5 Reviews a Week – Goin’ Crazy Edition

OK, I’ve been told that using album and artist titles to create my intro message is annoying. And I guess that’s right. Well here’s the latest reviews. Heavy on the UK this week, but that’s how it goes. I really have nothing more to say. See what happens when I have no gimmick?!

Coldplay – Viva [...]

International Pop Overthrow Volume 11

It’s that’s time of year again… Summer!  So, you know what that means? The kids are out of school, people are hitting the beaches, and David Bash has brought the International Pop Overthrow (IPO) festival back to Los Angeles for the 11th year in a row.
 
I’ve been attending the festival for quite a few years [...]

Everybody sounds better on the record…

The way that the vast majority of people experience pop music (unfortunately -and btw, you should get your lazy asses out to see live music 3-4 times a month at the minimum – that way you can find good local artists and support them and quit complaining about the crappy stuff the major music [...]

Perfect reunion music

John Baggs’ post the other day about high school dances got into the back of my brain and crawled out last night when I was sleeping. I dreamed I was at a high school reunion, and the band consisted of two guys playing music like the kind that irritated Belushi in “Animal House,” so between [...]

For your drinking and listening pleasure

I am sitting here trying to feel it. Got some Chris Whitley on the iPod, “Dust Radio”:
Baby got vision child
Like a loaded gun
She use my body
Like carrion crow
Doing our transmission thing
On dust radio
Baby call the number
Nobody left in town …
I’ve got the cold, cold Bombay Sapphire and tonic, splash of sweetened lime juice, in [...]

Musical Memories: The School Dance

A song can remind of you of many memories, good and bad. Today I’d like to talk about the school dance.
There are a couple of songs that specifically remind me of the school “dances” that I used to attend. Of course, I use the “dance” lightly, because mostly I would go and stand in the [...]

The 10-Second Music Review

It’s hard to stay up on what’s new, what’s worth checking out, what to avoid, and so on. We listen, we seek, we read reviews, we do the best we can, but there’s never enough time to be as informed as we’d probably like.
So I thought I’d take a sec to point you to a [...]

5 CD’s A Week – Fun Time Extravaganza!

Well, I bet you thought that I would nEVER post again. I guess I am too busy SINGing, DANCEing, and STEALing THINGS to post. But not to worry, it’s not like I got MARRIED or something. I do HAVE FEELINGS TOO! Well anyway, here is another ROSETTA stone of music reviews, that make as about [...]

The Shuffle: “The Bewlay Brothers,” David Bowie, 1971

There are places in the universe that simply are Way Out There: dark, cold, lonely. And these places are embedded in our hearts. They can grow to engulf all of our light, all of our energy, like a black hole in life. And the soundtrack for traveling through these places is David Bowie’s “The Bewlay [...]

Best opening lines to a song

From “Just Came Back,” by Colin James:
When I first saw you I heard the angels sing.
I thought of Adam and Eve and their
Love thing.
Your favorites?

A conversation with… Corn Mo

Welcome; John Cunningham aka ‘Corn Mo’.
Q/ Morning. How’s it going?
Good.
Q/ I was doing – what I laughingly like to call – research. Now the internet is quite a big place and perhaps I was poking around in the wrong corner but it’s quite hard to find a huge amount of information on you. [...]

Beck – Modern Guilt

I’ve been a Beck fan ever since I first head “Loser” on the radio back in 1994.  I saw him in concert that year (at local radio station KROQ’s annual Weenie Roast) and I’ve seen him twice since (the most memorable was one year on Cinco De Mayo where he performed with a mariachi band [...]

The Shuffle: “Nobody Hurts You,” Graham Parker and The Rumour (1979)

Some of us never laughed when Jerry Lee Lewis kicked his piano. We knew he wasn’t doing it for laughs; we knew that if Mozart himself had walked into the concert hall, Lewis probably would have kicked him, too, and the president and the pope or whoever else had the balls to step into the [...]

Life is Unfair: The Vapors

Back around 1980, The Vapors scored their only big hit, “Turning Japanese,” which two strange places in my memory. First, around the time it came out, it was parodied on SCTV’s “Gerry Todd Show,” being performed by the unctuous, corduroy-clad lounge lizard Tom Monroe (as played by Rick Moranis), a vision I could never quite [...]

5 Reviews a week – Part 2: A Day Late

OK, I know, I’m a day late. What can I say, I’ve been busy. well anyway, I have a great blog planned for you today. Featuring several bands, OLD and new, even bands from 97(’s). I don’t BLAME you if you find IT strange. But ON that subject, the GRAVITY of the situation is just [...]