Just in case you missed it (and you very well may have since I initially posted when I was wet behind the ears and first learning how to work this newfangled blog), I wrote a lengthy feature on one of the Rolling Stones’ masterworks, “Exile On Main St.” And of course then posted a nearly-as-long-opening intro/preamble to my piece (hey, that’s how […]
When Davy Jones died, presumably of a heart attack at the too-young age of 66, the phone rang. It was my mother, who had just heard the news on TV. She said her first thought was of me. “You were always the ‘Monkees Man.’ ” I felt instantly seven or eight years old again. I found myself getting choked up, and then breaking down into a kind of sob beyond any rational control, as I tried to articulate and pay tribute to why Davy’s death felt so knee-buckling. Of course, the grief was — and is — about loss, both figurative and concrete. The stricken sadness had to do with the death of someone whose heartbeat was a core part of my childhood. And it had to do with flesh-and-blood reality vanquishing warm and fuzzy celluloid fantasy — a fantasy which, until then, carried the subconscious illusion of always existing and being untouchable.
For those who couldn’t make (or afford) the Rolling Stones’ return to Hyde Park in London this month after a mere 44-year hiatus, here’s a little something that’s far cheaper, but just might be as long: my review essay for the cool live music blog and website, Collectors Music Reviews (CMR to friends like you), of a […]
What’s 17 Years Between Friends? Hear a NEW FREE track from the first new Scuds album since 1996’s “Massachusetts”.
We’ll keep the preamble (rambling) to a minimum this time. Here’s the cover art and the debut track from the brand new “Do You Love The Sun” (out today on the Dorchester-Mass.-based Ashmont Records), the Scud Mountain Boys’ first album since 1996’s sublime and snowy “Massachusetts” (don’t ask us why — it’s just always felt […]
Alex Chilton still doesn’t get what all the fuss is about. Well, most of the fuss, anyway. Chilton concedes that his celebrated band, Big Star, had “a *few* good songs”, but he also makes a distinction between what he calls “good music and good songs.” The pair of albums the band recorded during its lifetime, […]
To put a cap on the starry sparklers of our July 4 weekend tribute to Big Star, here’s my review of Alex Chilton’s “1970,” an album that was a eureka moment for me when I first heard it. To me, it offered a gaze through a kaleidoscopic looking glass; a peek through the window of transition between Alex’s stint as […]
A Q&A with Jody Stephens/Rolling Stone.com Even if Jody Stephens had never picked up a pair of drumsticks after 1974, he’d still have secured an immortal place in pop history as the drummer for Big Star — one of the most talked about and belatedly beloved American rock & roll bands ever. And although they […]
We all know how dreamily handsome Jody Stephens, the once and future drummer for Big Star, has always been (damn, check out Jody in his to-die-for patchwork leather jacket on the back cover of “Radio City”; with that feathered hair and jawline, the dude made Keith Partridge look like Ernest Borgnine). But he also stands as […]
I could barely believe it when he said yes. Well actually, to be more precise, I couldn’t believe it when, after asking whether the evasive, elusive, and reclusive Alex Chilton might possibly consent to an interview with me for my music column in the Boston Phoenix’s Stuff@Night magazine, his publicist checked with the man, called me back, […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 