Chicago -
By Don Jacobson
Rock has had seven “ages,” according to BBC Television, which has launched what seems like a pretty darn comprehensive seven-week, seven-part documentary called, appropriately, The Seven Ages of Rock, which works out to one age per week. That’s a lot to cover. Here’s how they break down the history of rock ‘n’ roll.
Posted on May 21, 2007
By Steve Rhodes
The jukebox run from May 18, 2007.
1. Another Done Somebody Wrong Song/BJ Thomas. Hey, won’t you play, another somebody done somebody wrong song? ‘Cause I miss my baby.
2. School’s Out/Alice Cooper. A graduation party came into the bar the other night. A college graduation party. Plus, Beachwood Bob likes to keep the jukebox seasonal. So this went on the box instead of “Eighteen.”
3. Behind Closed Doors/Charlie Rich. This is a great song, but let’s face it: Everyone knows what goes on behind closed doors.
Posted on May 21, 2007
By Don Jacobson
This is the moment in 1966 when the steam starting coming out of a Righteous Brothers juggernaut that, thanks largely to the ever-lovable Phil Spector, had all but invented the genre of “blue-eyed soul” during the preceding two years. Only 12 months after Verve Records had succeeded in prying the (probably very grateful) Righteous boys away from gun-totin’ Phil for the then-unheard of sum of $1 million, not even Carole King and Gerry Goffin could keep the times from changing, and it shows on Sayin’ Somethin’.
Posted on May 14, 2007
By Don Jacobson
1. If you met Bowzer from Sha Na Na, would you be “star-struck”? Moreover, would you do his political bidding? Apparently bowled over by the who-knew star power of the 1970s doo-wopper, that’s what legislators in 10 states have done, according to the Associated Press, which reports that Tennessee, the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll, has passed Bowzer’s Law (my name for it), which makes it illegal to pass yourself off as an original 1950s vocal group.
Posted on May 11, 2007
By Don Jacobson
1. Thursday’s Velvet Revolver show at the Riviera is sold out. Why? Maybe it’s because no less an expert than Sammy Hagar says they’re “the best rock ‘n’ roll band left on the planet.” That kind of endorsement I’m sure sent the fans a’running to their nearest Ticketmaster outlet. It assumes there were only a finite number of rock ‘n’ roll bands to begin with. Perhaps Sammy thinks they stopped making them after Scott Weiland’s Stone Temple Pilots broke up. Now Weiland’s got fellow hard rock dinosaurs Slash and Duff with him in Velvet Revolver, so everybody else who believes there hasn’t been any good rock since Axl jumped the shark can rejoice this week. Oh, and keep in mind Sammy also endorsed the Bush-Cheney campaign. I guess that means they’re the best ol’ leaders left on the planet.
Posted on May 9, 2007
By Don Jacobson
Much as I loooove to hate them, I have to admit that I could be detecting a tiny glimmer of mercy in the steely eyes of Clear Channel Radio. Could they finally be thinking of, gulp, music fans? Are they wising up in the face of stupendous competition from satellite radio and the Internet and devising an alt-slash-southern-slash-outlaw country format that might, just might, be worth listening to? I know, it’s crazy, right?
Posted on May 1, 2007
By Don Jacobson
Rolling Stone magazine. God love ’em. It’s kind of like Saturday Night Live – you keep expecting them to go away, but somehow they hang in there, putting out a certain brand of something that keeps drawing us back year after year no matter how much you think it’s nothing but a dirty habit. Despite all the, you know, meaninglessness of these “greatest” lists Rolling Stone seems to do about once a week, they continue to grab attention. It’s force of habit. They’re Rolling Stone. They do lists.
Well, so do we, dammit. Ours is called Playlist, with the big difference being our lists are rarely about the “greatest” of anything, and are usually just collections of random shit that seem to fit well together for whatever reason. But because the master of lists has spoken, we will honor the occasion with our own breakdown of Rolling Stone’s “40 Songs That Changed the World,” which is in honor of the venerable mag’s 40 years of Baby Boomer voice-giving.
Posted on April 24, 2007
By Don Jacobson
Stop the presses! We find song lyrics that actually put Chicago in a good light. I guess if you stick with something long enough, you’ll see everything. Also, a violent song about a violent town that eerily predicted a violent act by its writer, all in this episode of Chicago In Song.
Posted on April 17, 2007
By Don Jacobson
When you look at the carefully trimmed beard of Mark Lindsay on the cover of his 1970 solo album Arizona, you can just feel where it’s going: The photogenic facial hair, along with the turtleneck sweater, means it’ll be a trip to easy listening land, an effort to reinvent one of the choicest teen garage rock heartthrobs of the ’60s into a kind of tad-more-happenin’ Glen Campbell. And for a couple of songs, it works.
Posted on April 8, 2007
By Don Jacobson
This time in Don’s Root Cellar, does anybody really know what “alternative country” is? And does it matter? Also, Nick Lowe croons again and we finally find a pro athlete whose musical taste doesn’t suck.
1. What is “alternative country?”
The thing about it is, even though it’s what I listen to most nowadays, I really can’t answer that question. I just kind of know it when I hear it. The term encompasses so much diversity – much more than what would be reasonably included in, say, the terms “grunge” or “brit pop” or “garage rock” – that fans and music writers have been spilling blood over the question for quite some time now. I mean, when a “genre” can encompass everything from the austere, traditional acoustic laments of Freakwater to the Skynyrd-esque rawk of Drive-By Truckers, is “alt country” really a definable genre at all?
The “no” side has a lot of takers, and I’m one of them. They rightly say that rather than being a “something,” alt country is really more about not being something – that something being corporate Nashville dreck. So, ultimately, I think, “alt-country” isn’t a particular style of music so much as it is an attitude. I’d say that attitude predominantly consists of a rejection of the right-wing politics and phony TV preacher kind of sheen that Nashville has been reveling in ever since Reagan was king – along with a simultaneous embrace of real American values that have been all but lost, such as honesty, social justice and, yeah, even religion – but the old-fashioned kind that preaches love thy neighbor.
Posted on March 29, 2007
