If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
My Name is Val and I'm a rock-star-memoir addict. It all started with Philip Norman's seminal biography of The Beatles, Shout.
Last year, Tea Party Members of Congress temporarily persuaded GOP leadership to abandon their usual political acuity and launch a series of attacks on the Lacey Act, one of America's most successful environmental and economic laws. You'd think this might be too much even for the Tea Party.
How did he remember this from his tenure as a sticky fingered nine-year-old playing "My Bonnie" on a $50 guitar? I assume I must have vaguely proffered a future invitation; I do not recall this conversation but would surmise his memory functions better than my own.
On Friday night at the Staples Center, even with the controversy of the overpriced tickets, I was treated to two hours and twenty minutes of solid rock and roll and another memory that will remain in my heart and soul forever.
Want something other than tequila this Cinco de Mayo? Try a new whisky, rum, vodka, even cachaça. ¡Saludos, amigos!
More than 50 years ago, Howlin' Wolf's ferocious music and gentler side were revealed to guitar whiz Bloomfield and Goldberg, his keyboard-adept buddy.
It is true that many people will go to see the Rolling Stones or buy their records as part of a nostalgia trip, perhaps for a time before they were even born, but a lot of people will listen to them and other older rock bands for a very simple reason -- they like the music.
My memories of this show are sadly more impressionistic than usual for me. But, with the help of my still-friend Ben who provided a few salient memory-jogging details, here's what I recall.
Red met White in a Keith Haring painting in 1982, and saw each other again that same year in one of the light cycles from the movie, Tron. Red was like, call me, and White was all like, I don't call, I return.
When Spanish painter and photographer Martin Frias asks me who my favorite rock band is, I say, "The Beatles." I can tell by the mischievous glint in his eye that this answer is far from correct. "That's not rock 'n' roll," he laughs, rolling his "r's" in a thick Catalan accent. "That's pop music."
Torontonians know the El Mocambo as a venue for wicked fun and historic music performances. Soon, it will also be the site of a multi-tiered restaurant headed by one of Canada's most acclaimed chefs. AfterCanadian Music Week, which wraps up on Sunday, Pataran said the El Mo would go through a renovation until it re-opens in the fall with three levels of dining.
I noticed him leaning up against the door jamb as I entered the kitchen. He was tall, wore a white t-shirt and Levis and had his left ear pierced. He told me it was his 29th birthday. After a guessing game of how old I was, I revealed that I was 13.
I was with my musician pal Solomon King at Arcadia Blues Club recently chatting about Train his excellent upcoming record of "new school blues," which includes some modern riffs on traditional Blues...and beyond.
Bob Dylan was smart enough to pull out an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 and "rocktify" his folk music. Now, Jason Garriotte appears to be following in the steps of Dylan by reaching a different type of folk and changing the aspects of the experience.
The rock star status of today's scientific celebrities encourages aspiring scientists to focus on the retail possibilities that can result in fast fame and wealth. While understandable, this unwittingly neglects a crucial part of the scientific equation.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but as someone who was working as a rock critic for the first decade and a half of Journey's existence, I always regarded them as unexplainably popular, an at-best thoroughly mediocre hit-making machine.
