By Don Jacobson

Oh, Canadian female rockers (CFRs). How we love thee.
Anyone who reads the Beachwood with any regularity knows that editor Steve Rhodes has a fascination with Avril Lavigne that at times goes so far as to confuse her with Paul Westerberg. While I’m not willing to go quite that far, I will admit that I, too, have a thing for Avril and her skull fetish. She is so rock ‘n’ roll and hails from the True North Strong ‘n’ Free. Oh, Avril, I stand on guard for thee.
But she’s not the only CFR on the prowl. Thanks to Canwest News Service, we have a list of what some of the other members of this coolest of all clubs are up to in this coldest of all months, as the Alberta Clippers whistle through the broken window glass in the Chicago tenements of our souls, chilling and thrilling us with their loon-like trillings. These ladies make me proud to be someone who wishes they were from Moose Jaw.

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Posted on January 17, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

Originally published on January 4; now updated with comments from Patterson Hood.
*
“I have never quite loved the Drive-By Truckers,” Jesse Fox Mayshark writes in the latest No Depression. “For one thing, I have always been a little put off by the awkward self-awareness of Patterson Hood’s ambitions. God knows the moral and cultural geography of the modern South cries out for cartographers, but it’s one thing to talk about a map – he talks about it a lot – and another to draw it.
“Hood is a messy draftsman, sometimes relying on broad lines when he needs shading, sometimes counting on vague gestures to carry meaning that he himself hasn’t really thought through. (‘The duality of the Southern thing’) sounds smart enough when you hear him say it, but it doesn’t actually communicate much.)
“And like Paul Westerberg, one of his obvious influences, he’s gotten less funny as he’s gone along, maybe mistaking a straight face for seriousness.’
Here, here, Jesse Fox Mayshark! Finally a critical word for the critics’ darlings.
I have never understood the appeal of the Drive-By Truckers; I watched in horror and depressing amazement as they rose in popularity and stature within the alt-country community. I mean, these guys?

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Posted on January 14, 2008

By Don Jacobson

I saw one of those damn Volkswagen commercials using Wilco’s music again today and I’m still not resigned to it. It still upsets me, probably because I really thought Jeff Tweedy and friends had that special something that elevates their rock ‘n’ roll art beyond crass commerce – an apparently naive belief. They’ve had a pair of Top 10 albums, after all (including their latest, Sky Blue Sky), and while I’m certainly not going to say the guys in the band should be forced to busk on the streets, wasn’t there enough money coming in?

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Posted on December 3, 2007

By Don Jacobson

1. It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to be a “famous rocker.” You know, like Gunnar Nelson and his wonderful, flowing hair (Matthew, too, though maybe not quite as famous). And that one guy from Night Ranger (mmmmm . . . motorin‘.) I’m talking about NR’s Kelly Keagy. As everyone, and I mean everyone, knows, Kelly was NR’s singing drummer. What a famous rockin’ role model he is!

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Posted on October 29, 2007

By Don Jacobson

They’re the world’s biggest and coolest street performers. They set up their primo gear on the sidewalk at the corner of OK Computer Street and Electric Avenue, throw down their PayPal hat on the virtual concrete and just start playing, letting all passers-by on the information superhighway get an earful for free but asking them to reach into their hearts and wallets to contribute to the cause.
Radiohead’s much-discussed Internet business model for its new album In Rainbows is one that has a lot of appeal because, if it works, it would make street buskers out of the most arrogant of rock stars and, oh please let it be so, consign the whole rapacious record industry to the cut-out bin of history.

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Posted on October 15, 2007

By Don Jacobson

Kid Rock: Not just a “lap-dance soundtrack” anymore?
Supposedly not, according to the Los Angeles Times, which says Kid’s new LP, Rock ‘n’ Roll Jesus, is more of a classic rock 8-track ride, along the lines of Bob Seger and, oh my, Skynyrd, than Kid’s usual “lap-dance soundtrack,” the rap metal so beloved of strippers and their fans everywhere. You know, I wish that, rather than at some fancy awards show, Kid Rock and Tommy Lee could have run into to each other at, say, Thee Dollhouse in Tampa. Man, then they could have really settled the whole Pam thing for good right then and there – with a dance-off.

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Posted on October 8, 2007

By Don Jacobson

To anyone who grew up admiring the values and raw energy of punk rock in the late 1970s and early 1980s, yet didn’t get a Mohawk or pierce up, there’s always been a (sometimes strident) tone of condescension toward we more mainstream fans from the true believers who spent long days fighting the man on streets of the big city, then, exhausted from their virtuous struggle, taking their well-deserved rest on the floor of whatever coldwater squat they could scrounge. These guys always wanted to make punk rock less a cultural movement than some kind of meritocracy: “You have to prove you’re good enough to listen to our music, man.”
We were poseurs.

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Posted on September 4, 2007

By Don Jacobson

1. Tears were shed in Boston over the weekend as Brad Delp was remembered in a big tribute rock show at the Bank of America Pavilion on the city’s waterfront. And although the show succeeded in bringing together nearly everybody who’d ever played in the band Boston, the chance to honor Delp wasn’t enough for Tom Scholz to bury the hatchet with the band’s best drummer, Sib Hashian.

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Posted on August 21, 2007

By The Beachwood RockNotes Affairs Desk

1. The webcast of Pearl Jam’s performance here at Lollapalooza last weekend was censored by AT&T.
“After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the ‘Blue Room’ Live Lollapalooza Webcast,” Pearl Jam says on its blog.
“When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them,” the band says.
“During the performance of ‘Daughter’ the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ but were cut from the webcast:
– ‘George Bush, leave this world alone.’ (the second time it was sung); and
– ‘George Bush find yourself another home.'”

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Posted on August 9, 2007

By Don Jacobson

Two new rock ‘n’ roll books are on my radar, one that chronicles how a terrific music scene can spring up and prosper in an unlikely place and another that takes a clear-eyed look at the perils and rewards in the everyday lives of rock world working stiffs.
1. I know the Beachwood is a Chicago thing, like Jake, the so-called “Neighborhood Guy” says on those never-ending Old Style radio commercials they play during the Cubs games. “The Spindle. It’s a Chicago thing.” “The Outfit. It’s a Chicago thing.” “Horrible watery beer made in Wisconsin. It’s a Chicago thing.”
But I also like to think that broad musical tastes are a Chicago thing as well, which is the justification I’m using to take this opportunity to relate a few highlights of a new book about Minnesota’s rock music history. Full disclosure impels me to say that I’m a St. Paulite by birth and current residence, but also a former Chicagoan who paid his dues with all the “neighborhood guys” hanging around outside the group homes at the Bryn Mawr Red Line station, so, yah know, there yah go, okay? I know you like Minnesota bands, you really can’t fool me, so let me tell you a bit about Music Legends: A Rewind on the Minnesota Music Scene by Martin Keller.

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Posted on July 30, 2007