I remember sitting in study hall one day during my senior year of high school, speaking in hushed tones with a couple of friends about a band that was just starting to rear its spike-haired head on the pages of Circus and Creem magazines: The Sex Pistols. Who were they? Or rather, what were they? In the early months of…
Okay, Rudolph, you've gone down in history with that song of yours. And for what? Selling out! So you were born with a shiny red schnoz and had the misfortune of living in a frozen polar ice cap with no access to a plastic surgeon or electrician. And all those big-antlered reindeer jocks and their patent-leather-hoofed cheerleader girlfriends called you names and shunned you because of it. I know, I know...it hurts to be the last one picked for the volleyball team. Bullying sucks. But, Rudolph, you copped out and allowed those conformist reindeer snobs to welcome you into their clique only after you bailed Santa's ass out of trouble. Man, you should have had more self-respect than that!
I heard your footsteps at the front door, and that old familiar love song. ‘Cause you knew you'd find me waiting there, at the top of the stairs. Those lyrics weren’t written by a heartsick bloke waiting for his lover to come home. They were composed by an artist recalling his boyhood days in a working-class London neighborhood, waiting for…
August 25, 2015: I took a road trip with "Born to Run" yesterday. It's the 40th anniversary of Bruce's groundbreaking album, and there's no better way to experience it than by blasting it in your car, with the windows open and the wind blowing back your hair. Cars and tunnels and backstreets and highways are just as central to the…
Some of my fondest memories are of the times spent carpooling to work with my dad in the early 80s, gauging his reaction to the hits of the day and the humor of the morning DJs. "Those dirty bastards," he'd chortle at the double-entendres of the radio hosts. Here's a little ditty about Daddy for his birthday.