“That’s me completely. Including the electric guitar lick and the record with the first feedback anywhere. I defy anybody to find a record – unless it’s some old blues record in 1922 – that […]
I Feel Fine: John Lennon, rule breaker…
Toward a geography of rock: part 3, the South – looking backward to go forward…
Joke told around Harvard Yard: “Q: How many Southerners does it take to change a light bulb? A: Five – one to change the bulb and four more to talk about how […]
Honey Pie: Paul McCartney, music hall crooner
“Both John and I had a great love for music hall, what the Americans call vaudeville… I very much liked that old crooner style, the strange fruity voice that they used, so […]
Twilight of the gods: a musicologist considers the work of the Beatles…
Mellers’ exploration of the Beatles as a group and as solo artists is rich in insight; anyone who wants to understand both the musicology and the psychology of the Fab Four owes […]
A geography of rock: pt 2, the Northeast – NY, Philly, Boston, art, money, and soul…
“Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft A Bedlamite speeds to thy parapets, Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning, A jest falls from the speechless caravan.” – Hart Crane (Read part […]
Is J.K Rowling the last truly global literary icon?
So I was switching channels a couple of weeks ago during the rain delay at Wimbledon, and hit a Harry Potter movie, which I am always happy to waste some time on. […]
Hey Bulldog: John Lennon, rocker…
“Hey Bulldog” provides us with the only film of the Beatles recording a song, amazing as that sounds. “I remember ‘Hey Bulldog’ as being one of John’s songs and I helped him […]
A geography of rock, part 1: Styx, REO Speedwagon, Kansas and the dangerous expanse of the Midwest…
Expansive, windy music produced by Arena Rock icons whose members for the most part grew up in an expansive, windy environment… “I was born upon the prairie, where the wind blew free, […]
Baby You’re a Rich Man: how does it feel…?
For a song that often gets lost in the canon of the Fabs,”Baby You’re a Rich Man” is a pretty remarkable piece of work. “How does it feel to be one of […]
Gannett adopts the blue dot, emblematic of market-driven thinking, at its newspapers
Oh, my. Look at the dot. It’s blue. It’s representative of “one unified network,” says the chief marketing officer of Gannett, owner of the USA Today Network. The blue dot — and […]
