Chicago -
By Don Jacobson
In this edition:
Little Ole Wine Drinker Me / Dean Martin
The Woman Downstairs / Handsome Family
Even though Dean Martin never lived here, he and Chicago really go together. It probably comes from the fact that Dino spent so many nights here in the ’50s and ’60s playing gigs in mob-owned nightclubs, ostensibly paying back his early-career gambling debts.
Posted on November 16, 2006
By The Beachwood Playlist Affairs Desk
“The way Men’s Journal editors see it, a road trip isn’t really a road trip without the perfect soundtrack. That’s why they selected the 25 greatest traveling songs from eMusic’s massive catalogue of hits.”
– Special advertising promotion, Men’s Journal
1. On The Road Again/Willie Nelson
2. To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)/Ryan Adams
3. Sun Is Shining/Bob Marley
Posted on November 8, 2006
By Don Jacobson
Mmmmm, Stony Brook. I know it’s probably just another crappy-ass town on Long Island, but the name sounds so cool. Like there’s a bunch of folks hanging out down by this beautiful babbling brook who are, well, getting stonyed. And they all gather ’round to listen to their fine local non-commercial radio station, WUSB-FM – also known as Radio Free Long Island – especially on Tuesday nights, when the Tuesday Night Rock and Roll Dance Party is on the air. As Gene Vincent sings about pink Thunderbirds, they start dancing across the stones, deftly avoiding the rushing water below. In my mind’s eye, it’s truly an inspiring sight. Three hours later, the dancers are still high and dry, yet drenched in the sounds of garage rock at its best.
Posted on November 3, 2006
By Don Jacobson
To a jaded Minnesotan who lived through the administration of one dubious-celebrity-turned-governor, the candidacy of Kinky Friedman for the Texas governor’s mansion doesn’t quite hold the same irresistible allure as it appears to have to the rest of the country. I saw what happened in St. Paul with Jesse Ventura and I’m not sure I’d wish that on Texas, even though that place is one heckuva political cesspool that could do with more Jewish cowboys and fewer corporate Nazis in office. But still, if you judge strictly on underlying talent, Kinky has it all over Jesse. Despite his reputation as a musical satirist a la Frank Zappa, two new albums show Friedman is more than just a joke – his “cosmic country” songwriting from the 1970s and later reveals that just like Zappa, there’s meat on them funnybones.
Posted on October 23, 2006
By Don Jacobson
A couple things got me thinking about good ol’ Lounge Ax today: the closing of CBGB in New York and the re-opening of the Biograph Theater on Lincoln Avenue as a glittery new hangout for the CSI actor guy. CBGB’s closing, of course, is a replay of that dismal day nearly seven years ago when Lounge Ax gave up the ghost as Jon Langford belted out a few choice Johnny Cash covers on its beloved cramped stage, while the Biograph is right across the street from Lounge Ax’s former space, now occupied by a trendy martini bar with pristine white walls.
Posted on October 17, 2006
By Mick Dumke
Def Leppard has always been cool . . . at least for some of us.
Posted on October 16, 2006
By Don Jacobson
Out in the suburban expanse of Southern California is a little lady named Wanda who’ll steer you right when it comes to the best roots music in sight: she’s running a great, Internet-streamed radio show that Minnie Pearl could yodel from one end of the O.C. to the other.
Posted on October 9, 2006
By Leigh Novak
I am incapable of listening to music casually. There is no such thing as “background” music to me. This has consequences.
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For example, a couple months ago I was riding my Schwinn Cruiser, “Ruby,” down a busy suburban road when, suddenly, through the dense trees of someone’s backyard, I heard the caramelly sweetness of “Unchained Melody.” I smiled at this random opportunity to hear a classic tune, but kept biking, purely for traffic flow and safety reasons (that’s right, I roll Ruby helmet-less, tempting death and fate at every turn of suburbia). I felt a tinge of sadness as I rode out of range just when the song was about to climax. This would not do. I whipped my bike around and made it back just in time to hear the Righteous Brothers take it to the hizz-ouse (I-I-I neeheeheed your lu-huv!). I managed to flatten a tire somewhere in the whipping around and the hizz-ouse, but dammit, I got to hear the song. I chuckled to myself as I walked my wounded Ruby home. Something like this would surely happen to me.
I consider music to be my, uhhh, vehicle of spirituality. By which I mean, some people sit through church sermons or read bibles, whereas I immerse myself in an album and believe my spirit feels just as enriched for the experience.
Even more specifically, Radiohead is my religion; their albums constitute the books of my Bible. I try not to use that statement lightly, although I am afraid most people do not grasp the seriousness with which I present it. The permanent inkings on my body pay homage to Yorke & Co. in the same way that a devout Christian needles a crucifix on his body to honor the Jeebster.
Posted on September 30, 2006
By Leigh Novak
You know how most pencils have those little rose-colored erasers at the end? Every once in a while, I come across one of those erasers, and for whatever reason, it doesn’t erase for shit. These erasers are rigid and almost waxy; they smear my errors into leaden skid marks around the page, snickering as my mistakes are highlighted, somehow bolder and more permanent than they were before the futile rubbing.
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A good eraser maintains a backbone, never crumbles and remains flexible to your pressure changes. A good eraser jigs playfully over your writing, happily and cleanly removing any proof that you are less than perfect. John Rose knows what I’m talking about.
Thom Yorke’s first “solo” effort, The Eraser, is a jigging album; its charm is its simplicity, and the cleanliness of Yorke’s hauntingly sublime voice (a crispness that is sometimes smudged on Radiohead albums, due to the equal talents of each band member). Yorke’s hesitation to label The Eraser as a solo album is understandable. Like a television spin-off series, a solo career can imply the failure of a larger work, often marked by bitterness from remaining members of another venture. In this case, though, Radiohead strongly supported Yorke’s solo pursuit (guitarist Johnny Greenwood even provides piano for The Eraser’s title track), and moreover, the release of Yorke’s album coincides with the promising buzz of a seventh Radiohead album.
Posted on September 30, 2006
By Don Jacobson
Ever since I told people I was going to see a Tommy Keene show, I’ve found it suprisingly hard to explain to these folks (mostly 20-somethings) just what “power pop” is. I always knew it was a niche, but I also always thought it was quite a substantial one. Now realize I was so far into it during its heyday in the 1980s – which in turn made me ultra-aware of how it was influencing vast swaths of the rock kingdom – that I just assumed most music fans, even the younger ones, knew what it was.
Apparently not.
Posted on September 29, 2006
