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Morphine does for me what bands like The Smiths or The Cure do for so many others. They don’t have nearly the back catalogue, but Mark’s voice / lyrics /instrumentation combined are like several years of my life squeezed into sound. – Chris Estey is a renowned Seattle music writer.
"Turn the car off, we’re here" I can’t come up with a Pop Culture Top 10 of 2011. I paid no attention this year, due to extenuating circumstances. My most memorable pop music experience occurred in April as I drove around my home town (Rochester, NY) the week of my mother’s funeral while the . . . → Read More: Distraction 2011 – By LT Woodward I grew up in Eugene, so the Ducks were always present in some way, although I was more of a basketball fan. During the ’74-’75 season my walls were covered with posters of the “Kamikaze Kids.” Football games were freezing bores I had to sit through with my parents. I was only an official . . . → Read More: Go Ducks! Down With Rude Husky Fans! By Kathleen Wilson Not a bad year for music. I had started compiling my year-end list back in August and assuming there are no stellar December releases, I think this list is pretty final. There is no order to the following faves, but I did leave my Top Three of the year for the end. Also, when . . . → Read More: The Best Records of 2011, By Sal Nunziato Occupy Wall Street might express a general angst — in regards to disparity in wealth or TARP, but where are the details and specifics on the actual manipulations, lies and cheating on Wall Street? Here is a video Jim Cramer made with Thestreet.com way back that he’d never make for CNBC on the manipulations . . . → Read More: Jim Cramer on Tactical Stock Market Price Manipulation by Hedge Funds, By John Petkovic, Celebrity Guest Blogger http://youtu.be/Dy1LDaaw3po After recording with Joan Baez, this (“Don’t Slander Me”) was my next recording session (LOL)! When I got to The Site [studio] in San Rafael to record “Don’t Slander Me”, the producer told me “I don’t want a bunch of ‘guitar riffs.’ I want you to come in cussing, screaming and spitting – . . . → Read More: I Played Slanderous Guitar With Roky Erickson and Recorded With Joan Baez on Christmas Day, By Michael D. Hinton “To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our . . . → Read More: REM Breaks Up After 31 Years as a Band – Reactions Pour in From Around the World In the early 1970s, a surge of racial pride swept the United States and soon it found its way to the popular medium of broadcast television, where people of color had been entertaining the public since jazz pianist and vocalist Nat King Cole’s show debuted in 1956. The Civil Rights movement had elevated the . . . → Read More: Cher’s “Half-Breed”: Race, Pride and Ambiguity, by Jim Demetre, Celebrity Guest Blogger Listening to Prince’s music is like discovering the Kama Sutra and Erotic City would be your favorite position. The groove is mesmerizing, funky and sexy. Prince is pound for pound the greatest songwriter/musician/performer combination ever. “Erotic City” still fills the floor and is a hit today in dance clubs. Many of today’s top R&B . . . → Read More: Prince – Erotic City, by Lou Trez, Celebrity Guest Blogger I love this semi-obscure new wave gem, perfectly conjuring a white Angeleno’s dream fantasia after falling asleep to one of the high-wattage, unregulated Mexican radio stations of the 80s. And if you’ve ever fallen asleep to the radio (or, like me, let it play in the mornings, when you’re unable to get up and . . . → Read More: Wall of Voodoo – Mexican Radio, by Daniel Housman, Celebrity Guest Blogger There has been a lot of misinformation and disinformation coming from people who want to privatize or weaken Social Security. This is not a debate. This is a fact. People suggest that Social Security is in crisis when in reality it can pay out full benefits for more than the next 20 years. Remember . . . → Read More: Military Spending and Wars are Making Us Poor, by Mark Erickson Celebrity Guest Blogger OK, here’s another Kate Bush tune for my friends who are fans (her outfit is right up there with some of Barbarella‘s best…Halloween costume idea anyone?) On an aside, do you notice a thematic, though not stylistic, similarity to “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes? A woman looking for additional racy costume . . . → Read More: Kate Bush – Babooshka, by Sylvia Klockowski, Celebrity Guest Blogger East Portland Blog readers may have already been exposed to Complete, but if not, watch this 2008 video of the band playing their own composition “Hoogie Boogie Land”: This seems pretty shitty at first, right? Guy can’t sing, death metal “no established beat” drumming but in a wimpy hard rock format. Maybe these . . . → Read More: Complete: Good. Not ironic-good, just good, by Andy Cohen Celebrity Guest Blogger East Portland Blog asked me to write about “Supper’s Ready” by Genesis, but my heart really wouldn’t be in it today knowing that this clip of Louis Prima and Keely Smith exists. Prima was a combination Zelig/Lord of Misrule of 20th century music, with a career stretching from Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans to the . . . → Read More: Louis Prima & Keely Smith – That Old Black Magic (the “Son of Sam Version”), by Tom Fredrickson, Celebrity Guest Blogger One of the legacies of World War II, with its enlistment of young men from across the United States for military service in Europe and the Pacific, was the integration of Southern rural culture – both black and white – into mainstream American life. The South, which had been largely isolated from the rest . . . → Read More: Gomer Pyle, Television’s Faux Elvis, On a Date With the Colonel’s Daughter, by Jim Demetre, Celebrity Guest Blogger
The author. There are few experiences in life as exciting as attending a baseball game in October, when the outcome of a marathon season hangs in the balance. Despite the handicap of being a Giants fan of modest means, I had seen two such games in my life prior to last year. The latter, . . . → Read More: October Baseball in San Francisco, by Chuck Strom, Celebrity Guest Blogger Obvious thoughts RE: “Year of Van Morrison” contrivance: 1. In high school everyone seemed to think that Morrison’s last name was “Van Morrison,” just like an older relative of Van Halen. 2. Mr. Morrison is very short, but this physical limitation did not prevent him from taking an adult-sized helping from the Communal Cocaine . . . → Read More: Van, Go! – Morrison Does Not Deserve Year Long Celebration, by Tim Cook, Celebrity Guest Blogger In the greater Portland area there are 160 music venues, give or take a few, that will feature live music on any given night, many featuring music everyday of the week. It really is a music lover’s paradise. Reggae, punk, indie, alt, rock, you name it, Portland has got it. Having lived in . . . → Read More: Portland May be a Paradise for Music Lovers, but Struggling Musicians: Beware, by Dr. David Wakeling, Celebrity Guest Blogger Not sure weather it’s Ethel’s handlebar or Fred’s rug, but this classic I Love Lucy “Barbershop” scene pretty much takes my brain and gives it the Heimlich maneuver of archived gut laughs from beyond. Lucy’s eyeballs, specifically when they take that hot towel off of her face, make the entire thing for me. Which . . . → Read More: I Love Lucy Scene Gives Brain Heimlich Maneuver, by Rachel Flotard, Celebrity Guest Blogger . “The Trick is to Keep Breathing” is magical. The perfect combination of trip hop and alternative rock. Shirley Manson’s voice is wispy and vulnerable, complementing the song’s simple message, “the trick is to keep breathing”. Released in 1999, it’s production was ahead of it’s time. Not to mention the ambient feel is . . . → Read More: Garbage – The Trick is to Keep Breathing, by Lorelei Carlson, Celebrity Guest Blogger |
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