List Of The Day
  • According to the Associated Press, in 2008 "A tour bus carrying hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg was pulled over and two people were arrested on marijuana possession charges a few hours before a concert in Dallas, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said."

    Is it any surprise that a tour bus with Snoop Dogg would yield a few marijuana tokers? It's happened before. While the drug is still illegal in the United States, it has a long history of support in the musical community and there are many musicians who have not exactly hidden their interest from public view. Since they've sung about it, or spoken out about it, we're not "outing" anyone here, but merely noting their presence on the scene.

    Bob Dylan once sang "Everybody Must Get Stoned," but he meant getting hit in the head by little rocks! But lots of '60s music and reggae has focused on the subject and a few others as well. Here are some notable highlights.

    10) Black Sabbath: "Sweet Leaf" thanks the pot plant for

    Read More »from 10 Musical Acts You Associate With Marijuana
  • I need to check my Rock 'n' Roll Calendar more often. I'd completely forgotten that Joey Ramone passed away 10 years ago this past April 15. For this, I apologize to Miss Sandy Lieb.

    In my defense, it doesn't feel like 10 years ago. And for those looking for a happier note, Joey Ramone will turn 60 on May 19, something he can do because his music still lives. All Ramones fans should pick up I Slept With Joey Ramone (A Family Memoir) by his brother, the great Mickey Leigh, whose talents as a storyteller are every bit as fascinating as the songs listed below.

    Picking the 25 best Ramones songs is a task not to be envied; believe me. Putting them in any kind of order is like alphabetizing the Bible. There's no real point, except for the fun of it. The list of songs that didn't make the cut is just as long and just as good. Simply no room for "I'm Affected," "Mama's Boy," "Somebody Put Something In My Drink," "53rd and 3rd," "I Wanna Live," "Outsider," "She's a Sensation," "Psychotherapy,"

    Read More »from The Twenty-Five Greatest Ramones Songs
  • Rock 'n' Roll has been around so long it often takes ideas from itself. Where so many bands the first couple times around named themselves after books or movies or out of thin air, there are now quite a few groups who have named themselves after another band's songs. The Mooney Suzuki went so far as to steal their name from the last names of the German band Can's two lead singers, Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki.

    In some ways it's a shame bands didn't once name themselves after the songs of Burl Ives or Eddy Arnold. Imagine, if you will, Eric Clapton forming a power trio with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker and calling it Foggy Foggy Dew, Blue Tail Fly or Lavender Blue. In that case, there might now be a great old rock magazine fetching collectors' prices called Blew Tale Fly!

    After all this research, I'm more convinced than ever that my band The Happiest Girls In the Whole U.S.A will bring much needed attention back to North Carolina's finest Donna Fargo. Besides, has there ever been a

    Read More »from Twenty-Five Band Names Taken From Song Titles
  • This list focuses on Band Names taken from Book Titles. Not to be confused with bands who took their names from characters in books or by objects found in those books. After all, we always need more lists and I am quite obliged to satisfy.

    There are a few vague cheats in here. You could argue a band named after a play shouldn't necessarily make this list, but sometimes things are close enough for my liking.

    I'm not promoting or disparaging any of the names listed herein. (Well, maybe a little.) They are what they are. For those wondering how one ranks such a project, I can only ascertain that the vague order is somewhat determined by my laziness to cut and paste further. I mean, I suppose #19 could be #17, and #21 could be #6.  Let's just say I liked looking at them in this order and leave it at that. It's not the destination that counts, but the journey.

    I don't know what that means, really. But I've heard others say it in order to sound profound. Why not me?

    25) Art of Noise - The

    Read More »from Twenty-Five Band Names Taken From Book Titles
  • 2011, so far, has been rife with unexpected announcements in the music entertainment world. Could we have predicted any of it? Sure. But then we often get the news before it happens. Now that's power.

    Here are just a handful of the ones that we didn't see coming!

     

    10) Justin Bieber Announces Retirement Plans: Justin Bieber, the 17-year old Canadian teen-throb, told the media on his birthday this past March that "thanks to an aggressive retirement strategy," he would be shuttling off to Florida for shuffleboard on his 19th birthday to spend more time with his family. The intense workday grind Bieber has been subjected to since 2008 when he was discovered by Scooter Braun and Usher has Bieber thinking retirement may be the answer. "I don't want to be trotting around the world singing 'Baby' when I'm twenty. I want to have time to see my family before I'm too old to enjoy it," said Bieber, as he knocked back several megavitamins and retired for his nap.

    9) Conan O'Brien to Host

    Read More »from The Ten Most Shocking News Items Of 2011
  • Part Two of this 19-part blog on the year 1986 focuses on more albums released that year. As stated in the wonderful first part of this 1986 countdown, 1986 was the most important year in human existence, because I said so.

    Fact is, I collected music because it was easier than making lots of friends. Music doesn't ask to borrow money from you. Music doesn't think your complexion needs work. Music doesn't wonder why you picked someone new.

    Well, let's find more great music!

     

    25) Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring: This is completely hindsight 20/20 here. At the time, I just figured Talk Talk were this Duran Duran cover-band without a sound of their own. Of course, now I know better. I've come to terms with synthesizers and realize now that they can be used in something other than a Cure album. It's just that pop music in the 1980s--as in what was actually popular--had horribly shallow productions, lots of gated snares and exaggerated reverbs and tons of new keyboards where no one had

    Read More »from Do You Remember 1986?: Albums Celebrating Their 25th Anniversary, Pt. 2
  • Welcome to our 19-part blog celebrating the year 1986, one of the most important years in human history, because I said so.

