Just as I discovered Dawes, hearing “Time Spent in Los Angeles” on The Current, I became aware of the Avett Brothers when that station played “I And Love And You.” Other songs followed; I came to recognize the sound and the distinct lyrics. Both bands seemed worthy followers of Wilco in that particular genre of […]
The “greatest rock lineup ever assembled” was, above all, a study in rock star aging. It also made you realize, if you ever forgot, what a great decade for rock the ‘70s were. Forty years later, when important people wanted to raise millions and millions of dollars for storm relief, where did they go but […]
Announcing a new category: Song of the Year. The first winner, for 2011, is Dawes, A Little Bit of Everything. For 2007, if I’d started this sooner, it would be Plain White T’s, Hey There Delilah. Also retrospectively, for 2009, the honor goes to Michael Franti & Spearhead, Say Hey (I Love You). I’ll fill […]
The single highlight of Monday night’s (July 16, 2012) Fiona Apple concert at the Orpheum came in the opening act, when Fiona’s lead guitarist, Blake Mills, performed ‘Sleepwalk,’ one of the great instrumentals in rock history. He gussied it up some with his wonderfully expressive guitar, but the song’s essence remained the same. The memories […]
Seeing Jackson Browne (acoustic) at the State Theater May 29 completes my recent trifecta of Aging Rocker Concerts that started with David Crosby and Graham Nash (both age 69) at the Arlington in Santa Barbara and included Bob Seger (66) and the Silver Bullet Band at the Xcel Center. I have previously commented on the […]
The message I took from the concert in St. Paul by 66-year-old Bob Seger is that rock’n’roll is here to stay. Although some songs he sang were 40 years old, this was not an oldies concert. The Silver Bullet Band played the songs as written, with no need for a musical update, and they […]
The first step in naming the Top 25 Songs of the Rock Era, which happens to coincide with my personal music-listening era, is determining the criteria for a “Top” song. Obviously, the criterion is not best-selling, or most-played, or even most-requested. If you rank songs by how many weeks they were #1 on […]
Perhaps the most effective, evocative three-note opening sequence in rock creates an aura of anticipation so utterly fulfilled when the guitar starts ascending and the voice comes in, “I’ve got sunshine…..on a cloudy day.” What a sunny, upbeat, mood-improving song! It’s hard, nay, impossible, not to smile any and every time I hear this […]
“Hey, wherever we go,” you’re pretty much assured of hearing this classic. It’s totally infectious, whether you’re singing along on the car radio or bopping on the dance floor: “We used to sing – sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-di-la-di-da.” I’m generally not big on lyrics, but that’s one I can remember. The key words for me in this […]
This is the song that defined how I define this list. It was in the mid-70s, driving back with the guys from touch football, and we reached my apartment on West End and 77th maybe two minutes into Stairway to Heaven. I can’t just leave in the middle of this song, I said; the other […]
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