Like Father, Like Son

I heard about this over at Matt's blog, Addicted to Vinyl.

It reminds me of when Eddie Van Halen had his son Wolfgang (only 15 years old at the time!) play bass on their last tour. Very cool.

Now Mighty Max's son, Jay, will be replacing him as the E-Street drummer on several dates that Max is unable to make. Jay is only 18! He must be damn good cause his dad is not an easy act to follow. I kinda wish he was playing the night I'm going, that would fun!

Kind of reminds me of Jason Bonham playing with Zeppelin for their reunion concert.

"GIVE THE DRUMMER'S SON SOME
Here's how the change was made uptown and Jay Weinberg joined the band -- at least for "six or seven shows of the European tour," according to Andy Greene at Rollingstone.com:

Last December E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg was driving his 18-year-old son Jay to school in Hoboken, New Jersey, when Bruce Springsteen called. "He wanted to talk to Jay," says Max. "He said to him, 'Jay, this is Bruce. You may have heard I have a band. In that band I have the world's greatest drummer, who has a scheduling conflict. He gave me your name and number and suggested that I call you to see if you’d be interested in playing with me and the E Street Band.' " Jay accepted."

Taken from Backstreets.com

Another Rant About Ticketmaster

Tickets for the local U2 show go on sale next Monday. I should be happy, thrilled, ecstatic.

Instead I feel nervous, anxious and angry because obtaining concert tickets is such a negative experience. In some ways its like playing the lotto - a few get lucky, but many will walk away with NOTHING. Its grossly unfair and the ticket industry’s greed is disgusting.

I’m not referring to the price of tickets (that’s for another day), what infuriates me is how ticket scalpers (aka ticket brokers or agencies) buy huge quantities of tickets than turn around and sell them for two, three or even four times face value. It forces fans that want choice seats to shell out big bucks. Its just plain wrong!

Its at times like this that I ask myself, where the heck are Eddie Vedder and Trent Reznor when you need them?

Remember back in 1994 when Pearl Jam addressed Congress? They clearly spelled out what goes on behind the scenes. They did an excellent job of showing the world how greedy and unfair it is to have one company, specifically Ticketmaster, controlling ticket sales for all the major events in the USA You can read the transcript here, its very informative. Peal Jam went to bat for their FANS and I will forever be grateful for their efforts and willingness to make changes (Eddie, I’d like to thank you in person, call me!)

Then there’s Nine Inch Nails. Those guys took things a step further and made sure their fans had a fair shot at getting GOOD seats at face value! Trent Reznor does a great job of summarizing how NIN deals with this issue (read the article for details of the hows and whys, I found it very enlightenting):

"We have essentially stopped scalping by doing these things - because we want true fans to be able to get great seats and not get ripped off by these parasites."

Once again, my personal thanks to Trent (you have my number, lets do lunch!)

I am seriously considering starting a grassroots movement to put an end to unfair monopolization of concert ticket sales!! Anyone want to join me? Lets do it!

New Dylan!

Hot of the press from Arbell at Sony Music, and there's a Free Download of First Track!!

The first track from Bob Dylan’s forthcoming release, Together Through Life, has been posted as a free download on BobDylan.com. Titled “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”, the song will be available for free from midnight, March 30th through midnight, March 31st. Together Through Life will be released on Columbia Records on April 28th.

The new album will be the 46th release from Bob Dylan, and follows 2006’s Platinum album Modern Times, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 and reached the top of the charts in seven additional countries and the Top 5 in 22 countries around the world.

Any Dylan fans out there?  I'm a huge fan of his early stuff, he lost me for a few years but Modern Times was excellent!

Hmmm, I'm liking that album cover art too....very sensual. 

David Bowie - Always One Step Ahead of the Rest of Us

Way back on this date in 1999, David launched an Internet radio station, "The David Bowie Internet Radio Network" Their first show was Bowie's introducing each of his favorite songs track by track.

You gotta admire that! He's always been an avante garde kinda guy, but also very a savvy business man who obviously recognized what a HUGE force the Internet would become. Then of course there's also his website, which is really more of a network:

Bowie Net

I heard a rumor that he's in the studio recording....PLEASE LET IT BE TRUE!

Rock On Digital

There's a new site out there that looks pretty good:  Rock On Digital

"The only place on the web where you can experience exclusive classic rock shows, previews, concerts, studio sessions, videos, audio tracks, interviews and so much more."

I'm not the type to say "I told you so" or "I was right!". Sometimes I think it and someone can read it on my face, but I just can't say the words.

