Category ’60s Pop Goodness
Smashing Mirrors & Smashed Guitars: Pete Townshend, Purveyor Of Power Chords, Turns Seventy
“Pete Townshend was among the first rock writers to wonder aloud if growing up wasn’t such a blast after all. Instead of churning out generic pop hits about cruising in cars and kissing girls, Townshend gazed inward and explored the confusion that came from adolescent alienation.” — JP
RPM (Special Hump Day Designation: Radio Perry Music) Goes Live On Boston Free Radio!
Hey everybody! Just a quick head’s up for anyone bored outta their skulls at school, home, or work (but with earbuds/headphones or out of earshot of their bosses) that Wednesday, March 25, between 3-5:30 p.m. “RPM”‘s Yours Truly will be returning as special guest on Host Alan Patterson’s “Voices Of Time” radio show, comin’ atcha and […]
BEHIND OLE’ BLUE EYES: Roger Daltrey, The Voice Of My Generation, Blows Out 72 Candles
Happy Birthday to the greatest scream in rock and one of my two or three favorite rock & roll singers — The Who’s incomparably leather-lunged frontman Roger Daltrey, who proved that — like the Volkswagen Beetle and the Small Faces’ Steve Marriott– big things came in small packages (and in Roger’s case, he had a […]
HEROIN AT ALL TOMORROW’S (BOSTON) TEA PARTIES: White Light & Heat From The Velvet Underground
Here’s my latest review for the Collectors Music Reviews website and blog, of a new, unofficially released rare recording of the great Velvet Underground at their old Boston Tea Party stomping grounds, ringing out the old year of 1968 (a very hard year on a number of home fronts). The Velvet Underground – The Boston Tea […]
BOBBY KEYS & IAN McLAGAN: Sounds Of Stones Sidemen (and Rock ‘n’ Roll) Silenced
Official portraits and lineup cards of the band notwithstanding, both in the studio and on stage the Rolling Stones have always wisely employed, and relied upon, a small nucleus of collaborators, co-conspirators, and simpatico sidemen to help them flesh out and embroider “that Stones sound” we all grew up on. And despite the Stones’ best efforts for much of the […]
WHO’S NEXT? NOBODY COMES CLOSE: Reflections On Listening To Who At 50, And Their Rock Masterpiece (No, It’s Not Tommy)
Just a quick one — pun intended — to honor one of my all-time favorite artists, The Who, to mark their “Who Hits 50!” world tour that lead singer Roger Daltrey has summed up as “one long goodbye.” Of course, we’ve all heard that promise/threat from the ‘Orrible ‘Oo” a few times and decades before, […]
TIME CAPSULE: On Matthew Sweet (But Not His ‘Girlfriend’) Hitting The Half-Century Mark
Cueing up Matthew Sweet on the ole turntable in honor of his birthday this week got me thinking about time (but then, doesn’t everything?). The notion of time speeding up and (thankfully) slowing down, and how it defines and marks us, after all, is precisely the effect certain music and albums have on our lives. In the case […]
SOUNDS OF THE CITY: 50 Years & 80 Bands Mark ‘Pipeline!’ Radio Turning 25
Back in the 1950’s, skeptics, cynics, and general party poopers predicted that this new-fangled “jungle” music called rock & roll was a fad that might last a few months, maybe a year. And then it would be done and everybody would go back to swiveling their hula-hoops, playing games of Parcheesi, and wearing their “I Like Ike” […]
FIVE LEAVES AND A LEGEND LEFT: Nick Drake’s Sacred, Secret History On Imagined Airwaves
Forty-five years ago, in September 1969, Nick Drake’s debut album, “Five Leaves Left,” was released. Nick only made three records in his all-too-short 26 years. It was a third of a lifetime, really; a brief flicker of a brilliant, glowing candle snuffed out far too soon, before the daylight had a chance to break. Each of […]
The Luckiest Man Alive: Happy Birthday Ringo Starr, The Man Who Brought The Beat To The Beatles
“I consider him one of the greatest innovators of rock drumming and believe that he has been one of the greatest influences on rock drumming today … Ringo has influenced drummers more than they will ever realize or admit. Ringo laid down the fundamental rock beat that drummers are playing today and they probably don’t […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 