I love Bob Dylan: the man, the music, the whole enchilada. I even like the endless tour, (currently playing triple A ballparks), which he seems determined to continue on until, to use that famous line from <I>Midnight Cowboy</I>, he "dies on the stage."
I've always been a huge Pixies fan. I was so excited at 2004's reunited tour that I practically needed a minder to get me to the gig. But Frank Black solo, now there's a whole other experience.
One distinguishing mark of the "old" music business, i.e. the one before downloads, the one that made buckets of money, the one where half of my friends <I>used</I> to work, was that it was so big that folks on say, the classical side, had no idea who worked on the rock side. Even within the same company. They were different planets.
<B>GRAM PARSONS: <I>The Complete Reprise Sessions</I></B><BR>
Rhino/Reprise RS 74669 (3 CDs). 1972–73/2006. Emmylou Harris, James Austin, reissue prods.; Hugh Davies, Ed Barton, orig. engs.; Dan Hersch, Bill Inglot, remastering engs. AAD? TT: 2:01:26<BR>
Performance *****<BR>
Sonics **1/2 to ****1/2
Possible photo captions:
So there I am, sitting eating my lunch, watching the news on TV, waiting like the slavering dog that I am for more Mel goes Mad, when none other than Alice Cooper a.k.a. Vince Furnier, he of the large pearly whites and the exquisitely died hair, comes on CNN and begins batting his bright eyes and cheerfully expounding on his new youth center in Phoenix.
Just prior to the morning hour at which most liquor stores open, Don Byron and I are sitting outdoors at a sidewalk cafe on a steamy Park Avenue South (Technology Gulch)when a scene breaks out on the sidewalk.
Byron (head turns and he murmurs): "Oh my god."
A stringy–haired, smelly, obviously intoxicated woman staggers after a younger, taller man who's also worse for wear, and hollers in a drunken growl: "I got my own phone now. Yes it is. It works you used it."
Byron (laughing): "It's the metropolitan wino scene. You know what I mean? You know the scene in Firenze, now here it is in New York. It has all the elements: the dirty clothes, the ruddy skin, the formaldehyde lips."
Holy Molars Batman, <I>South Park</I> has been outdone by so-called real life! Say it ain't so!
Rumor is that the suits at MTV are beginning to kvetch about the expense of having bottled water delivered to the NYC offices of the network. Man, when the bottled water bill gets up on the bean counter radar nothing good can come of it.
Drenched in sweat thanks to the charming weather here in New York—Oh wait, I forgot, I promised only to bitch about one season which would be winter so let me say I love summer and begin again.