(from Tony Eastley's show, May 28): MICHAEL ROWLAND: Sgt. Pepper was the Beatles as their fans had never seen or heard them before. They'd ditched their grey suits and ties in favour of technicolour military style uniforms, and the catchy two minute pop tunes had given way to musical experimentation on a grand scale. (excerpt from song Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!) TIM RILEY: These were songs that were best suited to the recording studio, that nobody would try and reproduce these songs live. There wouldn't be any point. The ultimate … [Read more...]

...Still, the Spider-Man film franchise is so strange that it's not unpleasant to watch it earn money even while idling. Like the new movie itself, we have our memories, and Tobey Maguire is still with us as Peter Parker, the goofiness wearing a little thin, but the earnestness holding up (in Spider-Man 2 the woman Peter loves appears in a Broadway production of The Importance of Being Earnest), and he does something very few actors can do: deliver portentous and self-pitying lines ('Spider-Man will always have enemies') not as if he believes … [Read more...]

A Sgt Pepper chat with Tim Page and Anthony DeCurtis from today's On Point, repeats tonight. (iTunes) BOUNCEBACK Drew got part of the point of my Monday post... let's see who can take the baton from him. … [Read more...]

Finally, a blues guitarist with the soul of a trombonist. Putting a junkheap like "Peculiar Hop" as the lead track takes a seriously loose screw, covering Dylan without the lyrics ups the ante ("Rainy Day #12 & 35"), but it's the rare guitar hero who literalizes the mood of the country ("Dig Myself a Hole") after scrawling one of the better lines about Los Angeles ("A thousand dreams trapped in a silent scream..."). A critic's reward for plowing through stacks of CDs. MC Records Rick Holmstrom on MySpace, Rick Holmstrom … [Read more...]

American Journeys | Concord, Mass. A Town That Has a Way With Words by Glenn Rifkin, May 20, 2007 (New York Times Travel Section) In the 19th century, Concord, Mass., was a peaceful country village and home to best-selling writers. In the 21st, Concord is a bustling, upscale Boston suburb and still home to best-selling writers. A Writer's Sanctuary The literary stars of the past were Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and Alcott. Today's include Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gregory Maguire, Alan Lightman and Robert Coles. But now as then, fall down in this … [Read more...]

From Chris Salewicz's new biography of Joe Strummer Redemption Song (Faber and Faber): In his June 1979 NME interview with Charles Shaar Murray [Strummer] had declared, "There's ten thousand days of oil left. It's finite." Joe Strummer had been inspired to write the song riding back with Gaby Salter in a taxi from Vanilla to World's End. As the cab drove along Cheyne Walk, next to the River Thames, they were talking about the state of the world in the light of the nuclear disaster in the united States that March at Three Mile Island -- an event … [Read more...]

Amazon.com to Launch DRM-Free MP3 Music Download Store with Songs and Albums from EMI Music and More Than 12,000 Other Labels SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 16, 2007--Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels. EMI Music's digital catalog is the latest addition to the store. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights … [Read more...]

An Open Letter to Sir Paul McCartney: Save Abbey Road (Huffington Post) In 1897, a German-American inventor named Emile Berliner, inventor of the gramophone method of recording, founded the Gramophone Company in London. Five years later, Enrico Caruso recorded 10 songs for Berliner, transforming his company into a dominant force in the recording industry. In March 1931, Gramophone merged with the Columbia Graphophone [sic] Company to create Electric and Musical Industries Ltd, soon to be known as EMI... See also: Abbey Road Reunion (podcast … [Read more...]

CATEGORY: CAR AD SOUNDTRACK WITH "CELEBRITY" Elvis Costello playing air guitar to Beethoven's Ninth in his Lexus ad beats out his wife Diana Krall raving on about Oscar Peterson in hers. (Who hogs the remote in that ride?) But would anybody buy a car from Elvis? Seems telling that neither of these are posted yet on youtube. We're still waiting for Paul and Yoko to Dance with the Stars. CATEGORY: GREAT USE OF GOOD SONG BY GREAT ARTIST IN DECENT FLICK "Bring on the Lucie" by John Lennon, from Mind Games, closing credits to Children of Men. This … [Read more...]

STEALTH COVERS Blender's new list starts off with "Jersey Girl," popularized by Bruce Springsteen, originally performed by Tom Waits, as obvious as it is predictable. The lead track on this list is still "Tainted Love," which everybody STILL thinks it's fey 80s Britpop. We learned more from the Brenda Lee entry. But at least this list has some HISTORY going for it. OBVIOUS OMISSIONS "I Hear You Knockin'," Dave Edmunds retools Smiley Lewis "Maggie Mae," the Beatles on Let it Be, covering the Vipers "Harlem Shuffle," Rolling Stones envying Bob … [Read more...]