Chicago -
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.
Posted on August 21, 2007
By Don Jacobson
1. Billy Bob, Billy Bob. How much cooler can you get? In the mostly pathetic pantheon of movie types who grab a mike and a guitar, saunter onstage with an All-Star pick-up band and think they’re rock stars, Thornton rates highly – a near-miss. And that makes him the best member of that company I’ve ever heard. Way, way better than someone like Keanu Reeves, and not just because Billy Bob plays thoughtful alternative country instead of Keanu’s party-on alternative rock, although it helps. No, it’s more because he brings that same kind of barely un-ironic, effortless redneck intellectualism that I love from his best movie roles into his songs as well. Billy Bob’s the real deal – if he could sing just a little bit better he’d make a pretty good living out on the high-end country bar and festival circuit.
Posted on August 15, 2007
By Don Jacobson
Most blues and rhythm and blues songs prior to the 1970s – when Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye and James Brown pioneered a socially conscious black music – rarely had any topical references in them. Thus, references to Chicago in early R&B and soul music, even from records made in the city (and there were tens of thousands of them) are not commonplace. The geographic references mentioned in the following records seem ordinary but they are invested with a lot of meaning for the listener, who can vividly see and acutely hear the images and sounds conjured from the simple references.
Snooky and Moody’s Boogie/Snooky Pryor and Moody Jones
This downhome blues number from 1949 swings with verve, and Snooky Pryor with his piercingly sharp harp sound blows with elan. Guitarist Moody Jones strums with a robust boogie beat. The number is mostly instrumental, but Pryor talks the lyrics in places, opening with an evocative reference to his neighborhood:
One day
I was walking down Sedgwick Street
I heard a boogie right ’round the corner
Boys, it took me off my feet
And I had to boogie, too.
At 941 N. Sedgwick, Chester and Clara Scales operated the Northside Playland and Record Shop, and owned the Planet label that released “Boogie.” The shop was right in the midst of a small African-American community, at the intersection of Sedgwick and Division, with several blues clubs nearby, notably the Square Deal at 230 W. Division. Snooky and Moody, as did many transplanted southerners, were not yet union members and played on the street instead of in the clubs. “Boogie” could have been about them.
Posted on August 13, 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.'”
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.
Posted on July 30, 2007
By The Beachwood Grandstand Affairs Desk
A comparison of acts coming to grandstands, Miller Lite Main Stages, Budweiser Music Pavilions and Leinie Lodges at state fairs near you.
*
FAIR: Wisconsin State Fair
MOTTO: The Grand Champion of Summer
DATE: August 2 – 12
LINEUP
Doobie Brothers w/Kansas
Posted on July 25, 2007
By Don Jacobson
Roky Erickson turned 60 this month, and, really, that’s something of a miracle right there. Not only did he manage to survive the acid-drenched late ’60s San Francisco psychedelic rock scene, where he was considered something of a magic child in a culture where such prodigies were frequently worshipped to death, but also the long, lonely years that followed in which he coped as best he could with the ravages of mental illness under the misinformed and smothering guardianship of his wacky mother back home in Austin, Texas. That he is now seemingly fully recovered from his “schizophrenia” (a disputed diagnosis) – free even of anti-psychotic drugs – and has made a triumphant return to the rock ‘n’ roll stage is a story that has few equals even in the excess-stained annals of music lore.
Posted on July 23, 2007
By Don Jacobson
1. Even 30 years after his death, Elvis Presley continues to be a never-ending cheese factory. It’s amazing how he’s managed to do that. Then again, unlike fellow ubiquitons (my brand-new term for movie and rock cultural icons that are so overexposed their relevance has changed from who they actually were to the fact that they are ubiquitous) Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, Presley’s handlers – like “Colonel” Parker – seemed as if they were cynically planning for the post-mortem nostalgia market from the get-go. How else could you explain the fact that Dead Elvis raked in $52 million in 2005, according to Forbes, the most of any deceased celeb?
Posted on July 16, 2007
By Anne Elizabeth Moore
Of all the wacky responses I got from the announcement of Punk Planet’s closure (“Have you considered going online?”, “Why don’t you just move to Canada?” and “Why didn’t you warn me?!”) by far the most prescient was this one:
“Sucks. Does it have anything to do with this?”
In fact it does. Not in the sense that I’m so disgusted with Sonic Youth for signing with Starbucks that I must give up on the idea of supporting autonomous music cultures (although I sympathize with those who are), but in the sense that Sonic Youth is willing to do what I was not. And soon, that may be what it takes to survive in culture. Which does, indeed, disgust me.
Posted on July 12, 2007
By Don Jacobson
The Live Earth effort was so huge that it was impossible for one humble reviewer to digest it all. I spent most of Saturday hunkered down in the basement media center with my iBook hooked up to the stereo, watching the different feeds from all the stages live on MSN.com, which in and of itself was pretty cool, as was the basement media center, considering at was about 100 degrees out in the real world, so nice timing there. I also listened a bit to XM Radio’s audio coverage.
The job MSN.com on Live Earth did was truly a breakthrough in using the Internet to stream live coverage of an event. Utterly comprehensive. It probably took someone with the mammoth servers of a Microsoft to do this, because I’m sure the demand must have been overwhelming and yet only once during the day did I encounter a “servers too busy” message. The sound quality was excellent, and since I have a Mac, I was using Flip4Mac to convert the Windows Media Player streams into QuickTime. The results were great. There was absolutely no skipping, no freezing . . . I couldn’t have asked for more, really. The experience was far superior to watching the NBC highlight reel on Saturday night. It reminded me of watching NBC’s coverage of the Olympics when the games are held overseas – that is, truncated and after-the-fact.
That being said, I think I was able to watch a fair amount of the proceedings, and was able to compile a few choice moments.
Posted on July 9, 2007
