Townsman andyr and his wife have reported the following series of Rock Crimes. Sensitive viewers are cautioned before proceeding to the video evidence, which was captured by the iPhone of an anonymous audience member. The authorities are currently interviewing witnesses. Please feel free to provide your own testimony in the Comments section for this post. Thank you, andyr family, for your bravery and good citizenship in reporting these crimes.
Watch video evidence of Rock Crimes of flash mob proportions…after the jump! Continue reading »
Have you heard of Lala.com? It’s sort of a one-stop online music shopping/listening site. You can buy legal MP3s and the like. You can make playlists. I believe you can load your home MP3 library virtually, so you can listen to it on another computer without having to actually transfer all those gigabytes from one machine to another. Most enticingly for me, you can stream entire albums completely free, one time. It’s a great way to sample an album you’re thinking of buying. You can avoid a lot of unnecessary purchases this way.
Unfortunately, Apple bought Lala, and they’re shutting it down. The site will cease to be on May 31, 2010. So I’ve been streaming a lot of music on there while I can, trying to plug in some of the gaps in my rock knowledge and just generally having some fun. Some of the things I’ve played:
X‘s See How We Are and The Dream Syndicate‘s Medicine Show. These albums made me sad, and made me think about Bruce Springsteen‘s pernicious influence on rock ‘n’ roll over the years.
The Mekons‘ Heaven and Hell. Good-to-great stuff.
Unrest’s Imperial f.f.r.r.. I actually went out and bought this after playing it.
That Fall best-of from a few years ago. OK, I get it. This is the kind of thing I can get into, when I’m in the mood. But I don’t see myself buying much Fall right now. I gotta be fiscally responsible these days.
I think I also listened to some Embarassment and didn’t like it as much as I thought it would.
Also, earlier in the year, I was listening to as much ’80s Neil Young as I could find on the site: Re-ac-tor, Everybody’s Rockin’, Life, This Note’s For You, etc. I want to pick up this project at some point this month and listen to a few more “weird Neil” albums, like the all-feedback Arc and that one about his electric car.
So suggest other albums/artists I should listen to on this site, Townsfolks. If it’s any help, lately my tastes have veered towards dirty, noisy, smart indie rock with guitars. Have at it.
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Who are the worst dancers in rock ‘n roll? I think we can agree that Bruce makes the list of rockers who shouldn’t have been caught dancing.
Artist Toby Wetland pulls no punches with his depiction of The Boss’ second fall. “Even with help, The Boss stumbled and fell to the ground once more,” explains the artist. “This time Julianne was the tipping point, but not – I stress – the sole cause of his fall.”
Bruce has seen death before, but now He can feel the profound weakness of disability and disease and aging itself, there on his knees, clutching onto the mic stand, under the weight of his Telecaster.Continue reading »
In our sixth Station of The Boss, artist Hans Wheeler asked us to look at The Boss in a new light. “Perspiration was increasingly becoming an issue for The Boss and His E Street Band in the early ’80s.” explains Wheeler. By 1983, concerts typically ran for 4 hours or more, testing the band’s improved cardiovascular fitness. Wheeler says the band was up to the challenge, and decided to emphasize their newly crafted “guns.”
“The scrawny, hairy, sweaty, bearded, wool cap-wearing Boss was a thing of the past,” said Wheeler, as we sipped soy vanilla lattes on the roof deck of his Dayton, Ohio condominium. “He liked the way the sweat ran down His sculpted physique, and He wanted to make sure this Look worked within His show.” The problem, Wheeler explained, was how to keep all that sweat from gumming up the works of the band’s equipment.
“In the old days,” Wheeler continued, “the hats, beards, vests, and jackets sopped up enough sweat to keep the gear dry enough to play through the night.” Now The Boss and His band were often down to one layer of clothing, with their sleeves rolled up high and tight over that finely honed artillery. Eventually something had to give, and the band introduced a new article of clothing into its ranks:
