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  • The (Kind Of) Complete Woodstock: Country Joe and the Fish

    By the time Country Joe and the Fish hit the stage around 6:30 Sunday evening, their lead singer already had left his impression on the Woodstock festival.   Country Joe performed an impromptu solo set on Saturday to help out, and was back on stage that night during the Grateful Dead’s set to help calm down…

  • One From My Vacation Home

    Hey, are you a fan of Portlandia?  Do you ever wish it was real, and more importantly do you ever wish that there was a Portlandia for right wing extremists? Over at my vacation home this week I published a satirical piece about such a land.  Read, laugh, share:  http://mauldin.patch.com/blog_posts/where-seldom-is-heard-a-discouraging-word

  • From The Stacks: Appetite For Destruction

    Okay, here’s the deal:  There’s nothing I can tell you about the content of this album that you don’t already know.  Guns N’ Roses’ major label debut has sold 35 million copies, which is roughly half as many as the number of fits Axl Rose has thrown.  If you don’t know the songs by heart…

  • Deep Cuts: Songs Afire

    Fire is great musical fodder.  We want to stand next to it, make it when we kiss, have a burning yearning feeling inside of us.  Even after the fire the fire still burns. I could go on and on, perhaps never burning out, so I’ll blow out the candle in the wind right now and…

  • 113. I Have Only One Burning Desire…

    I arrived around dusk.  The congregation laughed and kidded while they worked, lots of “thank you, darlin’” and “put that over there, darlin’.”  Their preacher watched as his flock pulled boxes from their trucks and station wagons.  They piled the boxes in a clearing cut deep in the Piedmont’s loblolly pines. I did what I…

  • From the Stacks: A Random Photo of Ian McCulloch

    I found this in a box in the attic, a completely forgotten treasure.  Here’s how this photo landed in my hands:

  • The (Kind Of) Complete Woodstock: Joe Cocker

    Joe Cocker’s set is another one of those career-defining moments from Woodstock, in this case both for better and worse.

  • From the Stacks: Led Zeppelin – Going to California

    Here’s another great bootleg from my stacks.  This one captures a 1971 show at the Berkeley Community Theater in Berkeley, California.

  • The True Tale of the Blue Shark

    A few of you visit for the memoir more than the music, so if all three of you would like to head over to my vacation home this week you’ll find a true tale of chocolate milk, lust, and primer gray Hot Wheels.  Enjoy.

  • Deep Cuts: Welcome Songs

    An alert reader asked me recently how many of the “Deep Cuts” songs are in my personal collection. Okay, okay, fair question.  Unless it’s a particularly tricky week, “Deep Cuts” titles come entirely from my playlist, all obtained legally thank you very much.  Youtube clips are purely for demo purposes. My goal isn’t to share…