Sound Chaser

Mike Campbell is a consummate support artist. He was Tom Petty's right-hand guitar man for 47 years, first with Florida swamp-rockers Mudcrutch, later as a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, then ultimately extending his reach to support Petty's solo endeavors.

Few bands are as, shall we say, onomatopoetic as The Claypool Lennon Delirium. The Delirium is the umbrella under which bassist/vocalist Les Claypool (Primus, Fearless Flying Frog Brigade) and guitarist/vocalist Sean Ono Lennon (The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger) gather occasionally and combine their creative forces to make some of the weirdest, wildest, wackiest soundscapes imaginable.

Dave Mason, the British guitarist/vocalist who passed away at 79 on April 19, conceded that some of his best-known songs fared better with other people's voices. "I may not be the best interpreter of certain songs of mine," he told me during a phone interview in 2018. "For example, I feel like Cocker's got the definitive version of 'Feelin' Alright?'"

Each side of the one-sheet lyrics insert accompanying Squeeze's latest LP, Trixies (Love/BMG), has been divvied up into three equal columns that can be folded over to replicate a 4" × 11½" nightclub menu. Subtitled "Trixies Concoctions Menu," the insert conjures the theme of the 13-track song cycle that comprises Trixies, whose storyline traces several scenes set in and around a fictional nightclub.

If you are at all familiar with the Netflix sci-fi/horror phenomenon known as Stranger Things, you've heard its foreboding, pulsating theme music dozens of times. The familiarity of that signature Stranger synth bed should in turn lead your ingrained sound-sense memory to conjure the music of Tangerine Dream, the pioneering German electronic band.

How many adventurous rock'n'roll bands forged in the late-'60s/early-'70s would have been left by the wayside—or relegated to languish in perpetual cutout-bin purgatory—had it not been for the wide-open programming M.O. of stereo-loving FM radio stations? The Moody Blues could very easily have been one of those sidelined, notched-cover footnotes . . .

If you find yourself in Monaco on a Sunday night, make your way to La Note Bleue, a rant and music bar on the beach by the Avenue Princesse Grace. There, you're likely to find a legendary world/fusion guitarist sitting in with a group of young jazz musicians eager to cut heads with the acknowledged maestro of inner awareness and otherworldly spirits.