Blog Archives
Cait The Great
Today we celebrate the birthday of Cait O’Riordan who was born on January 4, 1965. Cait was the bass player and background vocalist on The Pogues’ first two classic records, and her lead on “I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Everyday” from RUM, SODOMY AND THE LASH certainly makes any short list of the band’s [...]
Wild Horses
I already posted about Patti Smith’s debut album, Horses, turning 40 this year. I noted that I hadn’t seen much news about it, but notices have recently started popping up, and I’m glad to see that the year won’t pass without more light being held up to this seminal song cycle which begins with the [...]
Losing Lennon
On December 8, 1980 John Lennon was shot dead in New York. Here’s The Day John Lennon Died… Stay Awake! Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Music posts
Tom Waits Day
This December 7 we celebrate the 66th birthday of Tom Waits. Waits anachronistic, early persona and music mixed equal parts Lord Buckley, Louis Armstrong, Jack Kerouac and Frank Sinatra. I love the early, piano-centric albums and Small Change is a masterpiece. That said, it’s the second wave of Waits’s career, when he introduces Howlin’ Wolf, [...]
Strange Days
50 years ago, in Venice Beach, California over a long summer stretching into fall and winter and a new year, Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek take the first steps to put together a new band that would fuse electric blues, classical music, jazz and Spanish flamenco guitar music to poetic lyrics that recalled the writings [...]
Horses at 40
Following up on my last Patti Smith post, I realized the other night that 2015 is the 40th anniversary of Smith’s debut classic, Horses. I’ve seen lots of notices in the news this year about the 40th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run which also came out in 1975, but I don’t think I’ve [...]
Patti Power
I usually don’t go out on Friday nights, but this past Friday night Antonia and I went to OZ to see Patti Smith read from her impressionistic new memoir, M Train. It was a real hot ticket last week and we were lucky that Antonia had grabbed them immediately when the event was first announced. [...]
Lightfoot’s Wreck
If you know Gordon Lightfoot’s name it’s likely that you also know the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” The song chronicles the real world sinking of an ore carrier in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. The hit put an international spotlight on the tragedy and the annual noting of the sinking means [...]
Dylan (Re)Discovered
One of the most interesting things about Bob Dylan is how many Bobs Dylan there have been: folk-Guthrie-Dylan, folk-Jack-Elliot-Dylan, Dylan Thomas-Dylan, Rimbaud-Dylan, St. August…Dylan, Bobby Cash…Dylan has evolved through more musical influences and personas than anyone other than Bowie. One of the only artists that comes to mind when discussing Dylan is Picasso — nobody [...]
Heavy Meddle
The blog’s been on a kick this year, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Pink Floyd. This weekend my girlfriend picked up a copy of The Wall on DVD and we watched the Roger Waters commentary last night — totally hilarious! When I saw this video in my YouTube suggestions I immediately checked it out… Between [...]
