Tag Archives: rock

#631: B is for Bowie (“Loving the Alien,” The Box)

I It will be forever and a single daybefore I get to the M section of thealphabet, so, even though I won’t write about them, I will from timeto time listen to an album from artistsin other parts of the alphabet. And the only reason I mention thisis because I listened to Magdalena Baythis morning,Continue reading “#631: B is for Bowie (“Loving the Alien,” The Box)”

#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)”

#629: B is for Bowie (“Who Can I Be Now?” The Box)

I didn’t rememberliking Diamond Dogsall that much at the firstlisten, but today it’s freshand weird and good.I’d have to study the lyricspretty carefully to understand the Orwell references beyond the titles, “We Are The Dead,”“1984,” and “Big Brother,” but I’m not going to do that; I rather just letthe record wash behindme as I toolContinue reading “#629: B is for Bowie (“Who Can I Be Now?” The Box)”

#628: B is for Bowie (“Five Years,” The Box)

I “Ground Control to Major Tom,”are likely the first words any of usever heard from David Bowie. Maybe I was five, and for yearsI would hear that distinctive voiceon the radio and knew the hits, but my older siblings, the arbitersof new music into the householdnever brought home a Bowie album. I didn’t start buyingContinue reading “#628: B is for Bowie (“Five Years,” The Box)”

#626: B is for Blood, Sweat & Tears

It’s 1968. Hey, I know, let’sopen up a rock recordwith Eric Satie and follow that with somewild, short, orchestral Satie variation thing, and then we’ll play the funk rock real hard with horns and organs and lyrics about gettingyourself togetherand then we’ll swingharder than any jazzband and the drummerwill just kind of go crazythrough theContinue reading “#626: B is for Blood, Sweat & Tears”

#623: B is for Black Midi

I heard Black Midithe first time in the video for “John L,” a.k.a.“John 50,” which must have been the first single from the 2021 Cavalcade album, the band’s sophomoreeffort. Visually insane, a group of dancers in nude-beige body suits, in clown-like white face, wearing wigs, cavortingand contorting wildly around some obelisk figure with armsand a single eyeball. Musically, it was like a marriage between King Crimson and Primus, but weirder, noisier, aContinue reading “#623: B is for Black Midi”

#602: A is for Asia

Get a bunch of superstarprog-rockers togetherin the early 80’s and watch them writehit pop songs. “The heatof the moment showedin your eyes” is objectively a dumb lyric. Does thischorus speed up? I think I inherited this album from my brother’s discardedrecord collection, but it’s got a price tag on it: 95 cents,and I can’t imagineContinue reading “#602: A is for Asia”

#597: A is for Angel

Let’s say you’re a youngmusician in the early 70’s with big rock star ambition. First, you need a schtick, a look, something glammy, something preposterous. Yeah, Cooper did the make-upthing, but you could go bigger, and you watch as some fellow musicians from neighboring New York Citygo the whole hogon the face-paint, so yougots toContinue reading “#597: A is for Angel”

#591: A is for AC/DC

Bon Scott died about six monthsafter the release of Highway to Hell. I was fifteen years old. I loved him, his weirdness, his humor: I loved it when he pretended to keel over at the end of “ShotDown in Flames,” and I loved his rock-uncharacteristic nod to Mork and Mindy at the end of “NightContinue reading “#591: A is for AC/DC”