Bloggerhythms

"That Thing You Do," the theme song to the 1996 movie of the same name, was composed by the late Adam Schlesinger, leader of the fun power pop quartet, Fountains of Wayne. This Academy Award nominated record for Best Original Song reminds me of another fantastic one-hit wonder, The Knickerbockers' "Lies,"  a big hit from 1965 that many people believed were actually The Beatles. It's easy to be reminded of the Fab Four while listening to  "That Thing You Do"  - a minor hit that only reached #41 on the Hot 100 - especially when you realize the film's story takes place in 1964, the same year the Liverpool guys hit the big time in America.  The single deserved a much better fate, but power-pop wasn't being played very often on the radio during this grunge infested year of 1996. It charted higher in both Canada and the UK. The fictitious liner notes from the soundtrack CD claimed "That Thing You Do" reached #2 on the Ho...

"Before the Deluge" has always been one of my all-time favorite Jackson Browne songs. Yes, it's political - and therefore controversial - but it also has a gorgeous melody that was helped in no small part by the late, great - and always drug free - David Lindley whose sad violin work on this track is the highlight regardless of its intended message. "Before the Deluge" is one of Browne's most memorable songs. It's from Late for the Sky (1974) - an album most people consider his best. I loved the original studio recording, but it was easily topped five years later by this live version from the historic No Nukes soundtrack that made the original sound lifeless by comparison. To me, it's the definitive performance of this great song and it made me realize just how important Lindley was to Browne's music.  Browne continued to have a long and moderately successful recording career, but I always believed that after Lindley left...

Bloggerhythms has closely followed and often participated in radio station WXPN's annual 885 countdowns they present every fall. After years of counting down the usual fare of best songs, albums and artists the non-commercial station at 88.5 FM - licensed to Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania - decided to go rogue with some unique lists. Recent themes have included the 885 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century. I don't remember what came in at #1, but John Mayer had more songs on the list than anyone else. Two years ago we all voted for the 885 Greatest Songs By Women. This year the station offers listeners a fun countdown. Currently, they can vote for their ten favorite songs that appeared in movies or on television. Your selections don't have to be theme songs, they just have to be tunes that were aired on any TV show or featured in any film. They can be from concerts, documentaries, musicals, dramas, comedies, variety shows or any other gen...

I know this may sound like a commercial, but I must tell you about a true audiophile's dream. ELP, a Japanese company, has developed a laser turntable that has no tonearm or stylus. Instead, it uses five laser beams to play your old, 45 and 33 rpm, vinyl records and even your older 10-inch, 78 rpm, shellac discs if you happen to have any. This revolutionary piece of equipment will never damage or wear out any of your records as even the most expensive, traditional, turntables do. One thousand plays later your precious 12-inchers will sound exactly the same as they did when they were first played on this unique unit unless you happen to damage one of them. Unfortunately, there is a MAJOR drawback. ELP, begins pricing at $19,000 because each turntable is custom made. This stylish machine is 100% analog .  Company founder, Sanju Chiba, believes "Analog music is more natural... it is the sound of the master tape" so there's no digital technolog...

Writing about classical music is not in my wheelhouse. I don't feel as if I'm qualified to expound on it in any great detail, and I'm including the works I like. One of them is a concert recording by Virgil Fox, a slightly eccentric church organist from New York City who made a name for himself by applying modern techniques to his live, solo performances. Older, staid, classical music purists and devoted Johann Sebastian Bach aficionados weren't always fond of Fox's interpretations of the classical composer's music. The New York Times wrote that William F. Buckley said, Fox " must have figured that it was more important to fill the house with listeners who would hear Bach for the first time than worry about those who would resolve, like me, to have heard Fox for the last time." Bach Live at the Fillmore East , Fox's live, concert album that appealed to many young progressive-rock fans was recorded on December 1, 1970 and relea...

Once again, Mike Jacoby has written all of the songs on his California band's latest release, Welcome to the Family, and once again it's a good set of rocking tunes. On this, the trio's third release, guitarist, composer and lead singer Jacoby continues to work with his solid supporting cast, Don Read on bass and drummer Mike Levin. They're three middle-aged guys who can rock 'n roll, so I don't think they'll be telling their kids to "turn it down" anytime soon. Jacoby also writes intelligent - frequently edgy lyrics - and he's not afraid to get political. That's a brave act these days because too often artists take a huge chance of alienating a good chunk of any potential audience. On the hook-filled title track he sings, "There you are – a random face. You’ve come a long way from a distant place. Look over your shoulder – keep your eyes cast down. Never assume that there’s no one around....

Due to all of the bad news of the last few years the sad events of September 11, 2001 may have receded deep into the minds of many people. But, on this twenty-fifth anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters - and the heroics of the passengers on United 93 - I believe it's time to discuss one of the saddest songs you'll ever hear. Seamus Kelleher was known around the Philadelphia area as an excellent rock guitarist when he was a member of the now disbanded, locally popular, Celtic-rock quintet, Blackthorn. He left the band in 2011 to pursue his own muse and released two solo albums. Both of them were favorably reviewed here . Kelleher is quite eclectic. He's versatile on both acoustic and electric guitars. Not only can he play the hard driving blues-rock of Rory Gallagher, he also covers slide guitarist Elmore James. On his second album, Another Side of Town , he gets mellow and topical with " Streets of London ," a folk song written and ...

My wife and I have been watching Turner Classic Movies more than we usually do lately. Just a few nights ago we watched Sunset Boulevard (1950) starring Gloria Swanson and William Holden. It's about a washed-up, silent screen actress, Norma Desmond - played by Swanson - who can't come to terms with the fact her career is over. She lives in a dark, fantasy world where she's still a star. A down-on-his-luck screenwriter, Joe Gillis (Holden) - whom Desmond both torments and falls in love with - tells the former star, "You used to be big." Her famous reply: "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." The film reminded me of one of the great lyrical conquests of the Classic Rock era, The Kinks' "Celluloid Heroes." It's a single from their 1972 LP,  Everybody's In Show-Biz ,   that didn't chart   but still made an impact among devoted music and movie fans. Album-oriented radio stations mostly played...