Amid the 24-hour barrage of "news" about Michael Jackson's death last week, I tweeted, a bit tongue-in-cheek, this question: Is anybody besides me willing to argue that The A-Team was more culturally significant in the eighties than Michael Jackson? My friend Adam wondered whether I and other skeptics were minimizing Jackson's cultural impact, especially when… Continue reading Michael Jackson and Cultural Relevance
Category: Music
Long Live Rock: Eric Andersen
Eric Andersen, The Tin Angel, Philadelphia, March 1999 Some concerts I remember only who went with me. Some concerts I forget because of who went with me. This show was neither, simply a moving performance I saw with some friends from grad school who are more or less out of my life, though not in… Continue reading Long Live Rock: Eric Andersen
Long Live Rock: Elliott Smith
The Black Cat, Washington, D.C., September or October 1998 I've been doing this concert series on and off for two years now, and a chance encounter with a bootleg recording of Elliott Smith performing John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" at the Black Cat club cracked open a forgotten memory, a forgotten concert. In 1998 I saw… Continue reading Long Live Rock: Elliott Smith
Pop Apocalypse: Shearwater’s “Rooks”
I've always been obsessed with end-of-the-world scenarios, from the original 1968 Planet of the Apes to Cormac McCarthy's 2007 novel, The Road. I've tried to intellectualize my lifelong fascination, even teaching courses on Apocalyptic Literature. But no matter how many fancy words I use in my courses ("a posteriori apocalypticism," "stigmatized knowledge," "escalation ladder"), I… Continue reading Pop Apocalypse: Shearwater’s “Rooks”
Thoughts on Ben Folds’ “Still Fighting It”
My friend Adam over at Random Thoughts Escaping posted the Ben Folds' video of "Still Fighting It," along with some thoughts about fatherhood. I've always loved "Still Fighting It," which got heavy rotation on WXPN when the song came out. I'd never seen the video before. I found it quite touching, despite wanting to resist… Continue reading Thoughts on Ben Folds’ “Still Fighting It”
Long Live Rock: The Tragically Hip
Toledo Zoo Amphitheater, June 1996 The zoo is a crazy place for a rock concert, but for the Tragically Hip, this Depression-era amphitheater was perfect. And this was years before Gord Downie sang about Gus, the polar bear in Central Park (In Between Evolution, 2004). I like to think that the Toledo Zoo was his… Continue reading Long Live Rock: The Tragically Hip
Long Live Rock: Dougie MacLean
The Ark, Ann Arbor, circa 1996 Another concert with Tim, who was in grad school at Michigan by this point. Dougie was fantastic -- The Ark is an intimate venue, and as I remember it, we were sitting just a row or two from the stage. I watched transfixed as Dougie tuned his guitar differently… Continue reading Long Live Rock: Dougie MacLean
Long Live Rock: The Indigo Girls
I'm not quite finished with the concerts of the nineties yet, though from here on out I'll be jumping around chronologically, as I remember the shows. And here is one I can't believe I almost forgot: Indigo Girls, Toledo, 1995 Two things I remember about this show, maybe three. (1) I went with Tim, my… Continue reading Long Live Rock: The Indigo Girls
Long Live Rock in the New Millennia: Mojave 3
A long time back I began a series of posts about the different live concerts I've seen since the eighties. A student of mine who happens to be a Glen Phillips fan dug up an old post about a Toad the Wet Sprocket concert in the early nineties. It got me thinking that I never… Continue reading Long Live Rock in the New Millennia: Mojave 3
My life on Random Play
So my ancient 30gb MP3 player broke, and the only buttons that work now are the volume controls and the "Random Play" button. I'm going to milk this brick-like, nearly bricked player for all it's worth, and so I'm now cycling through the 8,000 songs in the random play, and I'm hearing things I haven't… Continue reading My life on Random Play
Why do I feel guilty paying nothing for Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”?
A recent Forbes article reported that even though Radiohead is letting listeners decide how much to pay for the band's new album, In Rainbows, it is briskly being downloaded through bitTorrent. So, fans can get the album legally for free, but many are still downloading pirated copies. In the first week of its release, Forbes… Continue reading Why do I feel guilty paying nothing for Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”?
A sound I love
Here's a sound I love: biking over a wood bridge and hearing the planks knock together as my tires roll over them.
Long Live Rock, the Nineties, Part IV
10. The Moody Blues (1994?, Blossom Music Center) Suddenly it was the eighties again.
Long Live Rock, The Nineties, Part III
Hothouse Flowers / Ziggy Marley and the Wailers / Midnight Oil (1993, Cleveland) A triple bill. An absurdly mismatched triple bill. I went for Hothouse Flowers, Wendy went for Midnight Oil. We both grooved to the Wailers, although reggae really wasn't my thing back then. I guess it still isn't. Peter Garrett was huge. At… Continue reading Long Live Rock, The Nineties, Part III
Long Live Rock, the Nineties, Part II
The early nineties are hazy, for no particular reason, other than that they were so long ago. Still, I'm determined to continue write about every concert I ever attended. The eighties were easy because attending concerts was a new thing for me, and I saw "big" acts like The Who and The Kinks, all near… Continue reading Long Live Rock, the Nineties, Part II