Let's try to define it. It could cover a wide range of styles, but in this case, our focus is guitar-driven power pop from 1975 through 1982 or so. It was, primarily, an American (or North American, as there are some Canadians represented) form. In England, it seemed to bleed over into other genres: bubblegum and glam, punk, pub rock, and new wave. As a sub-genre, it seemed to consist primarily of acts who were, at best, bubbling under. Why? Who knows. There was certainly less deserving music taking up space on the airwaves: coprolites, opera men, yacht rock, down south jukers.... This stuff is made for summer and the road. I road tested these songs on a cross country trek earlier this week. My ears are still ringing...couldn't keep the volume down. While some of these bands were national acts - in part due to early MTV exposure - most seem to have been local or regional.  While I tried to make the list comprehensive, it is biased towards some of those local and region...

It's a great, overlooked album. With Phil May's passing, you should give the Pretty Things'  Parachute  a listen. If you like Big Star, Badfinger, Todd - especially  Something/Anything? , or the Raspberries, you'll like it. Same thing if you like the VU's  Loaded , especially the pretty parts. It should have had a presence on the airwaves. At the very least, it should have been - if not in my record collection - in that of a friend so I could have made a tape. It's not just a lost classic. It's unheard. It's not even like their previous album, S.F. Sorrow , or  Oar, or the VU & Nico , albums that people know about even if they haven't actually listened to them. Aside from a couple of longish numbers - it was 1970 - on side two, 6 of its 13 tunes clock in at under two minutes...strung together, almost as a medley. That such an album should go unnoticed for 50 years is bad enough. What they had to do to get by while recording it and  S....

With Little Richard's passing, my mind turned to Jerry Lee Lewis. Who would've thought that Jerry Lee would be the last man standing? He seems ornery, to be sure...and I guess he's tough. How tough? This concert shows it. By April 1964, when this was recorded, Jerry Lee was a washed-up has-been. They had all fallen. Eddie and Buddy had died. Chuck took an underage girl across state lines and was sent to prison. Johnny took pills. Elvis came out of the army, made silly movies, took pills, and - with her parents' permission - took an underage girl into his home where he looked over her moral upbringing. Jerry married a 13-year-old...his first cousin...once removed. I think he was taking pills too. The scandal destroyed him. He went from making $10,000 a night (in 1958 dollars) to $250 a night (in 1968 dollars).  One of those nights was captured here at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany. Yes, that Star Club. He's backed by the British Invasion pre-one-hit wonders, ...

He'll be missed. In Mystery Train, Greil Marcus writes about Little Richard's antics on The Dick Cavett Show. His segment runs from about 1:00 to 1:07...but he interjects himself throughout, expounding on life, love, art, and his big toe (at 1:18, 1:37-1:40 and 1:51). Ten years or so before this appearance, he'd been on the top of the charts. Then he walked away from it...to go to seminary school. He returned to show business, guesting in Catalina Caper, which MST3K film critic, Tom Servo, surmised was done while "whacked out on goofballs". Goofballs or no, he could still rock. For my part, I caught on at some point in the 80s, after hearing "Tutti Frutti" a soundtrack. I bought a cheap cassette of his Greatest Hits  at Woolworth's, not realizing until years later that it was from rerecordings, made in the 1960s for VeeJay. Normally, these are to be avoided, but not in this case. There is a murk and ragged feel...like Exile on Main...

We polled the Dadrock 101 editorial board as to why they don't listen to  Sandinista     as much as other Clash albums. "Too long." "I used too...guess it didn't stick." "It sucks." "Bullsh!t, it's great...the Mose Allison tune is a gem." It's not an easy album. How do you follow up on a specially priced,  meisterwerk   double album ? The Clash issued a stopgap compilation of odds and sods and then put out a triple. Why a triple? The story goes that they were peeved at the fact that while they had to fight with their record company to put out London Calling as a double. Did they have six sides of music? Yes, six shortish sides, but then they padded it. Five of the songs are doubled up with dub versions of some sort...one of them a backward tape with effects. Vital and riveting, to be sure. Mickey Dread, a girlfriend (on hiatus from Meatloaf gigs), an old friend, and the keyboard player's kids all contribute some g...

On this day in 1972, the Grateful Dead were between shows (the Hamburg and Paris) on their European tour, the tour that would produce the Europe '72 album. The band had a lot of new Garcia-Hunter compositions to record. The plan was for the resulting live album to pay for the tour...at least that's what they told their record company. It was my introduction to the band and remains my favorite Dead album because of the songs and the stories they tell rather than the jams. What does that make me? A fan? Certainly. A Deadhead? Who knows? Most of the songs on the original were altered in some way. Some had the tempo altered. Others received vocal or instrumental overdubs to cover blown notes or stray harmonies. Steven Seachrist researched and documented the alterations and overdubs done to prepare it and its sequel,  Europe '72 Vol. 2 ,  and you can read about them  here . This week's concert is not really a concert. Rather, it is the source songs that make up the a...