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,…
Category: Reading lounge
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 –…
Rush, Hell & the Summer of ’81
The stream turned blood orange red that summer. Back in the woods behind the apartment complex where I lived, my friends and I had spent the previous years building small dams, floating things and basically just hanging out. The stream was a drainage stream, and not long after spring had melted into languorous longer days,…
Quest for the Eye of the Orangutan
The night is soft, but charged with danger. Mingled with the sounds of the waves and the land crabs clawing their way up the palms is the whir of the computer drives. The bleeps and blips. The room is bathed in illuminated darkness. Bamboo blinds rattle lightly in the breeze. Out the window, the far-off…
Cabinet of Obscurites: “Rock & Roll Summer Camp 98”
An occasional feature showcasing excellent music by little-known artists who (generally) only put out one or two albums. It’s raucous. It’s communal. It’s a rock n’ roll summer camp! Back in the 1990s, Chris Hudson, cousin of Americana/roots band Blue Mountain’s leader Cary Hudson, had a small record label called Black Dog. In the summer of…
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