The swamp is alive with a thousand eyes, And all of them watchin’ you, So stay off the track to Hattie’s shack In the back of the Black Bayou… What the hell is it about the darkness of the swamp that brings out the worst of our heebie-jeebies? Is it the fog, the mists, the…
I don’t think Rush ever had such a clearly-defined demarcation point — as a band/creative entity — as their 1980 landmark release Permanent Waves. After the arduous process of recording their previous album, 1979’s Hemispheres, the band felt they were ready to move on from their signature longer pieces, filled with virtuoso musicianship, multiple stylistic…
Raindrops falling Winter feels so gloomy Hear a knock upon my door Stranger calling Eyes that look like mine He said you know I’ve called before Look if we’re gonna talk sheer abject terror, it begins and ends with “We Built This City”, right? QED. But before this particular band devolved into the atrocity that…
Everything about her was natural Everything about her was cool But I’m a little partial for beautiful girls Even if they blood runs blue… It’s that magical time of the year again, Hokeyfolks! October means fall. Fall means leaves changing, a crispness in the air, warm sweaters, hot apple cider, jackets and boots and scarves…
By 1968, The Monkees had passed their zenith as a commercial entity. Their April album release The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees earned considerable success (although less successful than their previous five albums), selling over a million copies and featured their hits “Valleri” and “Daydream Believer”. From that point on? Things weren’t quite so rosy. NBC…
The Monkees are celebrating their 50th anniversary (!) this year. Zowie. We’re rolling into the summer of 2016 as of this writing, and I’m currently 45 years old, which is depressing enough, but never mind all that. Obviously I wasn’t around during the first wave of “Monkeemania”, and remained blissfully unaware of the group until…
Delving into an album like Instant Replay is a really strange exercise for Monkees faithful, and I’m specifically using the phrase “Monkees faithful”, because heck knows, nobody else would be ostensibly interested in this record. That’s not a criticism, either. Just an exercise in outright pragmatism. The album has no big hits on it, no…
Rush’s 2002 release Vapor Trails is a difficult album. It was, by all accounts, difficult for the band to record, taking over a year to produce after an extended period during which the band had effectively shut down. The album is also infamous for its unfortunate production quality; the audio is overly loud, distorted, cluttered,…
You know, I always kind of respected Hanson when they broke out, when was that, the late 90s? I’m a sucker for good pop music, and those three young brothers definitely had an ear for a strong hooks and catchy melodies. Plus they were an actual band, right? They weren’t a bunch of puffed-up prettyboys…
Don Dixon produced some of the greatest power pop/alt pop/music PERIOD, including such seminal records as R.E.M.’s Murmur and Reckoning and The Smithereens Especially For You and Green Thoughts, and has worked with the likes of Matthew Sweet, Marshall Crenshaw, and The Connells, which means he’s responsible for a huge chunk of music over which…