Growing up in Kansas, from about 9 to 12 years old, I went to Christian summer camp down the highway in rural Missouri. I loved it there. We swam in creeks and caught crawfish. I played soccer and made friends. There was a zipline that ran through the woods and one year a counselor had access to a speedboat and took us out tubing, driving figure eights and running us over the … [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 immediately I landed a job at W. Paxton, an old established music publisher on Old Compton Street deep in the heart of Soho. To … [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, Amazon, internet shopping or Spotify for us. No eBay, record fairs or car boot sales/swap meets either. LPs were a major … [Read more...]
From Motown to Mowtown
An obsession with polished aspirational black music finally carried me to Detroit. I had come to rediscover the heartbreak of first love and unearth a few last Okeh "cover ups". Poking my nose against a high window in the MGM Grand Hotel I survey this strung out city constructed on the lands of the People of the Three Fires. Michigan Central looms in front of me, the morose … [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 Examined includes some of those columns, along with material seen here for the first time. A huge amount of information is … [Read more...]
Chiseled in Rock
Literature is a morgue: I go there to identify my friends. One of them evaporated yesterday, March 6, 2013. The last pic he nailed through the ether toward me had his Woodstock cherry red 335 erecting from the lap into the skies. I was, obviously, born ten years after him, yet that tiny space in time made no difference. If one were to study history thoroughly, one might … [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 music which was played by people who dressed funny and whose audience seemed to made up of senior citizens and people with … [Read more...]
Review – Les Paul: The Lost Interviews by Jim O’Donnell
Les Paul: The Lost Interviews: Five Never-Before-Published Talks With a Guitar Genius by Jim O'Donnell / 978-1492218913 / 152 pages What comes to mind when you hear the name "Les Paul"? Maybe the iconic guitar, launched at the dawn of rock and roll and played by many of music's most talented guitarists. Or perhaps you think of the musician, the performer, the songwriter - or … [Read more...]
Rob Wasserman, Michael McClure & Jay Lane – Music & Poetry – Sept. 12, 2013
Rob Wasserman • Michael McClure • Jay Lane New Music! Thursday, September 12th • 8:00 p.m. Sweetwater Music Hall 19 Corte Madera Ave., Mill Valley, CA 94941 Limited Seating • Box Office 415-388-1100 "Rob Wasserman was performing with Lou Reed — I was knocked out. Soon Rob and I were writing songs together, sometimes at Bob Weir'splace with Rob's … [Read more...]
Book Review – Love Him Madly: An Intimate Memoir of Jim Morrison, by Judy Huddleston
Love Him Madly: An Intimate Memoir of Jim Morrison, by Judy Huddleston / Chicago Review Press / June 1, 2013 / 978-1613747506 / 240 pages The story begins just like many young girls' rock star fantasies do. Judy, a high-school senior, and soon-to-be art student, develops a fascination on a charismatic rock star. One night after a show they wind up talking, and she accepts … [Read more...]
Book Review – How Hip Was My Alley by Kenton Crowther
[Editor's note: 5/21/2014: How Hip Was My Alley has been re-titled Dad, the Times We Had: Baby Boomers in Paradise.] Kenton Crowther's previous volume, Alleycats and Beatsters, collected the author's writings built on the Beat Generation and the essence of "hip." This time out, he casts a wider net; How Hip Was My Alley gathers over three dozen pieces on a wide variety of … [Read more...]
Bob Dylan, John Tams, and the Commissionaire
Whenever Bob Dylan’s 1966 UK Tour is discussed, all we ever hear about is the infamous “Judas” incident from the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. But there were several other dates on the tour and on May 16 (just one day before the Manchester show) Dylan played a concert 30-odd miles away across the Pennines in Sheffield and I was there. Our story begins some weeks earlier … [Read more...]
Review – Reaching Out with No Hands: Reconsidering Yoko Ono by Lisa Carver
Reaching Out with No Hands: Reconsidering Yoko Ono / Lisa Carver / Backbeat Books / 2012 / 978-1617130946 The popular perceptions of Yoko Ono are often unflattering: hanger-on, untalented, unattractive, shrill, remote. Lisa Carver, herself an artist and musician, strips away perception to find the real Yoko. Carver considers the merits of Ono's visual, written, and musical … [Read more...]
