Happy Trails, Peter Brown
Sean MurphyNever heard of him? Don't worry, you've heard him, nevertheless. Unless you've managed to go your entire life without listening to Cream, and if you've never heard "Sunshine of Your…
Jim Morrison: 50 Years Gone
Jim Morrison took his last bath on July 3, 1971 in Paris. R.I.P. Lizard King. (I wrote, in what most normal people would consider painful detail, about The Doors in…
Forever Never Changes: Remembering Arthur Lee (Ten Years Later)
Arthur Lee died ten years ago today (August 3, 2006). I not only am keen to remember --and celebrate-- his life and work, I also appreciate the fact that the piece…
The Once and Future King: ‘SMiLE’ and Brian Wilson’s Very American Dream (Revisited)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Icarus soars too close to the sun. Othello, vulnerable and halfway crazy, mistakenly trusts the evil Iago. The product of a celebrated…
Lou Reed: Rock and Roll’s Dark, Beautiful Heart (Revisited)
EVERYONE WHO JOINS A ROCK BAND WANTS TO BE HEARD. The good ones want to be unique, while the pretenders tend to imitate what has already been done. The soulless…
The Once and Future King: ‘SMiLE’ and Brian Wilson’s Very American Dream
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Icarus soars too close to the sun. Othello, vulnerable and halfway crazy, mistakenly trusts the evil Iago. The product of a celebrated…
Pet Sounds: The Kind of World Where We Belong (Revisited)
5/16/66. A day that changed music, forever, for the better. A case could, and probably should, be made that we ought to refer to rock music as "BP" and "AP"…
The Once and Future King: ‘SMiLE’ and Brian Wilson’s Very American Dream
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Icarus soars too close to the sun. Othello, vulnerable and halfway crazy, mistakenly trusts the evil Iago. The product of a celebrated…
A Week of Americana. Part Two: Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet (R.I.P.), with his idiosyncracies, individuality and iconoclasm, represents virtually everything that is profoundly beautiful about America both as a concept and actuality. Like his compatriots Syd Barrett…
Pet Sounds: The Kind of World Where We Belong (Revisited)
5/16/66. A day that changed music, forever, for the better. A case could, and probably should, be made that we ought to refer to rock music as "BP" and "AP"…