Sometimes the back cover or inside artwork of an album is just as good, or better, than the image chosen for the front cover to sell the music. Case in point – the spectacular hippie-ness of the above, from Mellow Candle’s Swaddling Songs (1972). No, those images are not supposed be parodies (even the headband…
Author: Rob
Freedy Johnston’s “Neon Repairman”
On the surface, it’s a simple song – mainly voice and acoustic guitar, straight-forward lyrics. But Freedy Johnston’s “Neon Repairman” has more going on than first meets the ear. The track comes from Johnston’s 2015 album of the same name, far into a recording career which found him lauded by Rolling Stone as 1994’s “songwriter…
Bernard Sumner’s (Joy Divison) “Chapter and Verse”
Somehow I missed Joy Division when they were current (I was pretty young at the time). New Order, which evolved from Joy Division after lead singer Ian Curtis’ suicide, didn’t really appear on my radar much either. Because they were so British and didn’t get as much American airplay? I don’t know. Over the years,…
Paul Kantner and “The Light”
Another veteran musician shuffles off this mortal coil, off to “hijack a starship” into the great unknown. Paul Kantner was always one of the most adventurous and forward thinking of the 60s “hippie generation.” Always trying to tear down the walls through music and ideas: the walls put up by the status quo, backwards politicians,…
Michael Chapman (who’s not fond of mornings) and “Northern Lights”
Michael Chapman celebrated his 75th birthday the other day. You might be saying “who?”, and, if so, you wouldn’t be alone. I asked about his music in a used record store once and the owner said “Oh, yeah, that guy from Monty Python!” No, that was Graham Chapman. “Oh, wait, wasn’t he in the band…
Reflections on Frey, Bowie, and “Take It Easy”
With David Bowie and Glenn Frey both dying unexpectedly this week, social media and the news have been abuzz. And rightly so. Both, Bowie especially, made huge contributions to popular music. Of course, you can’t really compare the two because (as the cliché goes), it’s like comparing apples and oranges. Yet, Bowie and Frey –…
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