Ray Manzarek
I turned my laptop on just after dawn this morning, as I usually do, and sat down with a cup of strong black coffee to see what was happening in the world. Two stories caught me like punches to the stomach and I woke up without any need for caffeine: a tornado killing scores of people in Oklahoma, and Ray Manzarek of the Doors dying at 74 of bile duct cancer. Jesus, is there … [Read more...]
The Art of the Statement – Be the Mule
I found humanity through music. I lose focus and grow cynical at times, but if I am honest as a listener, and remain receptive, the chance of transcending my emotional disturbances and triumphs through music remains. There's the possibility of unity, and humility, but always humanity, in sharing our art. The very idea of allowing our naked self to be exposed through what we … [Read more...]
Poems from COUNTRY by Shelby Stephenson
Nin’s making ham-hock soup, feeding her hypomania: A.M. radio talking-heads rail for holiness on and on for keeping “Christ” in Christmas, the needles, I’m sure screaming eagles in the VU-Meters at consoles saluting Limbaugh − Rush, Rush, Rush! It’s a 32-degree morn − waiting for the snow, a southeast spurge mixed with a northeast plunge; the JD 155 on … [Read more...]
The Time that John Lurie Called Me
My artistic, maybe even my personal, aesthetic had me identifying with the music of John Lurie the first time I heard his compositions on record. Close to a bunch of things I cannot, or do not care, to be. The celebration of the idea. The joy in imagination. But serious, measured, and often biting. Love in darkness. The acknowledgement that illusion permeates commercial music … [Read more...]
An Essay on the Arcana Series
I sat down to write this as a commentary on the series of books edited by John Zorn, all of which are entitled Arcana. The series comes in six parts, including hundreds of essays written by musicians, artists, on their creative process, technique, philosophy, social commentary, and more. Some artists address alternate technique discussion, others essays on a unique approach to … [Read more...]
Music Review — Sentimental Journey by Emmy Rossum – A Musical Calendar
Emmy Rossum is a multi-talented performer. As an actress, she currently stars in Showtime's Shameless, and the forthcoming film, Beautiful Creatures. Her new CD, Sentimental Journey, is her second. Its twelve songs, each an American classic, correspond at least loosely to a month of the year. Like her 2007 album, Inside Out, Sentimental Journey was produced by Stuart … [Read more...]
Nov 14, ’12: The Big Mix at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, CA
What do you get if you take Beat icon Michael McClure (who penned Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz"), add Rock 'n Roll Hall of Famer Ray Manzarek (Doors keyboardist), stir in jazz/Indian fusion saxophonist and composer George Brooks (Etta James, Summit, Bombay Jazz), infuse with legendary bassist Kai Eckhardt (John McGlaughlin, Garaj Mahal, Zeitgeist), and shake it all up with … [Read more...]
Bob Dylan’s TEMPEST Out Now!
Bob Dylan’s new album, Tempest, was released on September 11, 2012. Featuring ten new and original Bob Dylan songs, the release of Tempest coincides with the 50th Anniversary of the artist’s eponymous debut album, which was released by Columbia in March 1962. Tempest is available for pre-order now on iTunes and Amazon. The new album, produced by Jack Frost, is the 35thth … [Read more...]
Book Review – Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue by Robert Scotto
Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue by Robert Scotto / Process Media / 2007 / 280 pages / ISBN # 978-0-9760822-8-6 Born in Marysville, Kansas in 1916, the son of an Episcopal minister, Louis Hardin Jr. lived a relatively simple life in America's heartland until the age of 16 when he was permanently blinded when he mistakenly toyed with a blasting cap. A life-altering event … [Read more...]
Diamanda Galas – Love is a Ballad that Eviscerates
When I listen to the music of Diamanda Galás, I am reminded that I have veins. There is something in her voice that punctures the flesh, the ears, the heart, in order to get at something visceral. Hers is a sound that courses like blood, infiltrates capillaries, and passes through arteries. It is also the sound of years of hard work, of rigorous vocal training, and of … [Read more...]
Singer-Songwriter Elizabeth Anderson Interview
I was recently fortunate to have a conversation with Elizabeth Anderson, a talented singer-songwriter whose debut CD, The Stars are Falling, was recently released. We chatted about her sound, her musical inspirations, and the art of songwriting. How did you get started with playing - and creating - music? I started playing the piano in the second grade and began … [Read more...]
