Jack White’s first solo album, Blunderbuss, dropped today — and thanks to iTunes streaming the album for free the past week — I’ve been able to immerse myself in the music from start to finish many times a day. The album is a fascination. It’s ’70s Rock? Alternative Pop? Blues? Ragtime? Yes, Blunderbuss is all that and more.
Levon Helm died yesterday in New York City of throat cancer. He was 71. Levon was a tremendous talent and an outstanding drummer. Few people understand the engine that drives any sort of live performance music is the rhythm — and in modern music, that means a live drummer. Without a proper human metronome keeping the entire band on track and in sync, the entire song falls apart. If you have a terrible drummer, the job of keeping the energy of the music moving forward falls to the bass player. If both drummer and bass player are inept, you do not have a band. Levon Helm was, The Band:
Helm, the drummer and singer who brought an urgent beat and a genuine Arkansas twang to some of The Band’s best-known songs and helped turn a bunch of musicians known mostly as Bob Dylan’s backup group into one of rock’s most legendary acts, has died. He was 71.
Helm, who was found to have throat cancer in 1998, died Thursday afternoon of complications from cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, said Lucy Sabini of Vanguard Records. On Tuesday, a message on his website said he was in the final stages of cancer.
Continue reading → The Death of Levon Helm is the Beginning of the End of the Dylan Era
When one thinks about the history of music distribution and consumption over the years it is a fascinating one. For the majority of the history of music the only way that one could hear music was to either have access to some kind of musical instrument (even if that instrument was the voice) or to be physically present for the playing of music. Recorded music came in the form of sheet music that was sold in stores and eventually wax cylinders that contained the beautiful music fans so longed to hear in the privacy of their own home. Skip ahead to the different formats of music and how many times The Beatles discography has been made available (quite a few) and we land on the present moment, where warehouses full of music can sit nicely on a few terabytes of hard drive space.
Continue reading → Spotify Apparently Does Not Need Your Money
I am a big Dr. John fan. I love his piano. I’m crazy about his voice. In his latest album, Locked Down, that dropped on April 3, 2012, Dr. John strangely fades away a bit as Black Keys producer and performer Dan Auerbach places his hands on Dr. John’s keyboard. The result is a bit of a disappointing mishmash of a previously undeniable musical identity:
Storied musician and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dr. John–Mac Rebennack–will release LOCKED DOWN, a startling album that marks a significant departure from his recent efforts, on April 3, 2012. The new album, produced by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, will be Dr. John’s first for Nonesuch Records.
It’s an entirely new approach for the iconic Dr. John, featuring as it does his collaboration with Auerbach and a band of young musicians Auerbach hand-picked to make LOCKED DOWN at his studio Easy Eye Sound in Nashville. “It was way cool cutting this record with Dan and the crew he put together for it,” says Rebennack. “It’s reel HIP.
Last year, I really enjoyed the debut of The Voice on NBC. I thought it was a fresh approach to music and we needed that respite from the drudgery of American Idol.
It’s that time of the year again and both Idol and The Voice are back and competing for eyes and ears and I am disappointed to report that, so far, The Voice has lost its magic in its insipid ordinariness and predictability. What used to be unique and fun has now become a bit of a bore fest.
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