Ermagahd

They sound fucking awesome! Praise the Lawd!

New Series: Artists We Love (?): Springsteen

New series: post an artist and everyone else weighs in with their relative love/disdain for said artist. Our feelings on Dylan, the Replacements, Morrissey, and others are well documented. Let's try some more. Rate the artist on your personal scale of 1-10 and explain why they merit that position. Overrated? Underrated? Let's get some musical dialog going people! I'll start.

I didn't like Springsteen at the height of his 80s popularity. Not enough shredding solos or punk rock aggression for me. He seemed like old people music when I was 18. To me, lyrical depth was exemplified by Roger Waters, not Bruce Springsteen. At some point in the mid 90s, that began to change.

I picked up Nebraska in a bargain bin somewhere and suddenly figured this guy out. I think I had to be older to understand some of the stories and some of the characters. I worked back to The River and Darkness on the Edge of Town and those three remain my favorites although I am a huge fan of his post 2000 work as well. I have a lot of time for The Rising and Magic especially. As I get older, longevity in the business becomes more and more admirable to me. If you're skeptical of The Boss' songwriting prowess, I highly recommend The Promise, a double album set of outtakes from the Darkness sessions. He's got some serious Motown and Tin Pan Alley chops.

If you'd like to hear anything you don't have For The Posterity of it, let me know. I think I've got most all of it save one or two 90s efforts.

Scale: 9/10

How I Spent My 00's, By David Bowie

New Bowie!

The Next Day, produced by Tony Visconti, due out March 12!  Damn, that's a long time!

As Long As We're Watching Stones Films

Joe, please hit the festival circuit and let us know about this one.

Shit

Organizers for the upcoming London Olympics were disappointed when they spoke to the Who's manager -- and were told that Keith Moon would be unavailable. Story here.

This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco...

Spring Break '82

Extra Scurf is the latest from Spring Break '82, the latest from an old friend of mine, the ever prolific Mike Coleman. David and Jay may remember him from a Singing Spoons record I played for them years and years ago. It's heavy and weird and I don't know what to say about the album cover...Farts Through Photoshop?

And Then There's This

I FTP GBV, SOB(s).

Oh Yeah!

The 2/7 of the Bastards who took advantage of the Foo Fighters Fangasm '11 had a great time. We had full access to everyplace except the actual stage and the dressing rooms. Our friend Geof showed us the tour buses, all around backstage and a detailed look at the guitars and rigs of all of the players. We watched from all over the venue from side stage to the 'cage' section for VIPs in the middle of the floor where Grohl performed a couple of solo acoustic numbers. Even free beer from the tech cooler at side stage! Afterward we went to the hospitality room and hung out and caught up with Geof. We didn't meet the band, but I did get a high five from Dave Grohl as he came off stage. The show was awesome and the experience one of a kind.

In the video below, we were standing directly under Grohl's right arm (he's on a riser in the middle of the crowd).

Noooooooooooooooo

R.E.M. has decided to "call it a day as a band." They've had a pretty good run, although they were pretty much phoning it in after "Automatic for the People" and to a lesser extent "Monster". Dare I say it's the end of the band as we know it and they feel fine?

For me these guys were the first glimpse into the world of music that wasn't pumped into your ears via 80's radio. They were, ahem, iconic alternative music trailblazers, and I will always regard "murmur" as possibly the best album of all time. And by the way, they will always be the version that included drummer Bill Berry, and the one that you could never understand what the hell Stipe was singing. That trio bullshit never worked.

Oh well, all good things must come to an end. Just enjoy this video of them in their prime...

One Man Mutiny

I've been waiting like a kid at Xmas and it's finally here! The First Tommy Platter since Village Gorilla Head!

Ladies and Gentlemen....The Rolling Stones!

I guess reading the Keef book got me all in a dither over the Stones again. My appreciation is actually much greater after reading the book. Tough to touch that quartet of defining albums (Beggar's, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile) that helped them get away from trying to follow the currents of pop music and get back to being the blues band they started out as, but I can find some charm in just about every release, especially the oft-maligned It's Only Rock and Roll. Any requests?

The Ramones!

THE RAMONES from Zoltan on Vimeo.

Live in NYC, 1978

Looking For...

...tunes in the post. Is this the week that a Bastard album drops? Is it still o.k. to say "album"?

A Bit Confusing

Here is a reaction to Keith Richards' book by Mick Jagger. Except it isn't by Mick Jagger, it's by Bill Wyman. Except it's not THAT Bill Wyman, it's Bill Wyman the often irritating music journalist.

Regardless, it's a good read and makes some good points. As I understand it, this went around the innerwebs as actually being written by Sir Mick.

56!

Happy Birthday, Elvis!

A Good Egg

Tommy Stinson, bassist and humanitarian.