Sound Check — Geoff Carter: The time has arrived for columnist to flip the record

Friday, Jan. 5, 2001 | 9:28 a.m.

Geoff Carter can be reached at 992-7936 or geoff.carter@vegas.com.

"This one's your last chance/to make this last one really the last." -- The Replacements, "The Last"

I've been a popular music columnist and critic since 1991. I've written CD and concert reviews, commentaries, interviews, the works. I was a music writer when popular music looked like it might become meaningful again -- the much-hyped grunge, hip-hop and electronica movements -- and I wrote about music after that, too.

I've been to hundreds of concerts -- sometimes three or more in a single week. Talked with childhood heroes -- Sting, George Clinton, Peter Murphy. I've gotten every flavor of hate mail, from the basic "you stink" to death threats.

Death threats. Over popular music criticism. We won't even discuss the reader who recognized me in a record store and threatened to flip me, right then and there, because of something I'd said against Kenny G's character.

I almost hate to give it up.

This is the last music column I'm going to write for a Las Vegas publication, and very likely for any other publication. I may come out of retirement every now and again to review a particularly enticing show, or pen a rogue album review for Las Vegas Weekly, but that's about it.

The reasons? Take your pick. I want to explore different avenues. I'm in danger of becoming jaded. I'm not conversant in current trends -- I've yet to hear an Eminem track through to the finish, and I couldn't divine Limp Bizkit from Korn if my life depended on it.

For the most part, it comes down to this: I'm burned out. I want to enjoy a concert without taking notes, to give my opinion of the latest Radiohead without it really meaning anything, to enjoy music the way you do. I want to listen to music with real enthusiasm, desire. I hope I'll be able to do that again.

This isn't my last appearance in these pages. Far from it. I'm working on another project that should bring me back to Accent within a month. But seeing as this is a proper goodbye, I would be remiss if I didn't thank John Katsilometes, Steve Bornfeld, Lisa Ferguson and Ethan Miller for all their help and support. Going farther back, I should thank the staff of the former Scope magazine for taking me out of Record City and putting me in play.

As I said before, I'm not really going anywhere. Just flipping the record over. Thanks for hearing me out, and I'll see you at the show. Just don't ask me what I think of the music -- from now on, I'm leaving those judgments to those who can identify Eminem in 10 notes or less. Hello, my name was ...