Act governing radio royalty payments.
A disciple and biographer of the myth-busting, short-lived critic Lester Bangs, DeRogatis' Rolling Stone stint ended famously as a result of the very same passion and certitude that informed all his work before and since.
Publisher Jann Wenner spiked DeRogatis scathing assessment of a Hootie and the Blowfish album in favor of something less damning. But that was just a sign the marriage was doomed. The divorce was expedited when DeRogatis told the New York Observer he didn't know what his boss actually thought of the band's music, but Wenner was "just a fan of bands which sell eight and a half million copies."
Wenner had fired Bangs more than 20 years earlier.
DeRogatis, whose blog will be called PopNStuff, is the third former Sun-Times columnist/critic to land at Chicago Public Radio's Vocalo website.
One-time architecture critic and urban planning reporter Lee Bey, who left the paper in 2001, started blogging for the site in January. TV/radio columnist Robert Feder, who first reported DeRogatis' move, began blogging last fall, a year after taking a Sun-Times buyout.
Besides writing for Chicago Public Radio and continuing to co-host the syndicated "Sound Opinions" for its WBEZ-FM 91.5 with the Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot, DeRogatis will take on more responsibilities beginning this fall at Columbia College, where he has been teaching a "Reviewing the Arts."
The radio program, which traces its roots to 1993, airs in more than 80 markets and can be heard on WBEZ Friday nights at 8 and Saturday mornings at 11.
DeRogatis maintains his own website, jimdero.com, and has written several books. These include"Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma’s Fabulous Flaming Lips," "Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock," "Milk It! Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the ’90s" and "Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic."
With Abdon M. Pallasch, DeRogatis wrote of accusations concerning R.Kelly for the Sun-Times in 2000. Two years later, DeRogatis received a sex tape, which he turned over to authorities, leading to Kelly's 2008 trial on child pornography charges. Kelly was acquitted.
DeRogatis was called to testify in the case and repeatedly declined to answer questions in 10 minutes on the stand, citing Illinois law and the U.S. Constitution.
After the trial, DeRogatis wrote that "not guilty" is not the same as innocent.
"The prosecution chose to pursue a very narrow case against the superstar, solely concentrating on a 26-minute, 39-second tape anonymously sent to the Chicago Sun-Times in February 2002," DeRogatis wrote in June 2008. "But as the paper first reported in December 2000, for more than a decade, public records and lawsuits allege that Kelly abused his staggering wealth and fame to pursue sexual relationships with underage girls, many of whom were left deeply wounded by those encounters. The voices of those girls were never heard in Judge Vincent Gaughan's courtroom."
DeRogatis' Sun-Times TV review of a post-9/11 "Concert for NYC" at Madison Square Garden in October 2001 is a vintage example of his work.
He expressed concern with "the occasional burst of troubling bloodlust and blatant jingoism" and the way New York firefighters and police officers were made into "awkward props beside the celebrities introducing the music." He complained "office workers who died at the World Trade Center were barely acknowledged, much less the victims at the Pentagon or the innocents who are dying as a conflagration rages in Afghanistan."
DeRogatis dismissed some acts as fluff, yet praised Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for choosing to perform "the rarely played "Salt of the Earth," as well as Macy Gray's reggae take on "A Little Help from My Friends," a duet by John Mellencamp and Kid Rock and even "king corndog Billy Joel." But he also referred to Bon Jovi's "usual lite-metal lameness" and said "the ever-maudlin" Elton John was trying "make "Mona Lisas and Madhatters" do for a mourning New York what 'Candle in the Wind' did for Princess Di fans."
And DeRo wasn't near done, not by a long shot.
Other classic DeRogatis musings in the piece included ripping Paul Shaffer and his CBS "Late Show" backing band as "Musician's Union hacks" and said they "dragged down a joint appearance by Eric Clapton and Chicago blues legend Buddy Guy (who) might have delivered more than bad tourist shucking and jiving if they hadn't been held back by the glorified bar band."
He questioned the propriety of Melissa Etheridge's choice to play "Born to Run," "seemingly oblivious to the fact that the song is about desperately wanting to escape from a city that has become 'a death trap'-- not the best sentiment for a metropolis struggling to heal and rebuild." He also chastised "the rock band formerly known as the Who" for playing "Baba O'Riley, "which urged a crowd that included thousands of young rescuers still mourning the loss of their peers to sing along in homage to a 'teenage wasteland.'"