Opinion
Jimmy Saville And King Phillip II Of Macedonia
The post-Saville Witch trial from the 1970s would find just about everybody ready for a stint in jail: What Saville did was allow two different parts to his story to become one and the result is much like putting Phillip II of Macedonia on trial for war crimes in 200 BC.
What If Rock Bands Were Run Like Sports team? It Is Time For The Menudo Code
Like the Red Sox and the Yanks, great rock bands won’t die, they will go on forever. Sure, they’ll have their ups and downs, like the SNL players, it can’t all be John Belushi, sometimes it’ Bobby Monihan, but it will even out, the format can remain constant, the greatest rock bands will never ever leave us.
Life Chosen
I painted while listening to The Animals Greatest Hits and The Band’s Music from Big Pink on vinyl. I escaped to some other plane…to some other place where the muse talks to me and guides my hand and I think Misty could have been there too, in her chair, watching and enjoying the sunshine and digging music she never listened to before
Top 5 Rappers
The top five of the title is a game in which the characters name the best five rappers of all time. Ridiculously, they only sneak Biggie in when obviously he is the greatest of all time. Still, I am happy they remebered KRS One even if I didn’t include him
If You Wanna Sing Out…?
I like to sing this song. I’ve liked singing it for 18 years now. It’s in my perfect range and the tempo is somehow irresistible. As long as no one can see me emoting like a 15-year-old who just got dumped by her boyfriend, I will continue to sing this song
Bob Lefsetz Gets It Wrong Again
Is Bob Lefsetz as good as he thinks he is? I dunno, man, he is a bit of a twit. In the past two weeks he made demonstrably wrong claims. It is as though he makes the axiom, the axiom is right, and he ignores it when it doesn’t suit his purposes.
Not With The Band: Why Are These Artists Defending Bill Cosby?
Cosby has even more supporters among artists, actress Whoopi Goldberg said she had ‘a lot of questions for the lady’ and actress-choreographer Debbie Allen admitted that the accusations were ‘hard to believe’… And this is even worst when this kind of affirmation comes from women
Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike Speaks Against The Use Of Rap Lyrics In Court
There are hundreds of cases similar to this one, leading to convictions, proving that the legal system doesn’t get rap at all, that it doesn’t consider ‘rap as form of artistic expression’, ignoring the fact that rappers use stage names or frequent ‘metaphor and hyperbole’, never being able to separate the art from its author’s own life
When You Get It Wrong: Ty Segall, The War On Drugs, Idris Elba
It took me nine months of writing “overrated” about Lorde before catching her at Roseland and changing my mind, it was a live show which we me round on the Drums as well. These three artists I essentially dismissed, some of them for a couple of years!, but changed my mind…
Ariel Pink Reviews The Top Five Pop Songs
The sleazy misogynist character wants to marry Swift and is in love with Grande, but does he really think anything of all this or is it just a series of bon mots? Does he really like Taylor Swift, or should I read again
Will Modern Music Stand The Test Of Time
It’s difficult for me to accept the steady decline in the music industry. Streaming services are killing record sales, and are slowly dying out one by one themselves. With that, they are slowing dragging down the entire music business
Writing About Music Is About Writing
I got the name of the bass player wrong, KoL fans went crazy but my feeling was “it’s the fucking bass player, who cares?”, I didn’t, as long as I said what I wanted to say about the music as well as I could, getting the band member names wrong didn’t interest me. I didn’t care
How To Cover CMJ's Music Marathon
I’ve been winging it and trying to make up for that by writing full reviews of the bands I do see as opposed to a paragraph in a larger post. The hope is to maybe not see as much as other people but really watch what I do see.
Jerry Jeff Walker – An Appreciation
There are people that get ahead in this world due to planning and calculation and those that rely on wit and charm. Jerry Jeff Walker is clearly in the latter category, someone that believes in the poetry of music and has spent decades working in the music business on his own terms, following his instincts
The Prince Album He Could Have Made Would Have Been "Wow"
So I inspected further and instead of the disaster I thought I’d been listening to, I noticed that if you edited down for him, it would’ve have made a pretty good single album. Not a great one, not even Emancipation or Crystal Ball, but still, vastly better than Lotusflower or Planet Earth It would have made to a fair to middling effort
The Warm Cosy World Of Cover Songs
These versions are presented in a more pop manufactured way and thus songs that are originally raw and rather un-polished are presented in a more comfortable way and so I’m back in my comfort zone again. Somehow my conscious is appeased and I am lulled back to a warm cosy world of pop rather then unvarnished rock as its orginal form was
The Wonder Years And Life After College
A band like The Wonder Years puts so much passion into their music that they should be that band, they refuse to give up, and make it known through their music, and when a band is that hard working, they should be playing huge arenas and touring the world
Top Of My Must See List Banks… But Mostly Meghan Trainor
Not only is she an extremely funny, powerful and witty woman, but at the age of 20, she has one indie (I mean really indie) album Only 17 (her BASSment tapes!), which I completely missed the first time around but right now stands as one of the most memorable works of the decade, beaten out by her debut EP Title.
