Chicago -
By Don Jacobson
Today, a truly special Chicago In Song: We take a look at the signature song of an extremely popular Illinois rock artist who recently died of a tragically preventable disease – a heartfelt ode to his beloved father that is adored by millions of this musician’s fans around the world. And we tell you why it sucks.
Posted on May 20, 2008
By Don Jacobson
You’d think that after all this time I’d despair of finding yet more podcasts that feature the kind of late ’60s/early ’70s psychedelic rock that I love beyond all reason for Playlist. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong because, my friend, apparently anyone who’s ever felt the urge to light up and kick back with the likes of Kaleidoscope, The Creation and The Playground has become a podcast DJ and has taken to the Internet like a hippie to a microdot. There’s so much out there, man. This time, it’s a British dude named Andy who hosts Toffe Sunday Smash, and it is indeed smashing.
Posted on May 12, 2008
By Don Jacobson
1. Just thought you’d like to know: Victoria, Texas, is getting an indie record shop. People there hope Victoria is ready for it. I don’t really know too much about Victoria . . . just what I can Google. And according to that, it’s a city of 60,000 known as the “South Texas Crossroads” and a “cultural hub” for the “Golden Crescent” part of the state down by Corpus Christi.
I’m wondering what kind of culture they have down there, though, because the article about it in The Victoria Advocate kind of makes it sound like an indie record shop is about as foreign to the good people of the Coastal Bend as an arctic yak. It’s called the Rock ‘n’ Roll Candy Store, and, “ready or not,” here it comes.
Posted on May 5, 2008
By Don Jacobson
I’m not so much of a blind Canadaphile to be unaware of the fact that the country has its annoying quirks. Like the Progressive Conservative Party, eh? You cannot be both, I don’t care what country you’re from. And the fact that their Elvis is a figure skater. Weird, and pretty annoying. Still, it makes me wonder how they can come up with things like that and still be as cool as they are. Probably precisely because they think of themselves as so uncool compared to us. Hey, Canadians, wake up! Our Elvis died on the crapper!
Of course Canadian music is also like that. They fret endlessly about how American culture is overwhelming them, but at the same time, if you listen to CBC Radio for instance, it’s like you took one part NPR – so far so good – but then mixed in three parts Clear Channel. You can just feel how their love/hate towards us is pretty heavily weighted toward love, and that they hate themselves for it.
Posted on April 10, 2008
By Don Jacobson
This album has been lumped into the Movie Stars Making Godawful Vanity Projects bin, along with the likes of William Shatner rapping Dylan and Jayne Mansfield reading Shakespearian sonnets. And for the most part, that’s probably where it belongs. But even though it’s most assuredly crap, Chad Everett’s All Strung Out has a couple of worthy moments when the hunky TV doctor starts singing about his love for God in a few original gospel tunes that roll out in a kind of whitebread, early ’70s version of Ike Turner on a Jesus bender.
Posted on March 30, 2008
By Steve Rhodes
1. First the forces of darkness – the bad kind, not the kind we like – came for Punk Planet. Now they’ve come for No Depression. My two favorite magazines. Dead.
“Barring the intercession of unknown angels,” the founders of ND write in the March-April issue, there is just one more to go before the end.
Posted on March 27, 2008
By Don Jacobson
The very strange death of 62-year-old former ABBA drummer Ola Brunkert from a fatal run-in with a pane of glass has to rank right up there with some of the best of a truly head-shakingly strange roster of accidental rock ‘n’ roll demises. Not to diminish the human tragedy of Brunkert’s passing, but let’s face it, karma seems to have a big score to settle with rock musicians. Of course, sound judgment clouded by all sorts of high-living hijinks might have something to do with it, I’ll grant you that. But that alone just cannot explain the sheer volume of weird.
The usually execrable British tabloid The Mirror has taken something of a break from its depressingly yobbish wall-to-wall coverage of Sir Paul’s divorce battle with Heather to provide what seems to be a surprisingly good and accurate top 10 list of the weirdest accidental rock ‘n’ roll deaths of all time. Some, of course, are obvious: It’s The Mirror, when all is said and done. But others, however, I either hadn’t heard of or hadn’t remembered in quite awhile. So a tip of the undertaker’s akubra to The Mirror for providing this melange of misadventure.
Posted on March 18, 2008
By Steve Rhodes
The eerily representative playlist of Comcast’s Music Choice Channels at 6:30 this morning.
*
Sounds of the Seasons: James Galway, “The Minstrel Boy”
Today’s Country: Kellie Pickler, “Things That Never Cross A Man’s Mind”
Classic Country: The Judds, “Have Mercy”
Bluegrass: The Nitty Gritty Dirty Band, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”
Hip-Hop and R&B: Jay-Z, “I Know”
Posted on March 13, 2008
By Don Jacobson
I’m really kind of amused at how a good number of the obits for Mike Smith of the Dave Clark Five called the band unappreciated. Hell, I appreciated them even when, as a precocious moppet, they were the first band – other than the Fab Four themselves – to get a wall poster spot in my very, very humble 1964 bedroom, a place where Smith’s growling “I like it like that” boomed out through the walls many times a day on the wings of a Sylvania solid state portable.
The DC5 were the Beatles if Ringo had been a heavy metal drummer and George had played sax at Chess Records. Their long string of classic British Beat, R&B-influenced songs in what was essentially a two-year period was truly tremendous, and Mike Smith’s considerable contributions to their many melodic delights stand as a great achievement, surely deserving of a spot in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. The Dave Clark Five’s induction is set for today, so Smith’s sad death on Feb. 28 from the aftereffects of a paralyzing accident was oh so ironically ill-timed.
Posted on March 10, 2008
By Don Jacobson
In Mr. Suave’s very British part of the musicverse, everyone speeds on scooters through rainy seaside resort towns at night, popping amphetamines while riding around in their tight suits, looking to spazz their way through a rumble, amped up from listening to Pete Townshend shred a perfect power-pop riff over their transistors. In this place, all the boots are Beatle, the pills are green and the music is mod.
Posted on March 2, 2008
