George Varga: The Advent of Rock Journalism
Music Critic, San Diego Union-Tribune
Thursday, May 22, 2008
11:00-12:20 p.m.
Literature Building, Room 155 (deCerteau)

You are invited to join Professor Robert Cancel’s LTEN 159 class in Popular Music of the Sixties in Cultural Context for this lecture focusing on the origins and examples of journalism centering on the emerging genres of rock music.

Perhaps the only daily newspaper pop music critic in Southern California who doesn't know how to drive, George Varga began writing professionally about music at the age of 15 in Frankfurt, Germany, where he grew up. He also spent 10 years drumming in jazz and rock bands in Germany and California. Varga has been the pop music for The San Diego Union-Tribune and Copley News Service since 1988. His work has also appeared in Jazz Times, Billboard, Spin and other publications, and he has written the liner notes for more than a dozen albums by such artists as Michael Brecker, James Moody ,and the band Happy The Man. He has done in-depth interviews with, among others, Miles Davis, Ravi Shankar, Kanye West, the Rolling Stones, Chris Rock, Alison Krauss, Mos Def, Hugh Hefner, Paul McCartney, Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Rotten, Diana Krall, Rage Against The Machine, Afro-pop pioneer Fela Kuti, Waylon Jennings, B.B. King, Frank Zappa, and -- over a game of chess -- Ray Charles. Varga's 1990 review of a Madonna concert was the first anywhere to expose her extensive lip-syncing, and led to his being interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2002 he created and taught the course Jazz in a Post-Ken Burns World for UCSD's Extension Program.