The Who’s TOMMY at 50
Photo by Jim Summaria – Contact us/Photo submission, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5574716 This year we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Who’s pioneering rock opera, Tommy. The Who were a re-working of an earlier band, the Detours. With their classic lineup in place and a new name, The Who — Pete Townsend, John Entwistle, Keith [...]
A Portrait of George
If George Harrison was alive he’d be 75 years old. It’d be interesting to hear what he thought of 2018, but for now all we have are our memories of the man and his music. Harrison might have been the most widely creative of all of The Beatles. Harrison was a very good songwriter, but, [...]
Page & Crowley
Original Photo: Dina Regine Over the weekend I was stoked to find out that a new biography of Led Zeppelin guitarist, Jimmy Page, had recently hit the book shelves. According to a review in The London Times the book is a no-holds-barred excavation of Page’s debauchery and excess with a particular emphasis on the musician’s [...]
Hey Jude 50
Sunday, August 26, marked the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ biggest hit, “Hey Jude.” Here’s what Rolling Stone has to say about the song and it’s role as a high-water marker in The Beatles song catalog as well as their partnership as friends and as a band… “Hey Jude” sums up the [...]
Tom Waits For No One
I’d heard about Tom Waits’ music for years before I picked up a copy of his Asylum anthology on vinyl. I was about 18 years old in my first year at Michigan State University. I’d read the book Written in My Soul: Conversations with Rock’s Great Songwriters by Bill Flanagan. The interview with Tom is [...]
Beefheart Speaks
Nearly every Sunday evening I like to get my calendar and my to do list for the week together. These chores usually also include getting a blog post together for Monday morning. While I was getting my act together and making sure my ducks were in a row for another productive week I checked-in on [...]
Roi Lézard
On July 3rd we observed the 47th anniversary of the death of Jim Morrison. We still care about Morrison because he lead the greatest American rock band of all time, and because he was also a gifted poet and a lyrical filmmaker. Even folks who’d disagree with all of those points would have to concede [...]
40 Years Of An American Prayer And Jim Morrison’s Lost Paris Tapes
Across the days that marked the overlap from the 1960s to the 1970s Jim Morrison recorded the poetry readings that would eventually be featured on the 1978 release An American Prayer. This year we’re celebrating 40 years since the album’s 1978 debut, but the project has always been a difficult one for fans of the [...]
Let’s Dance at 35
I was traveling in the West last week when I came across this article about music producer Nile Rodgers, David Bowie and their classic 1980s project Let’s Dance. Bowie’s birthday was on January 8 — the singer-songwriter would have been 71 — and Rodgers marked the occasion by unearthing an unreleased demo version of the [...]
Cassette Cobain
In the early 1990′s Nirvana made a massive impact on popular music, and the band’s influence seems even more impressive when remembering that they only released three studio albums. Of course, like most artists, their official output is only part of the story of the band’s production. And fans like me are always on the [...]
