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I have saved almost every ticket stub from concerts I’ve been attending since 1974. I’m not sure why, except that behind every one of them is a memory. Most of them are good, none are profound, a few make for good stories after a couple of beers. Some of the memories have gone missing – [...]

Seems like a good time was had by all last Saturday at Lee’s. Of course, it would’ve been a ton better if Colin had been able to make it. If you didn’t make it and want to contribute to the cause (or if you did make it and want to contribute more), details on helping [...]

To my knowledge, I was the only DJ who played anything from Dexys Midnight Runners Searching for the Young Soul Rebels album back in the early 1980s. Now, I know this probably wasn’t true, but the band, with its earnest-but-technically-unskilled singer Kevin Rowland was a bit tough on the ears, definitely not radio-friendly. So I [...]

Pop culture can certainly use more Chuck Klostermans, an observer who is exceedingly insightful, self-aware and glib. Not since the late Lester Bangs have I really enjoyed such writing on a consistent basis. Klosterman is like Bangs with a seat belt – he’s safe; never do you feel like you’re a witness to the writer’s [...]

{mosimage}Black Caesaroriginal soundtrackJames Brown  OK, I gotta start with an admission – I was a little leery of the Black Caesar soundtrack my son gave me for Christmas. You just never know what you’re going to get with a soundtrack. I should’ve had more faith in the Godfather of Soul and his faithful sidekick, Fred Wesley. Black [...]

Badly Drawn BoyPantages Theater, Minneapolis10/20/04 Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) might be laughable were he not so unrelentingly earnest. I mean, present lyrics such as these -Sometimes you’ve got to rewind to go forward/ There’s some good times around the corner/ But have you fed the fish today? – to someone unfamiliar with the artist [...]

For being one of the most enigmatic performers in the history of popular music, Bob Dylan sure sounds normal in this NPR interview. As one friend, a big Dylan fan put it, he comes across remarkably like just another guy from Hibbing. I had been ambivalent about picking up Chronicles: Volume One until I heard [...]

PalaisThe Figgs {mosimage}Until they opened for and backed Graham Parker on tour a few years back, I had never heard of The Figgs. I still wonder why; The Figgs make the kind of smart, spare power pop I that’s formed the core of my listening diet since the late 1970s. The answer, I suspect, is [...]