I’ve officially hit rock-bottom trying to find something new to write about the Rolling Stones. While perusing the collage on the back cover of Exile on Main St for only the millionth time, I wondered about the photo of the newspaper headline that appears to read: “Father of Five Aids Rescuer.”
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Who was the “Fifth Beatle” — George Martin? Billy Preston? Neil Aspinall? I would posit, a little poetically, that the Fifth Beatle is Liverpool herself. As Mecca is for Muslims, so is Liverpool an obligatory pilgrimage for discerning music fans.
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It’s not often that Artimus Pyle performs on the West Coast. Based in North Carolina, the former Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer plies a thriving trade along the eastern seaboard with his astonishingly adept and clean-cut band.
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I’m not responding to anymore emails from you, so don’t bother responding. — Jennifer De Chiara, literary agent, New York.
I’m not disappointed that my literary agent Jennifer De Chiara fired off an unprofessional email to me.
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… and that Lynyrd Skynyrd had a drummer (two of them).
While it was refreshing to see Lynyrd Skynyrd get its own episode of the recent Showtime series Roadies, the show’s creator Cameron Crowe made a couple of boo-boos.
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… for the boys’ first visit to the Emerald City, on Dec. 2, 1965. But you had to be a parent accompanying your screaming teen, and you were placed in a special section where you were forced to hear Mick, Keith & pals play new songs like “That’s How Strong My Love Is” and “Get Off Of My Cloud.”
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It took me a while to unearth this report that I wrote after attending a small press gathering with Prince at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on December 13, 2005.
Read moreIt’s sad to see the two sons of Frank Zappa engaging in a bitter public battle over money and birthright. The New York Times detailed the feud in April, sparking an open letter from Ahmet to his older brother, and an angry response [both links fixed; the brothers deleted their posts] from Dweezil.
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David Bowie fell to Earth 69 years ago today, January 8, in this home at 40 Stansfield Road, Brixton. He lived here until he was about six, often dreaming of an exotic life filled with laughing gnomes, tin machines, and a beautiful Somali wife.
Read moreA little over a year after “the day the music died” — when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash — Eddie Cochran met a similarly violent fate on April 17, 1960, dealing another critical blow to the fledgling rock ‘n’ roll genre.
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