    The reason is obvious. It was an important year in my life. It's when I first joined the college radio station and had free access to more music than I could possibly listen to. For those of us who trend towards being overly-obsessive about these things, participating in college radio was the perfect excuse to make us appear as normal and productive members of society.

    I also threw in a few mainstream things to make it look like I was doing something fair and balanced.

    But I'm not, really.

    25) Bruce Springsteen - Live / 1975-85: The greatest comment regarding this box set I overheard at a college record sale. "Great, just when the radio stopped playing Born In The U.S.A. to death, I get to hear it all again live." Ah, if only that were our problem today!

    24) XTC - Skylarking: This version of Skylarking is the one without "Dear God" on it. Later pressings in

    Read More »from Do You Remember 1986?: Albums Celebrating Their 25th Anniversary, Pt. 1
  • Catchy title, eh?

    Before I discovered the fine art of list-making, I didn't much notice "genres" or any kind of man/woman thing. My record collection was divided into two. Good stuff and junk rock (friends know the real term for that horrifying part of my collection that I kept in the living room just to watch new acquaintances stutter in confusion when they thought I only owned stuff like Chicago and crap-period Linda Ronstadt albums!).

    Anyhow, it being March, Women's History Month, I thought I'd play along and use it as an excuse to draw attention to "Women In Music."

    This blog focuses on women who are not yet household names. Some should be, while others should just have their music bought and appreciated. The list is in vague general order. Coming in #23 or #17 is more a matter of me having to put that person somewhere.

    I'm including their websites, so you can learn more on your own. My own comments will be somewhere between banal and useless, with an occasional insight

    Read More »from Ladies’ Month! Twenty-Five Women To Watch!
  • Musicians love movies. Why wouldn't they? It's not like they're going to be good at science! Creative folks like other creative folks and when struggling to come up with a band name, they go to the movies that inspired them. Or to movies they've heard of. Sometimes, it's a happy accident. And, yes Golden Earring was #26.

    Here are 25 of the best! Special thanks to Tom Fraser for his suggestions and help with this column. If there's a heaven in New Zealand, Tom, you're booked in advance! Meet ya there in 50!

    25) The Knack (and How To Get It): The movie was directed by Richard Lester in 1965, the same year he directed The Beatles' HELP! Knowing how much The "My Sharona" Knack loved the Beatles, it's pretty obvious that this helped fulfill another step towards their total Beatles affiliation. I would've gone with calling my band The Fools On The Hill, but then again, I've only made three dollars with my recording career.

    24) The Damned: There was a 1940s French film of the same title,

    Read More »from Twenty-Five Bands That Took Their Names From Movie Titles
  • Art-rock, progressive rock, we consider them the same here. For creating a zillion sub-genres is for people who like to file records not listen to them. I've left off all the German bands, because they deserve a list of their own and may, in fact, have already received one. However, my battered brain can't remember.

    So, basically, here are ten bands, many that sound better than they did the first time around. This may be because their music was recorded on better - i.e. more expensive - equipment than today's. Or maybe because each band back then only released the best material they were then working on and not every extra scrap.

    While rock historians like to jump over the whole messy topic of "prog rock" and only assign kudos to deep thinkers such as Robert Fripp's King Crimson and then go on their merry way singing the praises of punk, it's time to stop skipping over complete sub-sects.

    Time has taught us that all music can exist without affecting the fortune of another. Surely, the

    Read More »from Ten Great Art Rock Bands

Pagination

(590 Stories)

News for You

  • Attorney: Donald Trump lied on stand

    CHICAGO (AP) — The attorney for an 87-year-old woman who accuses Donald Trump of cheating her in a skyscraper condo deal told Chicago jurors on Wednesday that he was personally repulsed by the "Apprentice" star whom he said lied on the witness stand.

  • Restaurant learns online reviews can make or break

    SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — It was the customer service disaster heard around the Internet.

  • Debbie Reynolds: We all knew Liberace was gay

    BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — In the new film "Behind the Candelabra," veteran entertainer Debbie Reynolds has just three major scenes to flesh out one of the most complicated figures in piano-playing showman Liberace's life: his loving but sometimes manipulative mother Frances.

  • The new consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony

    NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft is the last of the three big video game console makers to unveil its latest gaming system. The unveiling comes nearly eight years after the Xbox 360 went on sale. It follows last fall's debut of Nintendo's Wii U and a preview in February of the upcoming PlayStation 4 from Sony.

  • Singer Kellie Pickler named new 'Dancing' champ

    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kellie Pickler came into the final "Dancing With the Stars" episode in second place but finished in first.

  • Douglas, Damon dramatize a steamy showbiz affair

    NEW YORK (AP) — The idea of Michael Douglas playing Liberace might seem nearly as outrageous as Liberace himself.

TOP VIDEOS

  1. Can't Hold Us
    1.Macklemore & Ryan … | Warner
  2. 2.P!nk, (f/ Nate Ruess …
  3. 3.Justin Timberlake
  4. 5.Rihanna, (f/ Mikky E …
  5. 6.Florida Georgia Line
  6. 7.Selena Gomez
  7. 8.Imagine Dragons
  8. 9.Icona Pop
  9. 10.Daft Punk, (f/ Pharr …