Paul McCartney: The Life (US) by Philip Norman / Little, Brown and Company / 2016 / 978-0316327961 Paul McCartney: The Biography (UK) / Weidenfeld & Nicolson / 2016 / 978-0297870760 Soufflé-speak. I don’t know if Philip Norman coined that expression … [Read more...]
Man of the World: Meeting Peter Green Before and After Fleetwood Mac
The British blues boom. There’s a tendency to dismiss it as little more than a bunch of lank-haired white boys from the home counties misappropriating the music of black America. And not in a good way. There may be some truth in that, but it’s not the … [Read more...]
“Tiny Purple Fishes Run Laughing Through Your Fingers” — Cream’s Disraeli Gears turns 50
Nineteen-sixty-seven was an exciting time to be a record buyer. It was a year when LP sales began to overtake singles for the first time as the rock album established itself as a legitimate art form within a youth-driven cultural revolution. Psychedelia … [Read more...]
(Music Review) Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings – The Sheffield Discs
Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings Disc 17 – Sheffield, May 16, 1966 (CBS Records recording) Disc 18 – Sheffield, May 16, 1966 (Soundboard recording) How do you review a thirty-six-CD box set containing every known recording of Dylan’s pivotal 1966 … [Read more...]
She Said She’d Always Been a Dancer: London’s Soho in the 1960s
In late 1966, I arrived in London with little more than a guitar and a change of clothes. The summer of love was just around the corner and, to paraphrase Dylan, there was music in the cafés at night and cultural revolution in the air. Almost … [Read more...]
Ringo Starr: The Father of Modern Rock Drumming
![By Eva Rinaldi from Sydney, Australia (Ringo Starr and all his band Uploaded by tm) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ringo-detail-360x200.jpg)
Things are looking good for Ringo Starr at the moment. In the last 18 months he's released the album Postcards From Paradise, been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, completed a 21-date American tour, is about to begin another … [Read more...]
Floor Singers Welcome! Memories of Les Cousins and the Soho Folk Music Scene
In the recent Elvis Costello autobiography Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink (pub. Viking) there’s a fascinating chapter dedicated to the young Declan’s first faltering steps as a live performer. In touching detail, Elvis describes the clubs and pubs … [Read more...]
The night a new band called Led Zeppelin played Sheffield University in 1968
It must have been around May of 1968 that I heard the Yardbirds in session on John Peel’s BBC radio show. This late version of the band played a loud and heavy set which sounded nothing like the most blueswailing R&B outfit of yore and I made a mental … [Read more...]
Confessions of a Donovan Fan
Imagine a world where recorded music is both expensive and hard to find. No easily accessible CDs or tapes and certainly none of your new-fangled streaming or downloadable MP3s. That was the world we record buyers inhabited back in the 60s. No megastores, … [Read more...]
Found and Restored: Search and Destroy Reevaluated
I've been watching Dennis Hopper's more obscure and straight-to-DVD movies now for a number of few years; all in the name of 'research' you understand. I've seen some real clunkers (Space Truckers, Tycus) but I've also discovered some incredible work … [Read more...]
For Independence Day: Jimi plays the Star-Spangled Banner!
Here's Jimi Hendrix playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, 1969. And if that's not enough for you, check him performing it on the 4th of July in Atlanta! Jimi Hendrix - Star-Spangled Banner, Woodstock Festival, August 17, 1969 Jimi … [Read more...]
The Unforgivable Sin of Joss Whedon
Avengers: Age of Ultron is upon us, and that means the odds have gone up considerably of me having to confront The Whedon Problem with my more sophisticated, artsy friends. First you have to understand that my friends and I spend way too much time … [Read more...]
The Great Consciousness of Life
Reaching in, pulling out. The great divide is conquered; and there lies an ever-evolving mission to extract meaning from chaos. This, then, is where it resides, the theater of the soul and the heart. In rewriting my biography of Jack Kerouac, I found … [Read more...]
Book Review — Ticket to Ride: Inside the Beatles’ 1964 Tour That Changed the World
Ticket to Ride: Inside the Beatles 1964 Tour That Changed the World by Larry Kane Backbeat Books / October 28, 2014 / 978-1480393042 / 272 pages In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' 1964 tour of America, Backbeat Books has … [Read more...]
Dennis Hopper as Daniel Morgan in Mad Dog Morgan
The film Easy Rider (1969) made its director and star Dennis Hopper, and the film's producer and co-star Peter Fonda, counter-cultural icons of the late 1960s. The film's minuscule budget, roaring box office success, and critical acclaim paved the way for … [Read more...]
(Music Review) IR 29.1: New Generation Dub
One of the biggest crimes committed by the music industry has been their ability to co-opt, dilute and turn even the most radical of genres into something safe for mass consumption. Disco, punk and rap have all been taken and watered down so they would … [Read more...]
Movie Review – Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom
As a kid in the 1960s, I remember asking my mom why we didn't ever have Granny Smith apples in the house. She replied that she refused to buy anything from South Africa because of what the government did to its people. As the years passed and I became … [Read more...]
(Music Review) Music of the Sahara: Tinariwen’s new album Emmaar
In the early 1960s the creation of artificial borders in the trackless wastes of the Sahara desert might have been cause for celebration among the inhabitants of the newly created countries. However, the throwing off of colonial masters in Niger, Mali, … [Read more...]
Book Review – IR 30: Indigenous Visions In Dub
I guess it's appropriate that blockades have gone up again on the Tyndengia Mohawk reservation in South Eastern Ontario Canada as I begin to write this review. Here in Canada the First Nations people are usually out of sight and out of mind unless they … [Read more...]
