Summer, Summer, Summer...it turns me upside down. Well, not really. I live in the Northeast, as I've said in the past, because I'm not that big on the heat. A lot of folks love the summer weather. Heck, half of them don't even need air conditioning. That's definitely not me. I don't mind a good dip in the ocean, but I'm not going to work that hard to make that happen anymore. Something about all these extra pounds I figure. My friends go to Cape [...]
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future...turn the way back machine to The Year of Our Lord 1978...see the spindly teenagers coming and going in and around the then three year old Voorhees High School. I'm glad there aren't too many photos of me from that day and age. Suffice to say it wasn't very pretty. Come to think of it, the same could be said of the John Jay circa 2011. What's 33 years really? I ask you. I could have sworn this same sign was there in 1978, but maybe the parents of the class of [...]
I can't tell you how many years I've been doing the summer concert series. It's my own personal concert series, but it happens every summer. The list of shows comes out and I'm picking my top ten for the summer. Ten might seem like a lot of concerts to you, but generally speaking I probably attend 10 or 15 between April 1st and September 20th. The other six months combined I probably see 5. They come and go so quickly I seem to space them as I look to the next one. Recently I have seen The Cars, Ray Manzarek & Roy [...]
You don't have to be a Hawk or a Dove to appreciate the sacrifice of those who have gone before. I'm looking forward to a documentary debuting on The History Channel tonight on The Battle of Gettysburg. I've seen documentaries that glossed over the Battle of Gettysburg, but I think we're getting a deeper dive tonight. It'll take my mine off the gastly cancellation of Chicago Code by Fox. They can keep all kinds of crappy entertainment going year after year (I'm talking to you Amazing Race) and yet Chicago Code gets the shortest of leashes. I still love you [...]
It's been quite the struggle to post lately for me. I copied my digital music library from my computer to an external hard drive and the process took nearly a week! My computer is ancient so that might have something to do with it, but suffice to say there was a lot of music tripping through these wires this past week. It's just short of a terabyte now and I'm not really close to having everything from my library digitized. I'm looking forward to having several copies in safe places and buying a new machine that can handle all this [...]
It's beyond pitiful and shameless that I'm only now posting for the first time in 2011. I'm not even going to attempt any excuses. I will soon be posting my "Best Albums of 20103 post, that has been sitting about 90% complete in my draft posts box for 6 months now. Here are some of the albums I have been digging lately, no fancy write-ups but wanted to get them out there anyway. The Antlers - Burst Apart [...]
If you had to guess whether Trent Reznor's parents were divorced, for all the marbles, what would you say? Yeah, I thought so. Rage is such is visceral emotion that it just has to come from somewhere don't you think? I would think bullying or abuse of some kind might be another root cause. According to our friends at Wikipedia, Reznor has been quoted as saying "I don't want to give the impression that I had a miserable childhood." Fair enough, but when he groans "you can have my isolation, you can have the hate that it brings, you can have my [...]
When I was a kid, in the 602s, I loved Stevie Wonder. When 1970 came and they were playing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)" I went out and bought the 45 RPM single. I played that thing, along with Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' "Tears of a Clown" until the grooves were torched. I can't imagine what my family thought of my repetitive play lists. I've mentioned all of this before, but as a refresher course, by 45 collection had the usual stalwarts like The Beatles (Dance With You), The Rolling Stones (Street Fighting Man), The Doors (Light My Fire)and [...]
Ever notice how Mother's Day takes precedence over Father's Day? It's a much more important holiday for some reason. Actually we all know why it's more important don't we? Most of us naturally just get more attention from their mothers than they did from their fathers. Fathers were out making the doughnuts I guess. It isn't so much like now as it was when I grew up, but a home just suffers without the presence of a good mom. My own father was a good man at the end of the day, but I feel like life just steamrolled him while [...]
For those of you who know nothing about Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes other than singles like "Trapped Again" and "The Fever," Southside Johnny is/was a great soul influenced band that more or less peaked by 1980. They still tour to this day, but folks who don't know anything about Southside Johnny are missing out. They are from New Jersey (full disclosure; so am I) and for that reason they toiled in the legendary Bruce Springsteen's shadow, but they have an awful lot of really great tracks that nobody knows. You heard me right too; great was the operative [...]
