Blog Posts by David Marchese

I have a soft spot for rock lifers, the kind of musicians who seem both completely unsuited for, and incapable of, doing anything other than kicking out the jams. Keith Richards is a good example--it's impossible to imagine that vampire living out his last six decades any different than the way he has. Not so with Mick Jagger. You can easily imagine him as a CEO or whatever. He could adapt. Keith couldn't.

Sunday night in New York City, I was lucky enough to see another wonderful example of a rock lifer do what he was born to do when Bobby Liebling took the stage with the latest incarnation of Pentagram, the doom metal band he started in the early '70s.

For those of you that don't know--and that should include most of the sane world--Liebling is considered a cult hero for helping build the basics of doom, a subgenre of metal that favors slooooow tempos, bluesy solos, and dark subject matter. Early Black Sabbath is a reasonable analogue.

But unlike Ozzy's band, Liebling and Pentagram

Every year around this time I get confused. Not from quitting egg nog cold turkey or overdosing on football, but from trying to parse the Grammy nominations.

Does anybody not involved in the music business really understand the difference between, say, the Record of the Year and Song of the Year categories? (I had to look it up--the former is for producers while the latter is for songwriters.) Can anybody offer a good explanation as to why there are separate categories for, just to cite one curious instance, Male Pop Vocal Performance and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals? Why can't individuals compete in the same category with a group? Isn't the best song the best song? What difference does it make if one or two people sang it? Or, someone please explain to me the difference between R&B and Traditional R&B and how Beyonce can be nominated in both spots. (And why in the former men and women don't compete against each other but in the latter they do.) This stuff drives

Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga were easily the two biggest breakout female pop acts of 2009. They're also both blonde. That's pretty much where the similarities between the two starlets end. But as we move into 2010, it's fun to wonder how these ladies' careers will evolve. And for as unpredictable as Gaga's fashion choices and stage antics have been, I think Swift is the one whose continued trajectory raises more questions, and whose future is more wide open.

Basically, Gaga is trying to be Madonna. At various times in 2009, Gaga was a sexual provocateur, a style beacon, a gay hero, and a dancefloor queen. Which is to say she was doing a Madge. But Swift? There is no easy comparison. Remember, she started out solely as a country act--it wasn't until the release of Fearless in late 2008 that the Pennsylvania native crossed over to non-genre audiences. There are precedents for that kind of country-to-pop boundary crossing--the Dixie Chicks and Shania Twain come to mind--but neither of those

While other acts may have sold more records, I don't think there's much disputing that Lady Gaga was the breakout music story of the year.

Her music, of course, had much to do with her ubiquity. "Just Dance," "Poker Face," "LoveGame," "Paparazzi," and "Bad Romance," all from her debut album The Fame, were sleek, pop marvels, with strong melodies and enough of a suggestion of weird sex and glamour to draw in people who might not otherwise care about glitzy dance tracks.

But when it comes to her fame, the music seems secondary. Dousing herself in fake blood at the VMAs, playfully cat-fighting with Madonna on Saturday Night Live, a succession of outfights that led us to become better acquainted with her anatomy than we ever wanted to--these, more than the music, are the reasons why my mom knows who Lady Gaga is.

Where does Gaga go from here? As the Octomom and Falcon Heene and countless other among the ranks of the fleetingly famous can attest, the public's curious fascination only

Ah yes, the malls and car radios of America are starting to fill with the sound of Christmas carols and sleigh bells--holiday season has arrived. And music, just as much as red, green, and white decorations and images of St. Nick, helps lend this time of year its distinctly warm-and-fuzzy feeling. But if you're tired of the same old songs, give the list below a gander. It includes my picks for the most underrated Christmas rock songs. What are yours?

1. The Killers, "Joseph, Better You Than Me": The glammy Las Vegas quartet is good enough to release a holiday single every year--this is the best of the bunch. With guest appearances from the Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant and Elton John--and a great major-key guitar solo from Dave Keuning--this ballad is as gaudily majestic as the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

2. Glasvegas, "A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss)": The much-buzzed about Scottish band released this gentle, haunting song as the title track to a holiday-themed 2008

When the updated Billboard 200 album chart was released this week, John Mayer's Battle Studies was in the top spot. Whether or not you think he's a gifted dreamboat or an insufferable d-bag, there's no doubt the guy is big. And as his tabloid-and-Twitterable knack for staying in the public eye in-between album releases shows, he's shrewd too.

He's been that way for a while. Since things are slowing down as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I'd take advantage of the news lull to share a John Mayer story with you. It comes courtesy of my friend Misha.

Misha spent a summer in the late '90s studying drumming at Boston's Berklee College of Music--one of the country's most prestigious music schools. Mayer was a student there at the time, and helped out teaching guitar in the summer programs. Even then, the future star had a reputation as a six-string badass. He would wow Misha and the other students with his awesome displays of Stevie Ray Vaughan-styled blues playing and

A little more than halfway through Metallica's concert last Sunday at Madison Square Garden, just after columns of fire spewed from the stage, and right before James Hetfield began barking out "Master Of Puppets," the friend I was with turned and me and shouted, "Why are these guys so much better than any other metal band?"

Good question. Arguing that one band is the best representative of any given genre is tough--at some level these things always boil down to taste. I like Metallica, you like Slipknot, we leave each other alone to headbang in peace. But I don't think you can argue that, at the very least, Metallica isn't one of the absolute best heavy bands going. To suggest otherwise is akin to saying that the Beatles weren't that great. You can like other bands more, but you're just being obstinate if you don't acknowledge the quality on display.

That Metallica is both one of the best metal bands and, inarguably, the most commercially successful is another triumph. Skill and sales

As someone who has music for his vocation and avocation, it's always fun to hear what people who don't spend all day listening to, thinking on, and writing about the subject have to say about it. This past weekend, I got a nice opportunity to do that.

Last Saturday morning I took the train from New York City to Trenton, NJ to visit my grandmother. When I arrived in Trenton, I got a cab to drive me 30 minutes to Warminster, PA, where she lives in a retirement home. I've done this trip a small handful of times. And each of those times, my cab driver has been a talkative dude. It's never more than a couple minutes before I'm asked what I do for a living. Then the pattern unfolds.

First, there's always a flash of excitement when I say I work for a music magazine. Then, they ask if I get to go to a lot of concerts for free. When I tell them I do, there's another burst: "That's great! I wish I could do that." Then, invariably, they ask if I've met rock stars. Here's where the disconnect