. . The words, Brill Building, are synonymous with songwriting in the way Hollywood is equated with movies or Detroit used to be associated with cars. I received a message yesterday from LA-DSH urging assistance for an upcoming documentary about Colony Records, a unique music store located in that iconic building which was the site …
. For whatever reason a few years ago, I wanted to hear the Edgar Winter Group’s “Free Ride.” Naturally, the first place I checked was YouTube. Yep, lots of videos for “Free Ride.” But wouldn’t you know it, on the first video I pick, there’s a link to Edgar’s brother, Johnny, performing “Mean Town Blues” …
. . It was February 12, 2009 when I started following the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. They are marching through nearly 200 dates this year, did the Obama inauguration back in ’09, been to St. Petersburg, Russia, quite the swoop of engagements and I think the trickle down effect is this: brass bands are now …
. The kids today have such a ribald good time in every video. Youth was never this good-natured or this fun back in the day and I have a hard time believing that it is even now: .
Within the last year or so, multimedia artist, Barbara Trentalange, had a baby. Balancing motherhood with creative expression, she completed a series of paintings titled, “Baby Napping Series.” “I started the series because I needed to be quiet around the house while my daughter napped,” says Trentalange. “Since I couldn’t write and play music (which …
. So, there I was at SOFA-Chicago (International Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair) last month exhibiting my work and not selling much when an employee of Ferrin Gallery, Lauren Levato, purchased a small beaded flower of mine. It is possible that I started gushing about the work of my favorite artist Sergei Isupov, who …
. As we enter this holiday season, once again, with so many people unemployed, this year, I am making a committment to buy more local and American made products for gift giving. Some of my favorites are Applets and Cotlets Candy (Wenatchee, WA) Filson Clothing (Seattle) and MagLite flashlights (SoCal). What are your favorites? – …
. I was a Senior in high school and I was picking up the bulk for the Dutchess County News Tribune. It was a frozen, clear dawn with no birds in the trees or sky, quiet and moon bright. I fired up the Ford, scraped off the morning ice and dropped by Margaret Hamilton’s office …
. [Ed. Note – Santa Lucia Day, December 13, is celebrated around the world in honor of an Italian saint said to bring both light and luck on her special day. Ron needs her to bring him some luck right about now, NFL Week 14. Updated Tuesday Afternoon: Santa Lucia spills Ron’s coffee and burns …
. Driving to the train station the other morning, I had no idea that it was the first day of Hannakuh (Did I spell that right?). I was enlightened by Lin Brehmer, the ever resourceful morning man on Chicago’s finest radio station WXRT, who played this song. At long last an alternative to Adam Sandler’s …
. Please, please, please tell me that you are not ready to be co-opted by the naive and even dangerous view that is being adopted by too many already that the tax cuts/unemployment benefits deal that Pres. Obama just worked out with Republican leaders is somehow a bad deal, that he got rolled, or that …
. . I watched this movie last might. Loved it. Saddam didn’t like the physical act of headbanging because, according to one of the musicians, the movement is similar to when Jews pray. Saddam wanted men to have short hair. The musicians later persevered under Occupied Iraq, but checkpoints, snipers, tanks, unemployment, and overall risk …
. When most Americans think of actress and singer Doris Day (b. 1922), they imagine a virginal sweetheart or wholesome wife and mother – roles she often played in Hollywood and on television during her long career. But any contemporary glance at her legendary comedies with Rock Hudson reveal that the Doris Day of the …
. This is going to sound like they just do make ‘em like that anymore, but they don’t. As I regard one music video after the other, graciously placed on flat screens around the gym so I can rock my heavy lifting, I am plucked by the videos’ endless sea of sameness. Glossy, flat with …
. Tom Jones and Nina Persson of the Cardigans combine like sexual napalm and white tipped matches in this highly stylized rendition of a Talking Heads classic. Tom Jones simply brings it, and does so in a vein popping ventricular ejection. Makes me want to tear off my man panties and throw them at the …
