It’s a little after 2:00 AM in Chicago on the morning of 2-5-09, and I just heard the news that Lux Interior, vocalist and frontman of The Cramps transitioned into spirit. I remember him fondly when my band performed with The Cramps for two nights at CBGB’s in early December of 1977. For his performance, [...]
When I saw a blog entry on a documentary about Iraq’s first heavy metal band, I was absolutely intrigued. Does the music sound Middle Eastern? Are the harmonies western, eastern or a combination of both? What does the group look like? How could a band play the “devil’s music” in of all places – Iraq? [...]
Certainly, the collective mind set is ok enough with the current state of the musical union that things just keep rolling along without any drastic change in sight. Of course, there have always been a multitude of artists and styles out there in any time period. However, nowadays there are far more artists, styles, and [...]
Regarding the extensive use of technology and high tech trickery in the music business, we probably all remember how Milli Vanilli was busted for lip-synching live (and not even singing in the studio on their own records). In the heyday of the MTV era, they were brought into the project to sell it visually, because [...]
Even though we now have You Tube and My Space, along with Facebook and other similar sites, the music business has become so much smaller, and the thing that a lot of people don’t get, is that as the profitability shrinks, exciting and fresh new artistic options also shrivel up. Simply stated, one has to be [...]
In a sense, what the world wants is exactly what the world gets, one could say. As the public makes certain artists famous, those choices reflect on the values and sensibilities of the collective cultural consciousness. With the current climate of music, the answers are not simple as to what happened that got us here [...]
I have broken down this writing into five parts because of its length. Each of the remaining parts will posted every few days. Please let me know what you think!
Popular music and culture have always been in a continual state of change and flux, even as far back as the early part of the 20th [...]
I remember the late great James Brown proclaiming back in the 1970’s, “Just make sure to spell my name right!” What the Godfather of soul was asking for was that his name would be spelled correctly in the media in reference to an utterly idiotic rumor that was being spread at the time that he [...]
On Friday, April 18 2008, Glinda Harrison, was emailing the Chicago Sun Times back and forth all afternoon. Weeks ago, the paper had offered to do a feature story on me and my new CD: “What’s This? 1976-1979,” which was released April 1, 2008. I had an extensive and very pleasant interview with the writer, [...]
When most composers write songs, they rarely write lyrics that are stated as literal prose. Imagine if the following were the words to a new hit single: “I was walking down the street and happened to meet up with John who I had a conversation with. John said, “Hello fella, long time no see, should [...]