NONFICTION REVIEW: "Love Goes to Buildings on Fire"    • Article
by: EMILY CARTER , Special to the Star Tribune   • Updated:
November 5, 2011 - 9:30 PM  Essays about the New York music
scene in the 1970s.   David Dinkins may have been hyperbolizing
in the early '90s, but in 1973 New York City really was a
gorgeous mosaic. It was filthy, dysfunctional, riddled with
corruption, debt and factionalism, yes -- but gorgeous. No one
wants to romanticize poverty, struggle and dirt, but compared
with the theme park Manhattan has become, even clear-headed
thinkers can succumb to nostalgia.  Will Hermes thankfully does
not succumb, but he does re-create. His purview is music
criticism -- a much and often justly maligned genre -- and he
does an expert turn here in his book about the music scene in
1970s New York, moving between musical genres and the human
worlds they contained with the light-headed excitement of a
bright grad student who's transferring from one subway line to
another.  Hermes' main love seems to have be