Fats Domino
A classic garage band I first became aware of in Philadelphia circa 1986.
They played Oakland’s Stork club on November 11 to a very large audience. In fact, we couldn’t get in to see them, which was okay because we ended up going to (see #2)
As the rents keep going up in downtown Oakland, driving more and more venues that contribute to an affordable and less sanitary nightlife (whether black run or white run) out , it’s good to discover Pat’s Sport Bar. Some really great DJ spinning many contemporary hip hop songs—most of which I didn’t recognize, but it didn’t really matter so much because it was beautifully danceable, and a really friendly scene. One tune seemed to be called “In The Ghetto” (not to be confused with the older 1969 of that name).
One of the many amazing songs on Tusk, which was ostensibly released by Fleetwood Mac, but ends up being Buckingham’s best solo album
See my personal blog at www.myspace.com/chrisstroffolino) for the entry titled “Mississippi”)
If you think the 1960s Marianne Faithful is too pretty and overproduced, and the post Broken English Marianne Faithful is too harsh, this mid-1970s collection of songs (mostly covers) may yet win you over to Ms. Faithful
Regardless of whether you agree with his conclusions, this book is a well-researched investigation of Bush’s Green zone palace in Baghdad.
A must read for any of the freshman democratic congresspeople, as they try to figure out how to undo the mess Bush made. Send a senator one as a stocking stuffing
Ah, my hipster friends and my redneck friends don’t like (or wouldn’t admit) to living Billy Joel. Hell, even Newsweek Magazine (I think? it could be Time—-anyway, some national weekly that publishes a “who’s up and who’s down” box and that can be found in emergency rooms across this fair land) placed Joel beneath Neil Diamond, but even though I’m not going to try to convince anybody of the value of this sentimental adolescent favorite
(I could still argue Bruce Springsteen is no better than him, and that Jackson Browne, James Taylor and others not even as good—-but I don’t think I wanna get so deep into it as to even pull out the records again (though I didn’t mind so much when my last roommate, the poet Sean Finney, did; Sean was great because he transcended caring about hipster cred in his curiosity about my old record collection).
Anyway, one song which shows up in the iPod of my memory when I’m playing “my own” melodies on the piano, is “los Angelinos” from Streetlife Serenade(1974). To my 13 year old ears that rocked as much as The Jackson Five or The Lovin’ Spoonful, which was not inconsiderable. The drums and electric piano got something going, and it’s one of those “facial expression” songs; if you don’t know what I mean, sing along and imagine yourself being 13 and getting skinnier and sexier as you deliver newspapers and feel at the center of it. Paul McCartney, the Beatle whom Joel probably gets most compared to, only on the rarest ocassion genuinely rocked more than this in his solo career—and Joel’s lyrics are smarter than McCartney’s, which ain’t saying much I know—but compared to today with the lyrical bar so lowered, it might be saying alot.
Once upon a time, I had every 10CC album, and I still have to say this is the best one, and not just for the bizarre concept for the artwork, by Hipgnosis, but also because the more ‘art-rock’ leanings of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme perfectly mesh with the more ‘pop’ aspects of Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart, right before the band split in two
