Category Features
GUIDED BY BOB: A Salty Salute to GBV’s Robert Pollard Who Turns 56 (which is less birthday candles than he’s made records)
A very Happy 56th Birthday to Robert Pollard of the long-running Dayton, Ohio rock band, Guided By Voices. Pollard is, at this point, one of the few indie-rock artists who’s always made me feel young. Not because he’s even that old, or his music or sensibility is old, mind you. Naw, it’s just that, when you’re […]
WAITING FOR THE MAN NO MORE: The Velvet Vision Of Lou Reed (1942-2013)
With a deadpan monotone rimmed with a barbed and thorny edge of sarcasm, an air of jaded self-loathing, and disaffected resignation, Reed’s voice was ideally suited to chronicle his drug-and-drag noir tales (both lived and imagined), of shadowy protagonists slinking down shadowed hallways, darkened alleys, or penthouse crash pads, in search of sin, salvation, or both at the end of a needle.
ELVES & ELEPHANTS FLY IN AN AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA: Neutral Milk Hotel Soars Again
The recent news that members of the once-vaunted Elephant Six musical collective — Neutral Milk Hotel and Elf Power, chief among them — are reuniting for a series of U.S. and international tour dates that will take them into 2014, brings back wonderful memories of the time when their alternately sun-splashed and dusk-toned hues of […]
STILL REIGNING, STILL DREAMING: Jimi Hendrix Producer Eddie Kramer On The Making Of A Legend
“Jimi was so shy,” Kramer says. “He never said a word in the beginning. He was very polite, very reserved, but once he plugged in and started playing I realized, ‘this is pretty special’. I had heard a couple of singles he had done, but hearing him playing right there in the same room was a whole different ball game. But very quickly, once I established the sound that he liked, we got on extremely well and we could communicate – even though he would describe sounds to me as colors, like, ‘Man, I want it to sound kinda purple, you know what I mean, man?’ And I would come up with a sound that was purple. We inspired each other …”
THE OTHER “NEW YORK, NEW YORK”: Ryan Adams’ accidental anthem for a stricken city
The jarring image of an American Flag turned upside down on the album cover, and the single “New York, New York” (no, not that one) that graced singer-songwriter Ryan Adams’s second solo album, “Gold,” were both mere (some might say awful) coincidence. So was the release date of that aforementioned single: September 11, 2001. The […]
DECIBELS TO DEFEAT DISEASE: Boston Rocker/Writer Amanda Nichols On How MS Made Her Stronger — And Louder!
Of all the stories I’ve written about the Boston music scene over the last 15 years, few have felt as feel-good satisfying as my feature about Amanda Nichols, a talented local rocker, music writer, and lovely soul who just happens to be afflicted with multiple sclerosis. With her husband Nick Blakey, likewise a talented local […]
NOT TO BE TAKEN AWAY: Moon The Loon, Gone Too Soon
Happy Birthday to The Who’s late Keith Moon, rock’s greatest gonzo drummer, horse tranquilizer taker, practical joker (usually involving explosives, toilets, television sets, and brandy), and one man Wall of Sound. Moon was only 18 when he auditioned for The Who by striding onto the stage wearing dyed ginger hair to match his ginger-colored clothes, […]
THIS POST’S FOR YOU: Neil Young’s Notes For Blue (ain’t singin’ for Coke, and no ‘Heart of Gold’ neither)
In keeping with what’s turned into a CSN&Y-inspired, David Crosby Birthday Boy theme party this past week, here’s my brand new review of a new and unofficially released (or officially unreleased, such as the case may be) Neil Young title, just published at the live and rare music specialty blog/website Collectors Music Reviews (www.collectorsmusicreviews.com), where I […]
A FREAK FLAG FLIES BEFORE THE DAWN: The Strange Saga of David Crosby’s Saved, and Savored, Life
David Crosby turns an improbable 72 today, August 14. If the mustachioed muso were a cat, he’d have used up the lion’s share of his nine lives by now — but David Crosby being David Crosby, he’d probably figure out a way to make it to ten. Call it good fortune or luck, miracle or circumstance, but […]
DAYS OF DESERT DREAMS: Steve Wynn’s Syndicate of Sound
How do you live up to — or down, such as the case may be — a uniformly, universally recognized classic debut album that becomes the artistic barometer for everything you write, record, and release from that moment on? (The easy answer is, you don’t). Singer-songwriter Steve Wynn has had this unenviable task for more […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 