“Music is just as powerful as ever. The thing is, I’m not as powerful as I was when I was twenty-two or twenty-three–when people were hearing me for the first time. That’s done. That will never happen again. I can’t expect the reaction that I got thirty, forty years ago.”

Neil Young, on the power of rock music to shape social opinion. Young wrote “Ohio,” in 1970 as a musical protest to the Kent State shootings and last year released “Living With War” in opposition to the Iraq war.

(JD)

I read in Rolling Stone that Weezer has been on hiatus for a while. Oh dear.

The last time Weezer went on hiatus they returned with a half hour’s worth of Sugar Ray-esque pop drivel so bad they didn’t bother naming it (It has been dubbed “The Green Album” by fans, but I believe–and I could be wrong–it was actually self-titled).

Subsequent albums were spotty at best and although more successful commercially failed to meet the creative standard set by the band’s second album, Pinkerton.

It has become apparent that Rivers Cuomo is extremely odd, but, somehow, still uninteresting. That’s kind of difficult, I suppose it’s actually a skill in a way. He’s the boring mad scientist, concocting all sorts of throw away pop songs while laughing maniacally and petting a cat that’s not there.

The real shame of it is that this band was once so promising and now they’re middle of the road. Not really bad, but not remarkably good either, which is in and of itself remarkable. The slow decline of Weezer is agonizing to me and legions of nerds just like me who invested too much time and energy in a band that in the end has rewarded us with relatively little.

Maybe they’ll come back stronger than ever, but I’m not holding my breath.

(DJ)

“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”

-John Cusack as Rob Gordon from High Fidelity, a film, based on the book by Nick Hornby.

(DJ)

Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, has returned to the world of music (guitar included). He has a new album, “An Other Cup” and is considering touring again. He played an invitation-only concert at New York’s Lincoln Center in December and performed material from his Cat Stevens days.
Ride on the Peace Train…

(JD)

In the mid-90’s, after the death of Kurt Cobain, a case could be made that Oasis was the most popular band in the world for a period of about 3 years.

(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? the bands second LP featured a string of radio-friendly, catchy pop songs and sold over 20 million records world wide. Before its release there was some debate over which British sensation would find more success stateside, Oasis or Blur?

Oasis won. By a lot. A whole lot.

Frontman Liam Gallagher and his brother Noel, the driving creative force behind the group, became tabloid sensations. They had just the right mix of undeniable talent and unabashed ego to send them into the stratosphere.

They were rock stars. Rock stars. Rock. Stars.

In the late ’90s through the turn of the Century things started going south a bit. The act became a bit much. They got sloppy. Noel fired the rest of the band. Liam wrote a song.

It was awful. The song. The song was awful.

More recently a snippet from the band’s ‘All Around the World” became the theme for a series of AT&T ads. They’re still touring, and they’re still making records. And yes, they are still fighting with eachother.

The thing is, they are never going to be as popular as they once were. They are clearly passed their prime, commercially at least. So, where do they rank?

Will history remember them as little more than a Beatles’ knock off band, or will future generations ignore their derivative style and simply enjoy the collection of well crafted songs they left behind?

(DJ)

Bobby “Boris” Pickett has died at the age of 69 at the Los Angeles Veterans Hospital.

Pickett is best known for writing and performing the Halloween standard, “Monster Mash.”

NPR ran a wonderful (and humorous) brief story on Led Zeppelin’s Detroit debut at the old Grande Ballroom. It’s an excerpt from a book by Tom Wright who was a former road manager for The Who, Rolling Stones and the Faces. He also happend to be a photographer and captured many early images of these bands before they became rock icons. Read the excerpt here. 

Detroit actually comes across as a gritty and vibrant town. Just this one line makes you sort of proud that you come from a place that was once called Motown:  ”So what started as the idealistic musical dream of beat poets and entrepreneurs on the West Coast surfaced in Detroit as assembly-line revolt, the birthplace and nursery for heavy metal. And the Grande Ballroom was the hatchery.”

Ah those were the days . . .

(JD)

The reigning king of the fretboard has finally committed his musical life story to paper. Eric Clapton’s autobiography is set to be released on Oct. 4 of this year. It is rumored to be an honest account of his troubled life. Collaborating with him is Christopher Simon Sykes who formerly worked with the Rolling Stones.

Other Slowhand news: Clapton will reunite with former Blind Faith bandmate, Stevie Winwood during his Crossroads Guitar Festival on July 28 in Chicago. Clapton has hinted at “some unfinished business” with regard to the famous supergroup, implying that maybe a partial reunion is in the works.

(JD)

If you love music you need to check out Pandora. It’s a unique Internet radio station with a twist. It allows you to create your own channel of custom music by filling out a profile of music that appeals to specifically you. It will then begin to create a playlist based on the database of artists and songs that you selected. Here comes the amazing part; it then adds more tunes to this list based on artists with similar themes and instrumentation. Unlike conventional radio, you can vote songs and artists off your own little musical island. While a tune is playing you have the option of voting yay or nay to further assist Pandora  hone in more closely on your own musical tastes. It takes a few sessions, but before long, you’ll have access to a station where you’ll never want to change the dial. You can even create multiple stations with different themes or listen to stations created by other listeners. My newest addition is entitled, “Psychedelic Folk Adult Contemporary Radio.”

Early unreleased recordings by the late British singer-songwriter, Nick Drake will be released this June. Drake died over 30 years ago,  before his sweet, melancholy music would ever reach a wider audience. It wasn’t until “Pink Moon” was used in  aftfully-understated VW advertising campaign a few years back that he caught the attention of the public. He only recorded three albums before his life ended all too soon. His family has culled through countless hours of studio tapes and outtakes coming up with a “Family Tree,” a collection of rarities certain to please Drake fans.

(JD)