Rush’s ‘Moving Pictures’ at 40
Sean MurphyEvery band, if they’re lucky, is able to create a definitive work — a document that embodies their unique qualities. Most great bands, at some point in their career, successfully…
David Bowie: The Man Who Owned the World (Five Years Later)
ONLY THE BEATLES. That’s the sole comparison that comes to mind when compelled to name a musical act with similar impact and importance. The Beatles, as we all know, changed…
Original Poem: Sonny Rollins’s Bridge
Gratitude to the wonderful Burningword Literary Journal for publishing this poem. (And thanks again to them for publishing my poem "Charlie Mingus's Miracle, and nominating it for a Pushcart Prize.)…
New World Man: An Appreciation of Neil Peart (One Year Later)
He knows changes aren’t permanent, but change is. Taken from Rush’s most famous song, “Tom Sawyer,” this line might best illuminate the “elemental empathy” that came to define Neil Peart,…
A Farewell to the King: Neil Peart (One Year Later)
Like, I know, many (many, many) others, it’ll be impossible to succinctly or adequately convey my admiration for Neil Peart. (Full and semi-embarrassing disclosure: I wrote my graduate school thesis…
Beethoven at 250
Beethoven at 250. Aside from the two other points in the eternal triangle, Bach and Mozart, has any artist contained such multitudes, expressed so much in ways that are ceaselessly…
King Crimson’s ‘Lizard’ at 50
Considering that the only constant during the early years (and later, for that matter) of King Crimson was change, the quality and variety of their third and fourth albums are…
The Day the Music Died, Redux: John Lennon, Dec 8, 1980
It was forty years ago today… Where were you? I was in my mother’s bedroom, kissing her goodbye before I caught the school bus, and I heard the horrible news on…
Original Poem: John Coltrane’s Cancer
I've written a ton about John Coltrane, easily one of my all-time sources of light, love, and inspiration. But to tackle such a giant, creatively? It's part of a project…
Eddie Van Halen: Rock Music’s Book of Revelation
photo courtesy of Salvatore Ferro When it comes to Eddie Van Halen, we are talking about an artist everyone would agree was, through the typical combination of hard work, good…