We’d hoped this rumor would prove to be untrue, but alas… X-Ray Spex’ teenage dynamo Poly Styrene has lost her battle with breast cancer. May we celebrate the rip-roaring beauty of “Oh Bondage, Up Yours.”
Apr 262011
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Mar 232011
I just saw that Elizabeth Taylor is dead. Being that she was a great…woman, this can only mean one thing: Elton John or some other close, personal friend in the music business is going to need to quickly retro-fit a forgotten deep cut to play at her international day of mourning and rebranding. Townspeople, act fast and help an appropriate artist identify the appropriate song for this occasion. Saccharine montages and a sudden turn in a sagging artist’s fortunes depend on your input. Thank you.
NEXT: Rock Town Hall’s Official Eulogy… Continue reading »
Feb 102011
My gamer son told me this was coming: Guitar Hero is no more. I don’t know if this is really one more sign that rock ‘n roll is out of vogue or if they simply lost out to Rock Band, which my son says is much better. Let us take a moment of silence to honor a hero’s defeat and appreciate this quote from CNN.com’s report:
As rock struggled against rap music, video games like “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” were credited with creating a new appreciation for rock ‘n’ roll among the millennial generation born in the ’90s who didn’t know much about Aerosmith, Pat Benatar and other musicians of the ’70s and ’80s.
Thanks to Townsman plugdin2 for passing along this story.
Feb 022011
Color me anything but red and white!
The fact that this is new today is news to me: The White Stripes have broken up.
Beside making appearances on Conan I thought The White Stripes broke up a year or two ago. I mean, wasn’t that pretentious film of their tour of Canada supposed to be their swan song, or was that just increasingly wishful thinking the more I watched of that turd?
The band left the following touching statement on their website:
The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore. The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to. Thank you for sharing this experience. Your involvement will never be lost on us and we are truly grateful.
To celebrate our inheritance of their Jack and Meg’s legacy, I invite you to do any of the following—and whatever else appropriate strikes your fancy:
- Please send me your favorite track(s) by the band. You can burn them for me or upload them to the Hall if you have Back Office privileges. I only have 2 songs by them on my iPod, and now that the band belongs to me, I’d like to see if more of their songs are worth my giving repeated listens. The key is, since they’ve turned over the keys to us, I don’t feel like paying.
- I don’t know about you, but I was getting tired of the red & white thing. It’s time to rebrand. Please scan or download The White Stripes photo of your choice and use a graphics program of your choice to propose a new color scheme/branding for our band. Submit your designs (jpg, gif, png, pdf) to mrmoderator [at] rocktownhall [dot] com by Friday, February 11. Be creative. The winner will be awarded a really snazzy prize!
Thank you, Jack and Meg, for providing a surefire hot-button focal point for old, bass-obsessed farts and relatively younger, hipper Townspeople; some great guitar sounds; the confidence to learn the drums; the opportunity for some to giggle over terms like “rack toms”; and so much more.
Jan 262011
A: Ask Jimmy Buffett.
Seriously, how do these musicians fall off stage? It’s not like they’re falling off some matchbox stage at a local club; they’re falling off the enormostages of enormodomes. Steven Tyler quickly to mind. He’s fallen off more than one stage. He’s had to navigate catwalks and hip checks, but most likely he was wasted.
Still, these are big stages and most of these artists who fall off stages aren’t shimmying along catwalks. I bet Mick Jagger‘s never fallen off a stage, a catwalk, or an inflatable penis. That guy’s a real pro.
Patti Smith fell off the stage at CBGB’s, but she’s a dynamo and that old CBGB’s stage was pretty small. What’s Jimmy Buffett even doing near the edge of a stage? I can’t imagine him putting his foot up on a monitor and rocking forward like The Ramones. (I don’t recall stories of Joey ever falling off a stage, and he epitomized the gangly klutz.)
Didn’t Andy Partridge fall off a stage to end XTC’s live performance era? He was having a performance anxiety–related breakdown, so that fall was understandable. Scott Weiland‘s fallen off stages, wagons, you name it. Pink has fallen off a stage, but she was suspended in a harness while wearing a body stocking. A top-heavy Mariah Carey fell onstage, but I don’t think she landed off stage. Jimmy Buffett, according to reports, did.
HOLD THE PRESSES: Reports are now appearing that Buffett was blinded by the light!
Have you ever fallen off a stage or witnessed another musician doing so?
