Why It Matters

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  • From The Stacks: Various – Slash, the Early Sessions

    Slash was a record label that you could trust.  If it was on Slash it was going to be good:  X, The Germs, Fear, Faith No More.  Come on!

  • The (Kind Of) Complete Woodstock: Jimi Hendrix

    There are moments when it all comes together, when an artist appears who is so reflective of the times that he or she is timeless.  Questions of good or bad, like or dislike cease to matter, only that the artist walked among us for a time.  There are moments, but they are rare.

  • From The Stacks: Various – A Million Or More Best Sellers

    This is a cool 1958 compilation that’s worth your money just for the cover art.  My interest is a little more personal.

  • Conversations With Adrian Bellue, part 3

    (Last  week Adrian shared  the story of a mysterious benefactor who donated to him a harp guitar.  We pick up the conversation in progress, Hamburger Patty’s cheesy dance music in the background and soda and iced tea flowing freely.)

  • One From My Vacation Home

    “You’re gonna have to serve somebody,” Dylan said, and he was absolutely right.  Unfortunately I’m sort of a goofy rubadub, so there’s not a whole lot of servin’ I can do.

  • Deep Cuts: Songs About Names

    What’s in a name?  I don’t know.  Everything, nothing.  All I know for certain is that the move from Jim to James was a liberating one for me.  So what’s in a name?  The gang wrote a song about it*:

  • Why It Matters to Danny Phillips

    I’ve always been  whackadoo, sometimes worse than others.  In 1985 I decided that I was going to eventually own every album that my store carried.  How I was going to manage that on a minimum-wage record store clerk salary was a detail for another day — the important thing was to get on it.  And…

  • 121. Goodnight, You Moonlight Ladies

    Savannah, Georgia was a very conservative town in the mid-eighties, an unlikely location for an art school.  The Savannah College of Art and Design, or SCAD, was founded only ten years prior to my first day of classes.  The town wasn’t sure what to make of the 1,200 or so art school kids loitering in…

  • From The Stacks: Big Sur Festival – One Hand Clapping

    All this talk over the past few Saturdays about Woodstock, but it was neither the first nor the last big American music festival.  The Big Sur festival ran from 1964-71, the 1969 edition running only a month after Woodstock.

  • The (Kind Of) Complete Woodstock: Sha Na Na

    Finally, after arriving early Friday to get a good place then  sitting through three days of rain, portable toilets, and stinky hippies your heroes take the stage: Sha Na Na.