Now a feature-length ebook available from fine digital outlets everywhere… (Apple iTunes Store, Amazon) Read a sample chapter here: Chapter Six - Bruce Springsteen's "Walk Like a Man" Customized Spotify playlist … [Read more...]
Archives for 2014
Bert Berns: Accidentally, Like a Martyr
Dear New York Times, As Larry Rohter's lively and illuminating article ("Many-hit Wonder, Out of Obscurity: Bert Berns, Songwriter and Producer, Remembered," July 20) demonstrates, obscurities like Berns deserve a bigger place in rock history. But too many people forget that while his " trademark … [Read more...]
riley rock index album of the month: Greilsammer’s Scarlatti, Cage
ALBUM OF THE MONTH FRESH LINKS “The South’s too fat to rise again…“ Ground Down to Molasses, Dave Byrne Christgau on Tommy Ramone (1948-2014) music think tank … [Read more...]
A Thousand Times Yes, Zacharek on Hard Day’s Night
"...Ringo is the language mangler who says exactly what he means, usually inadvertently—though sometimes his eyes, good-natured but also ringed with dark circles that suggest excessive worry, say more: On a train, he passes a glass-windowed compartment where a stunning young woman sits, stroking a … [Read more...]
Where Links Roam Free
NOT THE ABC SATURDAY MORNING BEATLES CARTOONS: thebeatoons, Episode 1-2 ”You Can’t Do That” Forgotify | 12 Bagatelles, Op. 13: No. 9. L'Abeille (The Bee) (arr. for cello and piano) by Various Artists Related articles Forgotify Helps You Discover Unloved Music On Spotify Forgotify: The Tool … [Read more...]
The Counselor, Cormac McCarthy
I got sucked into by the cast too, enjoying Cameron Diaz's wicked villain and marveling at the word "goner" stenciled on Penelope Cruz's forehead from the opening pillow talk with Fassbender. But trashy seems too kind for this somber meditation on decapitation, with all the slow dipping mechanisms … [Read more...]
Today in HeadButler.com
Guest Butler Joe DePreta, a New York marketing consultant and writer on cultural trends, is a student of musicology from Sinatra to the Sex Pistols.When I was a kid, my friends and I sat on a park bench and debated and talked over each other like a Robert Altman ensemble about the important … [Read more...]
Why isn’t this bigger news?
From Jeff Goodell in Rolling Stone: ...Although no final decision has been made, two high-level sources in the Obama administration told me recently that the president has all but decided to deny the permit for the [Keystone] pipeline – a dramatic move that would light up Democratic voters and … [Read more...]
PARLOR GAME: FIVE FAVORITE CONCERTS
Off My Rocker, by Kenny Weissberg [Weissberg wrote a Friday column called "Hot Licks & Rhetoric" for the Boulder Daily Camera that I devoured while growing up in Colorado. He also hosted Bill Murray on a Sunday night KCRW radio show one night just a Murray started to break on SNL. We recently … [Read more...]
The Absurdist Beatle
James, I've always loved MacDonald's book even though I carry one major critical gripe: he structures it song-by-song in chronological order, arguing that understanding the "correct" sequence of recording helps trace thematic and musical development. But never quite follows through on this theme: … [Read more...]
Steely Dan’s Magisterial Sleaze
You either swoon to the jaunty guitar lick that rips Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ in the Years,” or you hold your ears. Same with that eerie figure at the top of “FM,” or the sly, cribbed piano vamp to “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” Steely Dan tracks can seem not just overproduced but overplayed, … [Read more...]
Ghosts of Deportees
"...Woodie Guthrie’s famous ballad Deportee about a 1948 plane crash in California that killed the pilot, crew and passengers, who were Mexican nationals being deported back to Mexico at the end of the harvest season. Guthrie had read about the crash in the New York Times, which described the crew … [Read more...]
riley rock index relaunch
Behold the new riley rock index, now an extension of the timrileyauthor page, where it's been condensed, reformatted and reconcieved as a monthly tip sheet with album. We start with Drive-By Truckers, hard on Beck, and early Click Hits include: Beatles Roundtable BigOZine dBs Holsapple on … [Read more...]
Wes Anderson in Chart Form
Also: 21 Writers Tell Us Which Books They’d Add to the Canon – Flavorwire. Wes Anderson Related articles Charting popular words in music over the last half-century [charts] Fascinating Graphs Trace Words' Appearances in Songs, 1960-Present … [Read more...]
American Hustle’s Music of Swindle, by Geoffrey O’Brien
Bale and Adams fall in love to the strains of Duke Ellington, and dance while Jack Jones croons “I’ve Got Your Number”; the hapless Cooper pursues his doomed amour fou as Donna Summer chants “I Feel Love” at Studio 54; Lawrence lip-syncs “Live and Let Die” in close-up as she boils with rage against … [Read more...]