Category Tributes
BROTHERS IN AMPS: The Clean’s Kilgours of Kiwi (In Memory of Hamish Kilgour, 1957-2022)
Apologies if the original post of this piece contained text and/or formatting glitches that made it difficult/impossible to read, er, cleanly. Here is the (hopefully) corrected version. Aside from a title tweak, I’ve decided to forego replacing or replicating the video bells and whistles of the original post and present the text straight-up as a companion to the faulty original. I invite you to give it another go with my thanks. Again, sorry the HAL 3000 has decided to get drunk and insubordinate. Now, where the hell is the plug and outlet to that bleary red eye of his?
LITTLE DITTY ‘BOUT JACK & DIANE: Holding On To Sixteen Forty Years Later
Forty years ago, one of the big hits of the day during my senior year of high school was, for better or worse, “Jack & Diane” by John Cougar (the Mellencamp moniker was still a few years away). It was a ubiquitous soundtrack playing everywhere on any given day — outside at my school’s parking lot, cranking from cars and boom boxes, and emanating across the football field.
‘I NEVER MEANT TO BE A SINGER’: REMEMBERING DETROIT COBRAS’ VOCAL POWERHOUSE RACHEL NAGY
“Dear friends, family and fans, It is with a heavy heart and great sadness that we announce the loss of our beloved friend and musical colleague, Rachel Lee Nagy. There are no words to fully articulate our grief as we remember a life cut short, still vital and inspirational to all who knew and loved […]
HEART OF THE STONES: In Praise of Charlie Watts, June 2, 1941-August 24, 2021
“Charlie’s good tonight in’nit he?” — Mick Jagger, Madison Square Garden, 1969. Charlie Watts’s drum kit was a pitch-perfect reflection of the man who sat behind it for The Rolling Stones for nearly 60 years: modest yet essential. Charlie famously eschewed rock drum solos as frivolous, show-offy expressions of ego. A lifelong jazz devotee and […]
Smashing Mirrors & Smashed Guitars: Pete Townshend, Purveyor Of Power Chords, Turns Seventy Five
The sentiment of my original story still holds. Happy 75th Birthday, Mr. Townshend, and many more. So glad you didn’t die before you got old. You had so much more to say and do. And in turn, over the years you’ve certainly inspired me (and many others) to listen to, live through, and reflect upon, […]
EYES EVERYWHERE: Remembering Deep Heaven Now’s Jinsen Liu, Boston’s “Dark Lord of the Shoegazer Scene”
I’m saddened to learn of the death of Jinsen Liu, one of Boston’s most adventurous musicians, listeners, and advocates for a burgeoning, always shape-shifting psychedelic-space-rock scene in and around the city during the first decade of the new millenium. In addition to releasing a clutch of albums with his own lushly textured dream-pop band, 28 […]
PHAIR WEATHER FRIEND: Hanging Out In Guyville 25+ Years Later
It’s been a life-altering twenty five-plus years since we were all twenty five (or thereabouts), an age when most of us don’t have much of a clue about how life-altering the next twenty five years are going to be.
Leaving Traces and Circles Around The Sun: Farewell Neal Casal (1968-2019)
Neal Casal was a multi-tasking, multi-genre musical threat: a fine singer, composer, and detail-oriented storyteller; a fluid and lyrical lead player as well as bedrock-solid rhythm guitarist; and an unassuming personality who proved a versatile sideman and good-natured complement to the legends and stars in the spotlight.
A LATE BLOOMER IN FULL FLOWER: Becoming Asa Brebner (1953-2019)
“I don’t believe in God, but I believe in music and sharing that with other people. That’s kind of my religion. If I have a religion, that’s what it is.”
— Asa Brebner
PICTURES AT ELEVEN: Drawing Dad Close Amid The Lines Of A Life
Leafing through one of my decades-old sketchbooks while unpacking from our exciting but exhausting move from Boston to Philadelphia last summer, I flipped through, with casual curiosity, the sturdy paper stock pages of pencil drawings, mostly of superheroes and baseball players and my dank cabin at my first (and only) sleep-away camp. As I turned […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 