The focal point, of course, was the perpetually shirtless, baboon-limbed lead singer Iggy Pop, born James Osterberg. When Pop bounded on stage for the opener “Loose,” one of a slew of songs on gaudy display from “Fun House” and the Stooges’ self-titled 1969 debut, the singer’s convulsive vitality — the spasmodic leaps, carnival of shrieks, caged-animal prowl (not to mention that freakish sinew-and-gristle physique) — was ridiculously unchanged.
Hello all of you lucky and loyal subscribers, My favorite words today are “ten thousand.” As in, 10,000 spins of a favorite record on the turntable. As in, Land of 10,000 Dances. If you do anything 10,000 times, it’s gotta be good, right? With that number and what it means in mind, today I’ve got 10,000 reasons […]
To mark the supremely sad occasion this week four years ago (March 6, 2010 to be exact) when we lost Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous to suicide — he had battled depression and other serious health problems over the years leading up to his death — here’s the full-length “Director’s Cut” of a feature profile I wrote on […]
Nothing quite makes you appreciate the timelessness and immortality of great music as the mortality of its makers. Only yesterday I was saying how fantastic and fresh the Remains’ self-titled 1966 debut LP sounds even now, nearly 50 years after its release. The Boston band made only one record during its original run before calling it quits […]
It’s not that I was surprised, exactly. Disappointed and annoyed is more like it. I knew that a big, gaudy CBS/Grammy salute to the Beatles celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fab Four’s triumphant U.S. debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” (on CBS, of course) was bound to be a bit self-serving and showbiz-y. Still, I expected […]
Such sad and awful news. So sad and awful, in fact, that part of me couldn’t really face marking or commenting on it. Since first hearing the tragic report yesterday, I’ve been stunned, hoping the news proved to be a hoax (as most of us did when the news spread like wildfire on the Interwebs and […]
Hello weekend warriors: As promised, here’s the second installment of this weekend’s edition of “RPM,” which showcases, and takes a look back at, two of Boston’s finest musical exports of the past decade, Sarah Borges and Girls Guns and Glory (see my previous post for the first feature on this superb band I wrote for […]
When you think about country and roughed-up roots music, New England doesn’t exactly leap to mind. Of course, country music, like just about any other genre or type of music, can be found almost anywhere. For decades now (and certainly for the two that I’ve been living and writing in and around Boston), the country and roots music […]
January 17 is always a special day for us here in the surround-sound music den at “RPM: Life In Analog.” It allows us to officially celebrate what we pretty much celebrate every other day by marking the birthday of one of rock’s greatest, and yet most underrated guitarists, whose playing you’ve surely heard for a little group […]
As a way to mark legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page’s 70th birthday today, and offer testimony (as if that’s even needed) to Zep’s towering impact and enduring influence on generations of bands, guitarists, singers, and state-of-the-art rock theater, here’s a piece I wrote for The Boston Globe back in August 2007 on one of the […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 