This Is What Phil Spector Looks Like Today
So remove the wigs and add to this face 5 years in jail and you get this Gollum entity with giant ears and eyes looking straight at you, embodying all your worst childhood nightmares… it makes you almost regret these big afros he was wearing during the trial.
"Turn it Up": I Tip My Hat To Lynyrd Skynyrd
Yes, I may be in Sabbatical but it doesn’t mean I have nothing to say. Gather round kids and let me tell you how it took a pretty intelligent girl 40 years to realize that Southern Rock ain’t so dang bad.
ISIS Wants You
It is like following a band on twitter: the information comes through the same way, hip, jargoned, cool slash With a mix of hi tech hi jinx, Yankee armor, and a creative department who act like a specialty advertising agency, they spread the word in appealing coatings of dread and last gang of town
Bono's Next Plan: He Is Gonna Save The Music Industry
Not only U2 has received the big bucks from Apple – reportedly $100 million, and if you don’t call this prostitution I don’t know what it is – to release their album and deliver it for free in every iTunes account of the planet, but there are about to make some big announcement?
An Amy Winehouse Statue Was Unveiled In London
Do you like statues of people who died a minute ago? I don’t. I understand statues of Lincoln, Washington, historic figures of a past, when we didn’t have photos and movies, but statues of people we knew very well through concert footages and tons of pictures?
Head In The Clouds With U2
The only time the invasion of your privacy is important is when your privacy is most neccessary to you: so, yeah, nobody cares until they do and when they do care your lifes safeguards, your privacy and I am not even suggesting illegality at all here, is common knowledge. then you are screwed.
So Much Music, So Little Time
Time is always a valuable commodity but now it is an impossible commidy in the heart of a week with so much great music all around me that I don’t even know what to tell you. I can’t find the time to hear everything I want to, I do’t have enough ears to keep up with this week
Yes, Virginia, There Is Rock And Roll
Rock And Roll will never die, is unkillable, is infinite, is in fact a question of the basis of our humanity and our freedom, it is whatever it says it is, ut merges with everything and when the pop music becomes more than entertainment but a matter of spirit
The Rock Critic As Accountant
What has happened through the years is I have tried harder and harder to organize the music I listen to so I don’t miss stuff, forget stuff, as I reach the end of the year. It is like tending a garden, or maybe being an accountant, reviewing becomes about being access information and organize it as simply as you can.
Our Thanks To Dead Rock Stars
You know that old song “Love is all around”? Well, the truth is what’s always is all around is death and it intrudes on your life and knocks on the door and is in permanent residence. You can ignore or or you can embrace it but you won’t see it coming and have no doubt it is coming for you.
Taylor Swift Writes To Bullied Teen: Forever on Your Side
“Every time someone picks on me, I’ll think of you in the hopes that every time someone picks on you, you’ll think of me… and how we have this thread that connects us. Let them keep living in the darkness and we’ll keep walking in the sunlight. Forever on your side, Taylor.”
Elvis Presley's "That's The Way It Is" Reviewed
This was a man who had found his place in the pop world and knew how to perform it. Playing Vegas was not playing Haight Ashbury and although Presley was only 35 years old, he was not embraced the way it should’ve been by the the generation he spawned.
Henry Rollins Says Suicide Is A Decision People Make,… I Say Wait A minute!
‘Fuck suicide. Life isn’t anything but what you make it. For all the people who walked from the grocery store back to their house, only to be met by a robber who shot them in the head for nothing — you gotta hang in there’,
Where Do I Want To Be In 10 Years? Helping People Through Music Therapy
I will sing, play guitar, and play the keyboard for my music therapy profession to help ease patients during chemo, in the NICU, patients who have long stays in the hospital or alzheimers patients. I am excited to be in this profession because I can help so many people, young and old
So Some Of You Think Taylor Swift's Last Video Is Racist?
If you find this offensive, well be prepared to be offended by a Gap commercial, and about anything in life? And please don’t open your TV, don’t watch any sitcoms, don’t watch SNL, don’t even think about listening to any stand-up comedians. Swift wasn’t even trying to be funny, critical, or a comedian, she just wanted to dance!
Be Here Now: Snapshot Reviews Of New Album Releases: 8-19-14
Look Again To The Wind: Johhny Cash’s Bitter Tears revisited – Various Artists – His 1965 concept album in support of the Native Americans (again, in 1965 -before “Bury My Heart At Wounded Hill”) is giving some fine performances by the Milk carton Kids along with folks like Emmylou, Earle, Kristoffersson and I for one didn’t know the original but love this folk album very much – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
Bruce Springsteen: Almost Touching The Hem Of His American Garment
This is the beauty of youth. You cannot or will not be denied when it comes to rock and roll. When we saw him in San Diego, we had seats in the first row right behind the stage and after the encore, Max threw his drumsticks to the crowd and I caught one of them…then Bruce threw his sweaty towel to us also…and I caught it!
