I blew ninety minutes on this last night and my only regret is it ended. I famously say I live in California because of the Beach Boys. And if you don’t believe me, you’ve never heard “California Girls”. But by time I’d graduated from college and was footloose and fancy free, the music had changed. […]

It was a stiff in America. And it was different from the original U.K. release, with a lame green cover. Traffic was one of those bands most people didn’t pay attention to until they broke up. But the musicians paid heed. Because they covered a number of the songs from the disc. People knew these […]

Once upon a time you had to know how to sing. This was before auto-tune, before all the special effects that allow poseurs to fake it. When one’s personal goals included buying a stereo so big and powerful it could be heard by your neighbors…the next block over. I’m convinced a whole genre of music, […]

“Taking Chances” The problem with singer-songwriters is they’ve got to compete with Joni Mitchell. I can only play one record at one time, if they don’t measure up to those of the Canadian icon, I won’t continue to spin them. You see music is not graded on a curve. Good is not good enough. We […]