Every year Cinco de Mayo rolls around and every year I seem to have to Google the date and figure out why we are drinking. As drinking holidays go, and frankly they're all drinking holidays aren't they?, Cinco de Mayo is probably number three behind St Patrick's Day and New Year's Eve. I mean everybody who drinks consumes a little something something on Marathon Day (a beautiful hack holiday in Boston known as Patriot's Day), Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. Let's be honest. But Cinco de Mayo is a fun holiday. A time [...]
I'm usually not too fired up when actors try to become Rock Stars. I'm sure many of you out there can cite three or four that crossed over successfully, but there seems like a lot more failures than successes to me. I'll even give you Rick Springfield, he of General Hospital and "Jessie's Girl" fame. No offense to Rick intended whatsoever, but I wasn't that fired up about either venture in his case. I got excoriated by hardcore Tom Waits fan The Giant Panther when I said I enjoyed Scarlett Johanson's take on Wait's "Falling Down" when she did a [...]
I've always enjoyed the music of Liz Phair. Like most people I was instantly enamored of her debut 1993 release Exile in Guyville. If you don't own a copy you should. It's got a very high percentage of great music for a CD with 18 songs on it. Unfortunately for Liz, it still stands as her best record. And it's not close. I bought the next three CDs of her catalogue waiting for something in that neighborhood, but it just never came. I enjoyed 19942s Whip-Smart and 19982s Whitechocolatespaceegg, but Liz just seemed to move towards a more poppier girly sounding style of music. I [...]
As I was combing through the archives looking for a long forgotten band to feature, I came across my two Ned's Atomic Dustbin CDs. If you've never heard of Ned's Atomic Dustbin you are not alone. They were popular in the UK mostly between 1990 and 1993. Over here in the good ol' US of A they were played on Alternative Rock stations like WFNX Lynn-Boston here in the Northeast. It's almost like they were somewhat of a buzz band. They never seemed to actually establish their own sound and identity, but when I think back on that precious era of [...]
I know Elton John has ceased to be anything resembling a Rock Star for decades now, but I couldn't help but make one final mention of his talent. Great musicians, whether they just make music, write lyrics or both are sort of, to pilfer a phrase, like Candles in The Wind. You really have no idea, I can only imagine, whether you've got what it takes to be successful, let alone become a worldwide mega star. I know many of you are just too young to relate to Elton John, but this guy had it going on like nobody's business [...]
Depending on your point of view, England's Tears For Fears were either great or a band that was played so often on the radio that you can barely stand to hear them anymore. I can tell you I was in the latter camp for quite awhile, but I've made it back to the former with the passing of the years. Somebody handed me a copy of 19832s The Hurting around the same time as 19852s Songs From The Big Chair hit the charts. I remember hearing "Change" from The Hurting off and on at WBCN, but I was floored when [...]
I didn't know whether to file this one under Guilty Pleasures or not, but I wanted to pass along that I had a great time at The Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark show last night. Boston's Paradise Rock Club, 969 Commonwealth Avenue on your GPS dial, has seen its share of legends pass through. OMD was talking about their first show there some 30 years ago during the concert. 30 years. Man I'm old. 1981. I remember listening to Charles Laquidara on WBCN 104.1, The Rock of Boston (R.I.P.), at the time. Charles had a feature on his [...]
Colorful Lou Reed has had a Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame career. You hear all these stories alleging that he's a miserable interview and here at The Giant Panther we'll never know. The closest I ever got to Lou Reed was Orchestra R/C RR seat 102 on March 10, 1989 at The Orpheum Theatre on the New York Tour. Those of you from Boston will recognize this seat as roughly 14th row on the aisle. The New York tour was fabulous and though it was my only time to see Lou Reed he did not disappoint. The first half [...]
I admit to having been around a while. In 1970 I got my hands on a 45 RPM copy of Johnny Cash's single "A Boy Named Sue." The song was getting a lot of airplay on New York's WABC 77 AM station. I know I've said this before, but I didn't really make the distinction between genres in those days. I didn't think of The Supremes or The Temptations as Motown. I didn't think of Three Dog Night or The Grassroots as Pop music. It was a Pop music, but I didn't even realize that. Heck, I was ten years old [...]
The Giant Panther
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