Guitar fans are overly familiar with lists of great guitar solos and great guitarists. There are hundreds of these on the Web, with the usual suspects, “Stairway to Heaven,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Comfortably Numb,” and my personal favorite, “Kid Charlemagne.” These lists are fun to debate and often motivate me to review some great…
Here we go again… Today, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced artists who will be eligible for induction in 2012. These nominees will be presented to voting members, and typically 5 acts are chosen for installation. Recent years offered up some pretty schmaltzy inductee choices that allowed Madonna and Abba, hard rock and…
I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, my birthday always triggers reflection. Mainly I think about my life thus far and “how I am doing” – whatever the hell that means. I’m not sure this is such a good thing, as I suffer from the “comparing my insides with your outsides” conundrum. Plus,…
There are records full of great songs with meaningful lyrics and nearly flawless execution that fail to find a significant audience despite these attributes. The Jazz idiom, in particular, has been plagued with matching quality to quantity sold. Many virtuoso performances remain the domain of a few fans. Now with the whole music business mainly…
Have you seen these? I have. I might add with increasing frequency. So my cards are on the table; I am not a fan of bumper stickers, license plate frames with custom messages, or personalized license plates. This might have to do with my not being a fan of tattoos. I know this is a…
]I love Thanksgiving. One day a year, many people pause and take stock of everything they have to be grateful for. I’ve found that if I have to run to the supermarket to pick up Wondra for the gravy, all my interactions with others have a distinctive flavor to them that day. I think it’s…