Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms yearning to breathe free.
Dana Spiardi 
Okay, I know it’s Christmas season and we’re supposed to be happy and peaceful and idealistic, listening to carols both solemn and silly, and trying to be all Norman Rockwelly and stuff. Heck, the last thing I’d want to do is bum you out as you deck the malls, looking for the prettiest Victoria’s Secret … Read more
If you think everyone’s making too big a fuss over what would have been Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday today, then you might have been born too late or you aren’t aware that he was the original bad-ass rock star. Here’s my favorite Frank moment, from the 1957 film “Pal Joey.” I know it’s staged, but … Read more
“Holly came from Miami F-L-A. Hitchhiked her way across the U.S.A. Plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her legs, and then He was a She. She said, ‘hey, babe,’ take a walk on the wild side.” The person Lou Reed immortalized with that true-life lyric was none other than Holly Woodlawn, a transgender Puerto … Read more
“Cold fanged anger.” That’s one of many disturbing lyrics from the Rolling Stones’ classic “Midnight Rambler.” It’s a song about a black-caped killer — a knife-sharpening hit-and-run raper who’ll smash your windows, put his fist through your door, and stick his knife right down your throat. That character sprang from the mind of Mick Jagger. … Read more
It all started because Queen frontman Freddie Mercury had to go to the dentist, and his band was forced to cancel a scheduled TV appearance at the last minute. That bit of serendipity gave the U.K. public its first taste of the menace known as the Sex Pistols. On December 1, 1976, the punk rock … Read more