When the news broke a couple weeks ago that Boston lead singer Brad Delp had committed suicide, I suggested to the Beachwood Elders that a look back at the band’s monster debut album might be in store. Our fabulous TV writer Scott Buckner answered the call, but his antipathy toward the record surprised me. I think it’s a classic. Here’s Buckner’s take followed by my own. If you’d like to weigh in yourself, use this contact form and we’ll publish the responses.
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Like 16 million everyone elses and their ugly cousin, I bought Boston when it came out in September 1976, when I was starting my junior year in high school. We just thought it was an incredibly great album on so many levels, and it ended up breaking new ground that few other bands – or albums — manage to accomplish.
With the help of FM radio, the album accomplished something else incredibly amazing, even before the end of its two-year run on the charts: It managed to cause a major portion of us 16 million to become so sick of hearing it that we basically ignored anything else the band put out afterward. Putting out two other albums that sounded the same as the first one we were already sick of didn’t help, but still. This is why, along with anything by Elvis Presley and The Beach Boys, there are three individual songs I can identify in two notes that will have me bolting for the radio exit door: “The House of the Rising Sun,” “Stairway to Heaven,” and Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.”

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Posted on March 27, 2007

By Matt Cook and John Dorr

Every Monday at noon, Matt Cook and John Dorr host Trucker Caps and Cowboy Hats on WIIT from the Illinois Institute of Technology on Chicago’s South Side. You can listen in at 88.9 on the FM dial or stream it here. Each week they concoct some sort of theme to hang the show on, and this is what they’ve been listening to this week in support of their hand-picked motif.
It is the middle of March in the Midwest of the United States. It snowed all winter long in Chicago and it’s worse elsewhere. We had 10 days in a row of single-digit temps and we see the sun only for a few minutes per day every third day or so. It really can bring a man down.
So what do we do to get us through the long days and longer winter? We drink, of course. But we also turn to music. This time, a playlist of songs that feature the sun, which we almost remember, mainly via pictures.
1. Ray Charles, “That Lucky Old Sun.” From the seminal Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, “That Lucky Old Sun” starts us off with some fine imagery. Ah, the joy of simply lazing away the day on a bed of clouds, as opposed to de-icing frozen car locks. Written by Haven Gillespie and Harry Beasley Smith.

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Posted on March 23, 2007

By Don Jacobson

As regular readers of Chicago In Song know, my journey down the byways of the city’s references in popular music has borne some bitter fruit. Initially hoping there would be some kind of diversity in its portrayal, what I’ve discovered is that Chicago holds a fairly uniform place in the imaginations of the nation’s songwriters. The fact the city usually represents everything that’s wrong with the world hasn’t changed too much along the way; only the level of loathing seems to vary a bit from song to song, artist to artist, genre to genre.
As this exploration has shown, the city has been bashed in the blues, old-time country, ’60s classic rock, alternative and college rock, you name it. Now we can add bouncy post-punk to the list. And this time it’s personal because it’s coming from the locals. The Lawrence Arms cover the city and Lucky Boys Confusion take on the outlying areas.

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Posted on March 16, 2007

By The Beachwood Macca Affairs Desk

“Former Beatle Paul McCartney will be the first artist signed to coffee chain Starbucks’ new record label since splitting from Capitol Records after a 43-year relationship.”
– Ireland Online

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Posted on March 13, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

“(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” will live on in some minds as the greatest cowbell song ever (lovingly) parodied on Saturday Night Live, but the album from which that timeless classic sprang is as surprising and mysterious a recording as the band that made it.

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Posted on March 11, 2007

By Don Jacobson

CBC Radio can be criticized for many of the same things that can fairly be said about National Public Radio in the United States: It can be pedantic, infuriatingly stodgy and its high culture outlook results in a lot of classical music references. Part of me is glad someone is out there being very, very smart – and, to be fair, the CBC does loosen up quite a bit on weekends with some very good jazz and avant-garde music programs. But on the whole it’s just not something I’d listen to much if it were down to a choice between that and, say, a hockey game, eh?
But also north of the border they’ve got something of a commitment to indie rock, hip-hop and electronica through a program on the CBC Radio 2 FM network. Airing Saturday nights across Canada from Moncton to Burnaby, it’s called (confusingly enough) CBC Radio 3, and subtitled Breaking New Sound. It’s hosted by CBC jock Grant Lawrence, who has fashioned the show into a satisfyingly rich free weekly podcast of strictly Canadian music.
The podcast and website will soon be the only ways even Canadians can listen to CBC Radio 3 without paying. Starting this month, it will be kicked off the terrestrial CBC schedule and be broadcast exclusively on Sirius Satellite Radio. But it’s worth tracking down. Is it really the best radio show in the world as some claim? Maybe this playlist will help you judge that assertion. This is from the CBC Radio 3 podcast for the week of March 4, 2007.

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Posted on March 5, 2007

By Don Jacobson

It’s always a shock to lose part of your foundation because it makes your whole house tremble, and that’s what happened to the structure of contemporary roots music on Feb. 22 when Kirk Rundstrom died of cancer at a tragically young 38 years of age.
The man who in recent years achieved his greatest success as part of the Kansas-based “hillbilly hardcore” punk/metal/bluegrass band Split Lip Rayfield was a cornerstone upon which the alt country edifice was built. In the mid-1990s when alt country was just emerging – with Chicago as one of its crucial hotbeds – Rundstrom was a regular on the city’s bar stages, then playing mostly with his former band Scroat Belly and as a solo act. I can fairly say that he, along with Wilco, Son Volt, the Old 97s and a very few others, were the folks who most firmly convinced me then that “country” music wasn’t necessarily an evil thing, and that, done in the kind of truly alternative way they personified, actually represented the purest modern-day representation of the spirit of 1960s rock ‘n’ roll.

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Posted on February 27, 2007

By The Beachwood KISS Affairs Desk

From: Carol Kaye <carol@kayosproductions.com>
Date: February 23, 2007 10:12:29 AM CST
To: press@kayosproductions.com
Subject: Ace Responds to Rumors of His Demise
For Immediate Release
Contact: Carol Kaye
Kayos Productions Inc.
(212) 366-9970
ACE RESPONDS TO RUMORS OF HIS DEMISE
New York, NY (February 23, 2007) – “Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated” – Ace Frehley
Contrary to published reports, Ace Frehley, formerly of KISS, is alive and well and working on his highly anticipated solo album.</carol@kayosproductions.com>

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Posted on February 23, 2007

By Don Jacobson

On a seemingly literate rock music website in the U.K., there’s a poll question that asks with a straight face, “Is Bob Dylan a God?” Sweetening the bait was that five lucky poll respondents would win the ultimate prize: a free LP copy of the newest – and apparently bestest – Dylan release, Modern Times. I’m guessing the U.K. vote in favor of elevating our once-and-future favorite Minnesota son to godhood is running about 999,999-to-1, with the lone holdout claiming mere godhood isn’t good enough for Bob: “Nope. He’s, like, God’s god, man.”
Dylan made a new record and so it is written he must win the first Grammy for a best “Americana” album because all the worshipping is seriously getting out of control. In evidence I offer that the track “Someday Baby” was nominated for best rock song and best rock vocal as well, for God’s sake! Apparently, Modern Times is not only the best Americana out there, it’s also the best rock ‘n’ roll . . . I guess I hadn’t realized that. Beck, you watch yer ass!

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Posted on February 12, 2007

By Matt Cook and John Dorr

Every Monday from 12-2 Matt Cook and John Dorr host Trucker Caps and Cowboy Hats on WIIT-FM Radio 88.9, from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Each week they concoct some sort of theme to hang the show on and this is what they’ve been listening to this week in light of their hand-picked motif.
With the recent news of the minimum wage hike, it seemed a good time to examine the nexus between economics and country music. So let’s look at some famous and not-so-famous country artists who opine on being poor, rich, on the dole and longing for the day that they might could have made $7.25 an hour.
First, it is important to know that having money isn’t really all that it is cracked up to be. So, if you’re like me, be glad that you’re poor.
1. Porter Wagoner, “Satisfied Mind.” Porter always comes off a jackass most ways but word is that he drinks more than his share and is an OK guy once the clown suit comes off. This was a No. 1 hit for Wagoner in 1955 and stayed at that spot for more than a month.
2. Bobby Hebb, “Satisfied Mind.” Hebb is known best for his smash hit “Sunny,” but his country cred is A-number-1. He grew up in Nashville and joined Roy Acuff’s Smokey Mountain Boys and played the Grand Ol’ Opry with Acuff in the early ’50s. This romp is a country soul classic and an instant hit and should be included in any party mix.
3. Jeanne Pruett, “Satin Sheets.” Known first as a songwriter with some success (penning Marty Robbins’ Top-10 hit “Love Me”), this tune was Pruett’s first hit going No. 1 in 1973, which led in turn to her joining the Grand Ol’ Opry. Not just a songwriter, she also wrote a cookbook in 1986 called Feedin’ Friends which you might have seen hawked on TNN. I’ve always just loved this three-chord ballad largely because of its simplicity. In the Encyclopedia of Country Music under the Pruett entry, it says that her manager sent out several hundred copies of the single to radio programmers with a piece of pink satin stapled to the dust jacket. Why aren’t unsigned bands doing stuff like that now?

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Posted on February 12, 2007