Why It Matters

Blog

wimwords.com/

Profile

wimwords.com/author/jostafford

Homepage

jamesostafford.com

  • Two Free Tix! Conspirator in SF on 3/15!

    You remember a couple of weeks ago when I told you about Conspirator’s new album, Unleashed?  Well so do they, which is why I have two tickets to give away for their show at the Independent in San Francisco this Friday night with openers NVO. No strings attached, this isn’t a hustle — just a…

  • 119. Return of the Son of Son of Return of the Son of the Cutout Bin

    It’s time to leave South Carolina: past time, probably.  For the last two years you’ve been reading true tales of liquor, lust, and primer-gray Camaros.  You are a patient lot. I can’t leave the Piedmont’s red clay and kudzu without a nod to the songs that meant a lot but just didn’t add up to…

  • From The Stacks: Rod Hart – Breakeroo!

    You know C.W. McCall’s “Convoy,” and probably Red Sovine’s “Teddy Bear.”  You’ve seen Smokey and the Bandit 1-3 and purchased BJ and the Bear: The Complete Series on DVD.  But you haven’t really experienced seventies C.B. weirdness until you’ve heard Rod Hart’s story of a gay convoy sting.

  • The (Kind Of) Complete Woodstock: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

    Three a.m. Monday, August 18.  Eight hours from now Woodstock will be over, Max Yasgur’s pasture reduced to a muddy garbage pile. But eight hours is forever in concert time, and members of The Byrds, The Hollies, and Buffalo Springfield have just stepped onto the stage.  It’s time for the second public appearance of Crosby,…

  • The Dreams That You Dare To Dream

    Here’s another post from my vacation home, i.e., my non-music blog.  I’m still pretty bummed that this piece didn’t audition well enough to get into the show for which I wrote it, or that I didn’t audition well enough at least. Anyway, some of you are here for the memoir and this fits that category,…

  • From The Stacks: Various – Rockabilly Hot

    There’s nothing really special about this album.  It’s just a cool rockabilly collection with a great cover.  Interested?  Expect to pay in the 10-20 dollar range.  Happy hunting.

  • Deep Cuts: Great Big Organs

    My kids run across a crusty old song now and then that for them is a revelation.  “Dad, have you ever heard this?” they excitedly ask. “Do you like it?” Usually my response is, “That’s a very well made song, but it’s completely fucked out.”  I say this for two reasons: 1) It’s true, and…

  • Why It Matters to The Members’ JC Carroll

    If you’re an American of a certain age you remember MTV playing the hell out of “Working Girl” by The Members.  Aussie readers hear that band name and think of the song “Radio,” and anybody who has ever purchased a punk compilation knows “The Sound of the Suburbs,” one of the most infectious cuts from…

  • Win Today’s Cover Art and Album!

    There’s a postscript to today’s story.  Longtime readers know that I enjoy a heady cocktail of batshit lunacy, one ingredient of which is obsessive thoughts.  I carried The Bus Boys incident around with me for fifteen years, those faces and voices looping through my mind like an acid trip from an episode of Dragnet.  Finally, …

  • 118. The Boys Are Back In Town

    That autumn my childhood friends and I started to go our separate ways.  Hal The Drummer left for college, and so did Sherri.  We hadn’t dated for months, but I still pined for her.  Andi took off for our new art school in Savannah, but I was late with my paperwork and had to sit…