April's Pearls of Wisdom

Chris Issack - Isaak is not entirely new to me, having heard a song or two, including some holiday songs, in the past. This, though, is my first venture into the full on Chris Issak. Please make it stop. The music isn’t bad - he obviously has a nice voice, similar to a latter day Roy Orbison at times - but one melodramatic song leading into another got wearying. I mean how many ways can he ask whether she'll miss him as much as he’ll miss her. Thank god for Trisha Yearwood and Michelle Branch, who’s voices broke the monotony of Isaak's cloying whining. Even listening to Best I Ever Had, one of the better songs on the CD, was tough the first time around because I kept expecting the other shoe to fall. Lo and behold, he didn’t lose this chick. Whatever! Not bad, not good, just annoying – 2.0

Boomtown Rats - Problem here is that this particular version of the CD is, based on the inclusion of one song and the reworking of the song order, is a dramatically different CD than the one that I first heard in 1979 when it came out as an import. The original started with Like Clockwork and was an up-tempo, lyrically interesting (for the time) pop punk record with a tempo-changing Thin Lizzy meets Bruce Sprinsteen song – Rat Trap – tacked on at the end. For this version they pull Joey’s On the Street again (another Springsteen meets Thin Lizzy) from their first album and bookend the real album with these out of character songs, giving the whole exercise a sense of disconnection. Too bad, because it was a pretty cool record for the time. My bad for not adhering to the original order. The original gets a 3.5 from me.

Robbie Robertson - Sort of interesting step out for Robertson at the time and I think this was his first solo record after the demise of the Band. It’s decidedly un-Band like and while that’s too bad on a certain level, the last thing he needed to do at the time was do a solo Band album. So we’ve got this overly lush, AOR record that deservedly got some FM airplay back in the day. Sounds a bit like U2 at times, but maybe that’s because Bono was involved on some level – don’t have the specifics – but he obviously likes that sonic wall sound the embodies U2’s better stuff. Ultimately, while well done, it just doesn’t hold my interest. 3.0

Blue October - Original comment - Not crazy about this, but I listened to it less than any thing else and never got through the whole thing. Updated comment - now I know why I never got through the whoe thing. Some really interesting followed inevitably by something unlistenable. 2.0

Little Feat – A great, under-appreciated band. Funky and polished in a sloppy sort of way. Fat Man in the Bathtub is a perfect example of that. They are precise at times, but their best stuff has a lazy feel that belies it’s polish. The songs from Dixie Chicken, one of 1973’s best records, stand out. Once Lowell George died – and quite frankly even before that – they started to fade artistically as stardom lurked just beyond their reach and they got too slick. I could listen to Dixie Chicken over and over. It's a nearly perfect record.



Magazines

Rolling Stone till 1976 - Punk and new wave rendered Rolling Stone irrelevant in 1977.

Creem - Boy Howdy profiles, Robert Christgau and Lester Bangs. What else do you need? Irreverent and snotty with a great sense of humor. Creem was the anti-Rolling Stone.

Bomp Magazine – Initially created by Greg Shaw as a collectors fanzine specializing in british invasion music. Shaw switched gears when he recognized the punk movement as the next Briitish Invasion with all of the energy and DIY attitude that characterized the British Invasion. Essentially invented Power pop and to this day, even after his death, his wife carries on with some of the most interesting independent pop and punk stuff available. www.bomp.com

Trouser Press – A more mature contemporary of Bomp, Ira Robbins chronicled the punk and New Wave movements with intelligence, if not the kind of passion that Shaw did. Still the definitive guide to the punk and new wave era. www.trouserpress.com

New York Rocker – When you could get copies, it worked the NYC scene better than anyone else.

There are a few good magazines out there now - most from the UK, but none that really matter to me. The internet has made rock magazines nearly obsolete in their current form. And I'm less tolerant of long articles about dopey musicians because few them are interesting to me beyond their music.




Rock Critics

Greil Marcus – The king of the egghead rock critics, he wrote one of the great books on rock music ever – Mystery Train

Lester Bangs – the Hunter S Thompson of rock critics, a true fan who saw through the record company bullshit and was not afraid to tell those that could help him the most to go fuck themselves just to spite ‘em. Deservedly a legendary figure.

Robert Christgau - The best guy out there right now - reliable, yet often times obscure, his depth of knowlege and experience make him a must read. www.robertchristgau.com/
Click on the users guide in the upper left corner. You can spend alot of time clicking on the Random A list from there.

Greg Shaw – No one critic is more influential for me. The most knowlegable Punk and Power Pop critic ever and he has a way of explaining what it means to love rock and roll music in the same way Nick Hornby explained being an Arsenal fan in the great book Fever Pitch.

Ira Robbins – Trouser Press, the bible of alternative rock, still lives on the internet (see above) and while it is less thorough than other databases like All Music Guide, it is more reliable critically, with fewer articles written by fans of the bands.