Best Of 2022: As Arbitrary As It Gets
I don’t do Spotify, or stream at all. One year a decade ago I used Pandora. I don’t tend to jump on to whatever’s popular, and I don’t necessarily need to hear something as...
Vinyl Distractions
Kurtis Blow — Rappin’ Blow
Let’s face it: I didn’t buy this for whatever music is on it. Nothing against Kurtis Blow, but it’s not my style, and that’s fine. I bought it because of the sleeve – in...
The Music Machine — (Turn On) The Music Machine
The Music Machine appeared in my collection long before I bought this record, represented twice by “Talk Talk.” The first time was on the legendary Nuggets anthology, a garage rock collection that I couldn’t...
The Muppets — The Muppet Show
It’s so weird to think about how very many department stores there used to be that just don’t exist anymore, and in particular how many boomed and busted in the 1970s through the early...
The Moody Blues — Long Distance Voyager
Despite my dedication to The Moody Blues described with the last entry, I was barely aware they had an album in 1978, “Octave.” Their first album since 1972’s “Seventh Sojourn,” it had two singles,...
The Moody Blues — This Is The Moody Blues
Throughout my discussion of the The Moody Blues, I’ve had to put off the deep discussion about what they mean to me for this record – simply because of my decision to cover these...
The Moody Blues — Seventh Sojourn
From 1972, a No. 1 album for The Moody Blues, with two great songs by bassist John Lodge being the most memorable, “Isn’t Life Strange,” “I’m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll...
The Moody Blues — Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
1971 – peak year for a concept album, no? It’s pretty remarkable to look back at the output of The Moody Blues (and, indeed, so many artists working at this time) and see just how...
The Moody Blues – A Question of Balance
Weirdly, I was standing around outside an open mic the other night, waiting in line, and in a conversation with another performer about how much he loved the ’70s classics, he said “A Question...
Things We Said Today