Category Records
GUIDED BY VOICES THAT CARRY: Listening & Living To Bee (A) Thousand
I am a scientist – I seek to understand me all of my impurities and evils yet unknown I am a journalist – I write to you to show you I am an incurable and nothing else behaves like me I am a pharmacist prescriptions I will fill you potions, pills and medicines to ease […]
RPM: Life In Analog Now Spinning On Google+!
In the spirit of Throwback Thursday (although, truth be told, we’re throwin’ it back pretty much every day of the week here), I invite you to check out a sample of some of my rarer records and vintage music memorabilia being posted and catalogued on an ongoing basis at my brand-spankin’ new “RPM: Life In Analog” Google+ […]
THE TIES THAT BIND: The Timeless River That Runs Through Bruce Springsteen’s America
The best way to understand why Bruce Springsteen matters to his audience, and the American cultural landscape in general, is to turn to the man himself. Throughout his career, it has been virtually impossible to separate the rock star from the hippie kid who grew up in Freehold, New Jersey and the populist songwriter whose lyrics owe as much to John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie as Bob Dylan and Chuck Berry
BOWIE ON RECORD: VINYL FROM THE VAULTS
Much in the same way Miles, Elvis, Aretha, Dylan, Jagger, Jimi, Lennon, Bruce, and Madonna telepathically triggers an instant association, so does that particular arrangement of vowel-heavy letters in “Bowie” conjure an identity, a personae, an attitude, a style (or many of them) — even a perspective and way of looking at the world.
FROM STARMAN TO STARDUST: The Singular Sound, Voice & Vision Of David Bowie (1947-2016)
Originally posted on RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog:
What better fit for a Flashback Friday Halloween than to examine a pivotal point in the singular career of David Bowie, a man of many masks, guises, and gazes: the doomed astronaut of Space Oddity, messianic rock god alien of Ziggy Stardust, paisley dandy, diamond…
STONED PILOT AT THE TEMPLE: On The Passing Of Scott Weiland (1967-2015) & The Purple Core Of Grunge’s Foxiest Frontman
“What I was, and always will be, a fan of was rock ‘n’ roll spirit. And Scott Weiland effortlessly brought that spirit with him whenever he strutted onto a stage with his feather boas and orange spiked hair and glitter-glam eyeliner. In doing so, he enabled those of us watching and listening to lose ourselves in those huge, buzzing guitar riffs swarming around his voice; to become something other than what we were in the daily grind and mundane circumstances of our lives. On stage and on record, Weiland enacted a decadent, different kind of reality of unfettered hedonism, risk, and living on the edge, that implicitly invited us to become vicarious participants for one or two hours.”
BEANO’S BLUESBREAKING BEST: When Clapton Really WAS God (And Who Created Him? Why, John Mayall, Of Course!)
To me, this is Clapton at his rawest and fiercest; his bluesiest, purest, and most exciting, channeling his hero Freddie King (and even covering a tune or two) with a bottomless bag of stinging riffs, ferocious solo outbursts, and inventive accents of color and melody.
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
SNAKE PITS & DICKEY RIDES: Musical Memories of The World’s Oldest Rookie Record Store Clerk
The post (way) down below, from the highly entertaining blog, “Dangerous Minds,” got me reminiscing fondly about my own record store daze. During a six-month gap between bidding farewell to my prior life as a news reporter and dipping my purple suede Pumas into the unchartered, untested waters of music journalism — which had been a […]
A SANCTIFIED RACKET REVISITED: Mr. Airplane Man Gets Set To Fly, Strafe and Stun Again
Before blues-punk deconstructionist duos like the White Stripes and Black Keys hit the big time, Cambridge Massachusetts’ Mr. Airplane Man had built a beautiful little buzz-bomb of a flying machine for two. The garage-blooze twosome comprised of singer-guitarist Margaret Garrett and drummer Tara McManus may have named themselves after a Howlin’ Wolf song during their bleary, brilliant, and all-too […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 