Suicide Solution And Gene Simmons
In the US around 12.6 million people have cancer and 15 million people suffer from depression. This suggests depression is less a mental illness and more a social malaise. I mean, when one in every 3400 people suffer from depression, that goes beyond brain triggers and into the realm of a society malfunctioning
Not With The Band: My Summer Of Many Close Encounters
Big rock stars are a bit like aliens, you rarely see them, they travel inside big black vehicles, and you work very hard at getting close to them. But when you get there, it seems surreal. I had a summer of encounters with rock stars, whatever the level of the encounters (and they were all at least of the third kind) they left the biggest impression of the summer on me
The Ten Commandments Of Concert Going
As the last couple of weeks have proven, there is an epidemic of bad manners at rock concerts that needs to be addressed. People have forgotten how to act in public and the result is a steadily degraded concert going experience. I’ve been blaming the IPhone
Slade-r Than You Think
Slade were like the working class manifestation of all those 70s glam bands, T Rex, Suzi Quattro, Gary Glitter: they would evolve sideays into the New Romantics, straight ahead into post punk and 90s rock and roll UK style and to this day in their native land remain completely beloved. Beloved by me as well
All Female Hasidic Band Bulletproof Stockings Women Only Arlene's Grocery Gig
I have no particular kick one one or the other? Stupid? Absolutely bit hardly my problem. Though it is worth mentioning that the duo Dalia Shusterman and Perl Wolfe are pretty good if their 2012 EP Down To The Top is anything to go by. I’d give em the first two songs but the other two kinda suck. “Frigid City” is country indie rock and “Easy Pray” is the equivalent of Jewish Gospel.
The Bill for HateSpeechin' Comes Due
Ted Nugent is a great example of American exceptionalism. He’s exceptional in that he’s our most famous rock and roll racist, regularly on right wing talk radio, in the news and on television, always generating what the Southern Poverty Law Center, now tracking him, calls hate speech
Beatlemania And Human Sexuality
As Nancy crawls on all fours towards George’s guitar (Later, you would hear him say: “Hey why is it sticky?”, she oozes carnal desire, you kisses he neck of the guitar, caresses it, she will take a sip from one of their tea (hope it isn’t Brian), and she is in such a state of lust, she seems to be orgiastic, a sort of internal five way.
When Stephen Sondheim Sent In The Clowns
The song is a standard because it is so easy for singers to sing, Sondheim gives them the time to breath deeply and pace the song, in the entire lyric there is exactly one run on sentence . So, along with it being a beautifully crafted number, it is one singers flock to.
The Death Of Popular in Pop Music
In indie pop it has been deadly, and the trickle down effect has been worse. while part of the problem might simply be all the side deals the majors made with streaming service, the rest of the problem is semi-popular music doesn’t sustain itself well enough to feel much more than a hobby by professional musicians
Lorde: I Hate Old People And Wish They Would Die (Or Something Like That)
I’m still old and she still doesn’t care what I think . Which isn’t exactly the truth either, I don’t want to get “it depends what “is” is” on you, but you put two qualifiers in her comments. The first is “most” –clearly, in order to listen to 17 year olds MOST, she must listen to older people less than that, which is not not at all
Wrapped up in the Darkness (or spending your life waiting for a moment that just don’t come) (Bruce essay from a maturing teen)
The years have passed and I still think the “Born to Run” and the “Darkness” LP’s are about the best back-to-back albums ever released by an artist. I still hadn’t seen the man live in concert yet. I lived vicariously through bootlegs, live radio concerts and my brother Jack’s photos of Bruce’s show at The Forum.
Taylor Swift: 'The Music Industry Is Not Dying…It's Just Coming Alive.’
‘Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is.’
Mack Vickery – Remembering Nashville’s Meat Man
While his name isn’t widely known among music fans, the list of artists that recorded his material would make any writer proud. George Jones, Johnny Cash, George Strait, Willie Nelson, Lefty Frizzell, Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings, and John Anderson all sang Vickery compositions
Music: The New Reality TV
Ah, yes, reality. Now that the script writers of reality shows are suing for royalties the question as to what is real becomes murkier though Lennon’s “nothing is real” probably comes closest. And this sense of nothing is real invaded the music world this week.
Keep Your Wits About You, Psycho Fans Run Amuck
A trip down memory lane will take you to Frank Sinatras ‘bobby soxers’ or the insane screams and swoons for Elvis Presley. Girls (and guys) so caught up in the euphoria of their hero that they complete lose control of their facilities. I have never been transported to that level.