Bloggerhythms

Just Backdated (Melody Maker: Seven Years In The Seventies)   - the brand new memoir by former Melody Maker writer and editor Chris Charlesworth - is a well-conceived, honest, first person history of what it was like to write about, befriend, and travel with the biggest bands in the world from 1970 until 1977. For four of those years Charlesworth was the weekly British music magazine's American editor. He worked briefly in Los Angeles before transfering to New York City for the remainder of his time here. Among the many acts Charlesworth toured with were Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and his favorite of them all, The Who, a band he saw in concert twenty-seven times. He shared airplanes, taxis, limousines, restaurant meals, and bar tabs with the most famous names in rock. In many ways, the book is really a truelife account of Cameron Crowe's 2000 hit movie,  Almost Famous , that is a fictionalized version of Crowe's life on the r...

The late R&B singer Al Wilson (1939 - 2008) had the same name as a hated car salesman who built his new Pontiac dealership on our town's beloved little league baseball fields despite organized protests from neighbors around the same time the star released a unique single called "The Snake." I wanted to hate the record but I couldn't, and I was one of the people who helped send it to #27 on the Hot 100 in the summer of 1968. The great sixties vocalist, Johnny Rivers, produced the record and released it on his own Soul City label. Wilson - who reminds me of Lou Rawls - is better known for "Show and Tell," his #1 hit from 1973. Overall, he sent four singles into the top forty. The song's storyline is very similar to one of Aesop's ancient fables, The Farmer and The Viper . This fable tells us that even if you're kind to someone who is inherently evil they will eventu...

I wasn't at Woodstock but here are my thoughts on the historic festival. I was only sixteen that summer of 1969. I didn't have a car or my driver's license yet, and I had no other means of getting to Max Yasgur's farm in rural Bethel, NY. Nor did I know anyone from my hometown or high school who ventured there for the infamous three day event. Even if I had been able to catch a ride with someone neither one of my usually easy-going parents would have allowed me to go. I don't blame them. It's fine that I wasn't there. I would have been miserable. I've never been a fan of standing in the rain or wallowing in mud, not bathing, going without adequate bathroom facilities, a lack of food, smoking mind altering plants or ingesting harmful chemicals. I was too straight for Woodstock but I was deeply fascinated by the whole 60s counterculture movement as a sideline spectator. A lot of it had to do with the music. I've ...

I was among the many visitors who went to see the now closed Paul McCartney photography exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum featuring 275 pictures the former Beatle took with his 35mm Pentax camera from late 1963 through early 1964. As it turns out I didn't have to take the train to Manhattan's Penn Station and then the subway to New York City's most populous borough because all of the photos shown at the exhibit can easily be found in 1964: Eyes Of The Storm , a perfectly executed, hard cover, coffee table book McCartney released in 2023. The star had a front row seat to everything that was happening to him and his newly world famous bandmates, so his photos were taken with an entirely personal perspective - one we rarely saw - as opposed to those with journalistic or business motives. It all began when the photos were discovered in the ex-Beatle's pe...

The Rubinoos at World Cafe Live. From left, Tommy Dunbar, Donn Spindt, Jon Rubin, & Al Chan I never heard of  The Rubinoos until I received an invitation to check them out a few nights ago at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia. They're a California power-pop quartet that deserves a larger audience than the devoted cult following they've earned through many decades of touring and recording. These seasoned professionals are a tightly knit unit, but they project a looseness and a sense of humor that suits their repertoire. That's because while the band is serious about their music they don't take themselves too seriously. The Rubinoos know they're not playing prog-rock or artsy jazz, and they couldn't care less. The Rubinoos mixed their original songs with well-loved classics by adding a breath of fresh air to power-pop hits such as "I Think We're Alone Now...