Review: The Doors Examined by Jim Cherry
The Doors Examined by Jim Cherry / Bennion Kearny Limited / paperback / 978-1909125124 / 240 pages Journalist and author Jim Cherry has a long history with rock 'n' roll journalism, and currently writes the column, "The Doors Examiner." The Doors … [Read more...]
(Movie Review) Come Back Africa: The Films of Lionel Rogosin, Volume ll
Documentary movies always seem to get short shrift. For too many people there the things people tell them to watch at school so they will learn something. Growing up on a diet of talking heads sitting around talking about subjects you're not really … [Read more...]
(Music Review) Soutak by Aziza Brahim
At first glance the Sahara Desert of North West Africa seems like one of the most inhospitable places on the face of the earth. Movies, and other Western media, usually show us images of trackless wastes, endless miles of sand dunes dotted with the … [Read more...]
(Music Review) Adrian Raso and Fanfare Ciocarlia – Devil’s Tale
When the Ottoman Empire invaded Eastern Europe they brought more than just their armies with them. Even today evidence of their occupation can still be found. Muslim communities in Serbia are only the most obvious reminder of their one time rule as traces … [Read more...]
Movie Review – Kill Your Darlings
Long before Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs would be celebrated as the poetical and political figureheads of a 'beat generation,' there was a murder. In the new film, Kill Your Darlings, the crime scene sets itself at Columbia … [Read more...]
(Music Review) Acá: Viggo and Friends
Some people say, "Politics make strange bedfellows" (Don't say it to Putin - he might take it the wrong way and have you thrown in jail) but the first time I heard Viggo Mortensen had collaborated on an album with the notorious, infamous, riotous, speed … [Read more...]
The Beat Spirit Within Llewyn Davis: A Film Rumination
A film about a struggling artist could be many things: arty, pretentious, too ambitious and above all unfocused. For all its many cinematographic achievements and clever performances, the absurdity of I'm Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007) fell to the weight … [Read more...]
Review – How Music Works by David Byrne
We all listen to music. Maybe we only have it playing in the background, use it to help us sleep or meditate, or perhaps you sit and listen to it carefully. However, no matter how or why you listen, it can't help but have an effect on you. The majority of … [Read more...]
Music Review – David Broza: East Jerusalem West Jerusalem
There are some subjects I know not to talk to most people about, because they probably won't like what I have to say on the matter. Always having been slightly left of most anarchists I'm supposed to hold to certain opinions in order to not let the side … [Read more...]
Film Review – Broken, starring Tim Roth & Cillian Murphy
There are some books you always remember for the way in which they opened your eyes to the world around you. They might have stripped away your innocence in the process, but they also reassured you that no matter how bad things could get, there were … [Read more...]
Merry Christmas! Here’s the Jerry Garcia Band performing Jingle Bells
Merry Christmas! Here's the Jerry Garcia Band performing "Jingle Bells" at San Francisco's Winterland on December 20, 1975. Never heard it quite like this before! Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals John Kahn - bass Nicky Hopkins - keyboards, vocals Ron … [Read more...]
Bob Dylan – It Must Be Santa
Today's Christmas tune is "It Must Be Santa" by Bob Dylan. It's from his Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart (which is a whole lot of fun). … [Read more...]
The Beatles – Christmas Time (Is Here Again)
Christmas Time (Is Here Again) was written and recorded by The Beatles for their 1967 fan club Christmas record. Ringo also recorded it for his Christmas album, I Wanna Be Santa Claus. Be sure to listen to the end...there's more than just the … [Read more...]
Ringo Starr – Come on Christmas, Christmas Come On!
Ringo gets the holidays rockin' with "Come on Christmas," a song from his very fun Christmas album, I Wanna Be Santa Claus which includes both original and traditional songs. … [Read more...]
Review – The Clash Special Edition Releases
I remember a conversation I had with my brother when I was a teenager. He asked me if I thought I would still be listening to any of the music I liked then when I was 50. At the time it seemed like it was an eternity in the future, our parents weren't … [Read more...]
“Run, Run Rudolph” performed by the Grateful Dead
Today's Christmas tune is "Run, Run Rudolph," performed by the Grateful Dead at Madison Garden, on December 7, 1971. That's Pigpen singing. … [Read more...]
Film Review – The Last Song Before The War
I can't remember when I heard about the Festival au Desert, which has been taking place in Northern Mali since 2001, for the first time. I do remember it was in 2009 I was offered press credentials to cover the Festival, and regretting having to turn the … [Read more...]
Music Review – An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer
There have been many great artistic couples down through the ages. Now a days there seems to be more celebrity couplings than any real co-joining of artistic talents. So when I first began to hear rumours writer Neil Gaiman and musician Amanda Palmer … [Read more...]
Review – Nashville 2.0: The Rise of Americana
Once upon a time there was pop music. You either liked what you heard or you didn't, and you didn't particularly care about anything else. There were other types of music other people listened to, but that wasn't pop music. There was country and western … [Read more...]
Sly as a Vox
They’re back! The often-awful eighties with the pre-school neon colors and the radio infested with neo-synth-pop bubblegum bands. Although a few groups like Phoenix, the Killers and the recent stellar release from Empire of the Sun have picked up where … [Read more...]
Music Review – Tartit With Imharhan – Live from the Sahara
When the annual Festival Au Desert in Northern Mali was cancelled in 2013 due to the territory's occupation by terrorist organizations intent on imposing a very narrow definition of Islamic rule, organizers of the Festival were determined, if the world … [Read more...]