But since you can't see my face, I have to tell you: I was right! About a year ago I posted about a new radio station that started up in my area and said I was in love with it.

The comments left were along the lines of "don't get your hopes up, they all start out good then go downhill from there."

I am happy to say that The Sound LA has gone above and BEYOND my expectations! They play the perfect mix of both old and new music. They play deep tracks that the other popular stations around here would not touch. They have very little advertising and the DJs are not annoying or arrogant, they talk about The Music.

They have several weekly features that I look forward to (makes my dat at work survivable). For example, right not I am listening to "Ten at 10:00". Each day they play ten songs from the same year, today's year is the year that The Beatles had their last studio session: 1970

They also have host live events in their studio, an artist will come in every now and then and do a mini-concert on the air (yesterday was the Bacon Brothers).

One other feature that I love is "My Turn" where they invite musicians to be a DJ for an hour or so and play whatever they want. Its sometimes suprising and always interesting to hear what songs are selected. Some of the guests they've had on are BB King, Noel Gallager, Tom Morello, The Pretenders, Brian Wilson, Gavin Rossdale and O.A.R.

Anyhow, just wanted to tell you all about it in case you feel like checking them out online. Classic Rock rocks, but you know the saying: Man can not live on bread alone? Well I can't live on classic rock alone - I dig the new stuff too :)

(as I end this post they are playing a song by Drew's favorite band...."The Immigrant Song")

Rock and Roll Guru Wrote About Me :)

One of the coolest rock and roll bloggers on the planet (Earth) did a post on me today as a precursor to his post about the song "Layla". I am honored! If you don't know Joe or read his blog you are missing out. He's also the author of The Rock and Roll Dictionary (hilarious must read!) and is in the process of having his second book published.


Thanks for the mention, Joe!!!

Songfacts Top Ten Videos

Songfacts asked their readers to pick their top ten favorite music videos.  To see which ones came out on top check here.

This is my favorite out of their selections:

"Sledgehammer" is a celebration of modern animation. Award winning animators The Brothers Quay used claymation, pixilation, and stop motion to give life to a plethora of normally inanimate objects. Never mind the technical stuff, the video is just fascinating and entertaining from beginning to end, from the model train encircling Gabriel's head, to the dancing chickens, to the singing fruit sculptures. The filming of the Gabriel stills for the video required him to lie under glass for 16 hours. The ending features Johnson and Gabriel's friends and family, the entire team of animators and a whole slew of ever-shifting furniture. It's all fascinating and fun, and impossible to look away from.

The technical stuff, of course, is important. This video has plenty to offer. In 1987 it won nine MTV Music Video awards. Nine. That record held for 21 years. I am apparently not the only person to love this video, MTV says it is the most played video in the history of the station, and is considered MTV's #1 animated video of all time."

This Day in Music...

2001, A stretch of road on Highway 19 in Macon, Georgia, was named Duane Allman Boulevard, near where the Allman Brothers guitarist died aged 24 in a motorcycle crash on October 29, 1971.

1997, US soul singer Harold Melvin died aged 57. (1972 US No.3 & 1974 UK No.9 single 'If You Don't Know Me By Know').

1991, The Black Crowes were dropped as the support act on ZZ Top's tour after repeatedly criticising the tour sponsor Miller Beer.

1973, Alice Cooper went to No.1 on the UK album chart with 'Billion Dollar Babies.' Also a No.1 in the US.

1973, During a Lou Reed show in Buffalo, New York, a fan jumped on stage and bit Lou on the bottom. The man was thrown out of the theatre and Reed completed the show.

Clash Fans:

Sean over at "Pod" has written an excellent post on why The Clash are so damn good, and what is missing in some of today's music. Here is a porition of what he has to say, visit him for the rest (there are also some great videos included in his post)

Double albums are tricky as you really have to vary the pace to maintain interest throughout. No such issues arise with "London Calling". The Clash take rock, pop, punk, reggae and ska, mix it up and blast it back with lyrics that touch on many themes. Lots of energy and real human beings playing the shit out of their instruments results in an urgency that reaches out of the speakers and demands to be heard.

Current popular music has many deficiencies. Most notably: 1) It's BORING 2) Most of it sounds fake. 3) Zero energy

This stuff is almost thirty years old and sounds as if it was released last week. The main reason? It didn't take them three years to record! In a matter of weeks, they hit these songs hard with a minimum amount of takes and retained an excitement that is sorely lacking in today's homogenized product.