"I'm nobody's dummy. I'm everybody's dummy. I believe everything I read, see, and hear." -- Lester Bangs
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Given his higher profile from the Rolling Thunder Revue and the success of his Cardiff Rose album, one might think Roger McGuinn would build on that momentum. Well, he didn’t. He put together a touring band dubbed Thunderbyrd, named after the two most direct connotations of his brand. It was also the title of his next album, another mix of covers and cowrites with Jacques Levy. While “All Night…
The British blues scene of the early ‘60s was rife with important individuals who may not have become household names, like Alexis Korner, Chris Barber, and Graham Bond. And then there was Long John Baldry, whose early bands were launchpads for Rod Stewart and Elton John. (The latter took half of his stage name from the man, and would immortalize him as “sugar bear” in “Someone Saved My Life…
After a quarter-century of people possibly knowing his name and what he did for a living, Daniel Lanois decided to make himself the subject of a documentary. Here Is What Is is a non-linear, cinema-verité portrait of the artist at work, in performance, and in conversation. It’s interesting if you follow his career, but the overlying message he’s trying to convey is “I’m awesome and here’s why.”…
Another memoir composed on his phone coincided with a fresh batch of Robyn Hitchcock songs. The events of Stranded In The Future cover his path to becoming a songwriter and recording artist, and in many ways, his approach to the craft hasn’t really changed in the decades since. The Confuser is right in line with his brand, but something about the combination of words, melody, and performance make…
Just like Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr had more time on his hands in the wake of the Beatles Anthology promotion wave, so why not do any album? While Vertical Man was still something of an all-star project, he took a more active role in the songwriting, co-writing all but two tracks, playing drums throughout and even some other instruments. His right-hand for the proceedings was Mark Hudson, who’d…
The ‘80s saw a lot of surprising comebacks, and one of the biggest was that of Yes. Having imploded and scattered following the poor reception of their one album without Jon Anderson , Chris Squire and Alan White were determined to keep going somehow, and found a reason in young innovative guitarist Trevor Rabin. His more mainstream tendencies prompted Squire to call Tony Kaye, who’d been bounced…
It’s tough enough when one of your siblings is famous, and worse when you’re trying to make a name for yourself. Michael Penn has never (to our knowledge) tried to ride his brother’s coattails, even when that brother was married to Madonna. Rather, he has consistently—if intermittently—specialized in highly literate singer-songwriting, usually about matters of romance or lack thereof. Both music…
The experience making Hackney Diamonds was apparently so positive that the old geezers just kept going. Some of Foreign Tongues had been started during (and before) the sessions for that album, so good on them for not stepping back, and riding the momentum. Granted, they did issue two archival live albums of theater shows bookending the turn of the century in the interim, but this was still the…
In 2006, David Byrne and Brian Eno’s My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts , which had long been hailed as “seminal”, was reissued with the requisite extra tracks. Then the two collaborated on an album for the first time in decades. The bigger surprise, given their previous work together, was that Everything That Happens Will Happen Today was a collection of songs as opposed to groundbreaking…
Without a major label trying to tell him what to do, Prince continued to follow his muse—or whatever it was—to the neighborhood of jazz for a pair of releases. More to the point, both featured the phrase “new directions in music by Prince”, which everyone will tell you was similar to what Miles Davis had on the cover of Bitches Brew . Both were also entirely instrumental. Xpectation came first, as…
