40 licks, ripped out of time, for your listening pleasure. Has there ever been a rock band as cool as The Brian Jonestown Massacre? Hailed as “The Velvet Underground of the 90’s,” with a turbulent past characterized by rivalry and crime, a vitriolic hatred of the corporate music industry, and a requisite tortured genius of …
One of the songs Elvis Presley liked to perform in the ’70s was Joe South’s “Walk a Mile in My Shoes,” its message clearly spelled out in the title. Sometimes he would preface it with the 1951 Hank Williams recitation “Men With Broken Hearts,” which may well have been South’s original inspiration. “You’ve never walked …
Happy Birthday, Jason Pierce! Jason Pierce (a.k.a. the Spaceman) is an alchemist of the best sort – summoning sounds disparate yet similar in their scope and intensity, whether blues & gospel, psychedelic or electronic, the focus is on the core, the seed, beneath these layers of music: a cosmic drone which clears the mind and …
There is a rule of thumb for music that I like: the simpler it is, the better I like it. John Lee Hooker is the measure of all things in this regard. I admire him for everything he has achieved within blues- a pioneer and visionary of the kind who is born maybe once every …
Townes Van Zandt has been nicknamed the “Texas troubadour” and this is an apt description of the tragic singer-songwriter. Similar to John Keats and Dylan Thomas, Townes Van Zandt experienced a creative explosion between the ages of 24 – 25. His lyrics are inspired by the extremes in the landscapes of his home state of …
