Tag Archives: new wave

#630: B is for Bowie (“A New Career in a New Town,” The Box)

I “You’re such a wonderful person, but you got problems.”The second tune on Low, all one minute and 52 secondsof it, contains this gem of a lyric. It’s 1977 and records are beginning to sound reallygood, although people at thetime didn’t think so. Tony Visconti has a newtoy called a Harmonizer andit makes the drumsContinue reading “#630: B is for Bowie (“A New Career in a New Town,” The Box)”

#627: B is for The Boomtown Rats

It is difficultto put into wordswhat The Boomtown Ratsmeant to me as an aspiringpunk rocker and 16 year-old.Attracted mostly to music from across the bigpond, XTC, Elvis Costello, and these guys, these guysespecially, gave voice to every creative vibration pulsating through my little brain. Bob Geldof, that gangly, Irish punk, with his imprecise, manic, snarlingContinue reading “#627: B is for The Boomtown Rats”

#613: B is for the B-52s

One of the greatestnerd-rock bands ever, The B-52s arrived in 1979with this gem of a debut.They were not accomplished musicians, but these spirited performances completely overshadowed what they may have lacked in precision, or what the serious musicians might have called “chops.”I might have been one of those dismissive listeners. I can imagine myself sayingContinue reading “#613: B is for the B-52s”

Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume V, Letter Costello

It happened when I was listening to The Beatles; I couldn’t choose which record to listen to.  It happened again with The Boomtown Rats, again with Cheap Trick, and now, in my mission to listen to one cd from each artist represented in my collection in alphabetical order, I am faced with choosing a singleContinue reading “Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume V, Letter Costello”

Some Things that Sucked about Music in the 80’s

It’s time to make some pronouncements.  I have no authority, and I hate it when people who have no authority make pronouncements, but because I am a musician and can kind of claim to know something about music, and because I lived through, was actually a teenager and a young adult in this particular era,Continue reading “Some Things that Sucked about Music in the 80’s”