I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are not on Facebook. Some have quit, some never joined. A large portion of them seem to infer that they are too superior to join Facebook, that Facebook is only for “people with no lives” or that Facebook is somehow evil. Facebook is neither good nor …
. This is a nice clip. Aaron Tibeaux Walker. What can I say? Once almost as big as his contemporary, Louis Jordan, and now just as forgotten. A long, long string of r&b chart hits from the mid 40’s through the 50’s. A suave, seemingly effortless vocalist and guitarist, who penned most of his own …
When 5th season American Idol contestant Chris Daughtry sang a brooding cover of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” in 2006, Idol fans went universally ape shit, calling the arrangement “wildly innovative” and raving about how refreshingly far removed it was from the up-tempo original. What most didn’t realize was that Daughtry’s performance was not …
. One of my favorite videos… not because of it’s excellent image quality (quite obviously NOT) but because it combines my favorite singer, Robert Plant, with one of my favorite bands backing him up, Pearl Jam, in my favorite city and hometown, Chicago, in an iconic club, House of Blues, for a very worthy cause, …
This 1958 Stan Freberg audio file satirizes the overcommercialism of Christmas. It begins with Mr. Scrooge calling a meeting of important “advertising people” to find new ways to tie products to Christmas. One advertiser talks of depicting a more rugged Santa smoking a preferred brand of cigarette. In the ad, Santa has “both sleeves rolled …
. Even when you’ve spent time as a professional rock critic, there are inevitably gaps in your musicology knowledge. And one of the aspects of music I’ve always loved is how musicians pay homage to mentors, inspirations, peers, and lesser-known talents by covering or, better still, collaborating with them, helping them reach a wider audience. …
. Many of the songs in Tom Lehrer’s small, dark canon of work still seem relevant today, though nearly all of them were written in the 1950s and 60s. Lehrer often wrote about subjects that were in the news of the day. For example, his song “Smut” (which may be heard in the video below) …
. At 21, she had a few years on me; nonetheless, I was sure that Maria McKee and I could somehow work it out. Oh, how I was in love with this girl during my last gasps of high school in 1985-1986. Coming along after X and the Blasters but years before the terms “Americana” …
. Even considering what a sucker I am for a love song, I do not think I’m overstating the sublimity of the lyric masterpiece She by Elvis Costello. Like many folks, the first time I heard the song was in the soundtrack for Notting Hill. Had Costello written it for the film, he surely would …
Nathaniel Hawthorne once observed that “easy reading is damned hard writing.” The same holds true in music, where great mastery is often found in the simplest performances. Booker T and the MGs, one of the greatest backing bands of all time, played with such a profoundly deep groove that little elaboration was needed. It’s fitting …
. I don’t know if you were aware of the major underground movement at my college, North Park University in Chicago, among the gals when this song came out. Many girls of a certain era know this song word for word and know how to wield that curling iron or hair brush as a mic…great …
. Chavela Vargas is something of a legend in Mexico City where I live. She’s still making records at 91. Muse to both the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (and reputedly also her lover), her endurance, depth of passion, outsized personality, and gorgeously fierce voice make here one-of-a-kind. She was …
. Yet another attempt at a bounce back week: [Ed. Note – Updated Wednesday, Ron went 7-9 this week.] Thursday Night: No – PHILADELPHIA 8 Houston The Texans probably have enough offense to keep this one close. Sunday: Yes – MINNESOTA 6 Buffalo The Bills keep on playing close games, but they have to be …
. Scot-king songwriter, dark-hearted minstrel, troubled and temper-torn troubadour, bitter balladeer extraordinaire, roiling ace back alley jig picker Richard Thompson. I love this king of all the sad bastards with the golden hands, his records ooze delight and despair in the most organic and ornery of ways. Plays like the devil and knows all his …