Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms yearning to breathe free.
Dana Spiardi 
Snarly, salty Tom Waits is one of the few singer/songwriters never to sell out by allowing his songs to be used in TV commercials. Waits has filed lawsuits against the following companies for attempting to use his songs – or rips-offs of his music – in TV ads: Frito-Lay, Levis, Audi, and Scandinavian company Adam … Read more
That was the pronouncement of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the transformation of the Fab Four from the droll, cheeky mop-tops of 1964, to the lysergically induced hipster-gurus of 1967. Rumor has it that the Queen voiced this “turning funny” verdict to Sir Joseph Lockwood, chairman of the Beatles’ British record company EMI, at a … Read more
Post-communist Czechoslovakia was a country reborn of the fire of rock and roll! Today is the 26th anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution, a peaceful student-led anti-government protest movement that led to the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in December 1989. The name of the revolution stemmed directly from Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground, … Read more
The government of Richard Nixon spent thousands of taxpayer dollars, installed loads of surveillance equipment, and employed countless FBI agents in its four-year effort to deport America-loving peacenik John Lennon, whom they considered a major threat due to his left-wing political activism and relationships with anti-war “subversives.” It all started when the former Beatle and … Read more
Guido Barilla, president of the world’s largest manufacturer of boxed pasta, has vowed his company would never feature homosexuals in its ads: “I would never make a spot with a homosexual family,” he said yesterday on Italy’s radio program La Zanzara (The Mosquito). “Not out of a lack of respect but because I do not … Read more