When I was a kid, I loved hip-hop. In the late 70s and early 80s, the music was heady, fresh, and irresistible. I couldn’t get enough of Run DMC, Fat Boys, Kurtis Blow, Whodini, and LL Cool J. But it was trio of white boys from Brooklyn that helped my beloved hip-hop to reach the [...]
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Lists. They’re everywhere. Top Ten this, Top Twenty that, blah blah blah. I think the creators of lists just work on them to get people upset. Why else would Rolling Stone magazine publish a Top Ten Greatest Dead Rock Stars list? I mean really, we all know that INXS’ Michael Hutchence would make that one [...]
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A few years ago, VH1 aired a special called VH1′s 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs….Ever. I was reminded of this show after watching The Muppets. In one scene, Kermit and the crew undertake the job of restoring a dilapidated theater. Of course, the Muppets cannot complete this task without some music. I’m not sure if [...]
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Dear Axl, I am a 47-year-old Guns N’ Roses fan. As a child of the MTV era, I sat riveted to the small TVs of yesteryear waiting for every GNR video to explode off of my tiny screen. I consider myself lucky to have seen your former band warm up for The Rolling Stones at [...]
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by Mocha Dad In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he indicates that a person must spend at least 10,000 hours practicing a skill in order to become proficient at it. I started playing guitar in August 2010 and if I’m lucky, I get 45-60 minutes of practice 4 or 5 days a week. If you do [...]
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by Mocha Dad I first saw Clarence Clemons in Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark video. His melodious sax solo was the perfect dance partner for Springsteen’s yearning voice. I was enrapt by Clemons’ tone and hypnotized by the smooth notes that emanated from The Big Man’s sax. While everyone else was checking out, I [...]
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by Mocha Dad When I was a kid, I heard jazz all the time. My stepdad was a musician and he would always have the radio tuned to the local jazz station 90.9. I couldn’t stand listening to this music. It sounded weird and there were no words. I wanted to listen to some Run-DMC, [...]
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I discovered Gil Scott-Heron’s music while I was in college. While writing a term paper titled “The Linguistics of Hip-Hop”, I discovered Scott-Heron’s seminal album, Winter in America. I was smitten by the songs The Bottle and Rivers of My Fathers (I liked this one because it reminded me of Langston Hughes poem, A Negro [...]
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I’m intrigued by the process that bands use to name themselves. Sometimes a band takes an obvious name. Three guitarists from California chose the moniker California Guitar Trio. Some bands look to media for inspiration. For example, Duran Duran was named after the bad guy in the movie Barbarella and Veruca Salt is from the [...]
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I can trace my musical development through the various musical formats: records, cassettes, CDs, digital music. After my parents divorced, my father left behind a collection of 45s that included James Brown, the Platters, Joe Tex, the Supremes, and Marvin Gaye. I’d spend countless hours listening to these records. I’d pull the record out of [...]
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