The B-Sides Concept Album On BlogTalk Radio And The Rest Of My Weird Week
So it's been an interesting week.
One of the more interesting developments of my trip to Vegas earlier this month on behalf of Blogcritics came to fruition tonight in the form of my first appearance on something called Blog Talk Radio.

Here I joined two of my fellow Blogcritics, Mark Saleski, and Josh Hathaway for the inaugural run of Hathaway's Blogcritics sponsored radio show The B-Sides Concept Album.

In this initial show, basically what you get is three Springsteen geeks -- that would be Mark, Josh, and myself -- joyously discussing Mr. Bruce on internet radio.

Nothing that my friends (and even a few of my fellow Blogcritics) haven't of course long since tired of, but a lot of fun nonetheless. I also learned tonight that my fellow Bruce blogging pals refer to me with the rather curious name of "Iguana Glen," which is something I definitely am going to have to further inquire with Mr. Hathaway about.


Anyway, as you can no doubt imagine, sixty minutes of unbridled mirth, merriment, and of course plenty of Springsteen geekiness ensued.

Among other things, Sir Mark talks about seeing Springsteen on opening night of the Magic tour in Hartford, while Josh eagerly counts down the days to his first Bruce show this April in Atlanta (time to break this virgin in). As for me, I talk about the different setlists and just why I'll be attending the shows here next March in both Seattle and Portland (it has everything to do with getting both those A and B setlists).

Anyway, you can listen for yourself by clicking on the button below:



The other interesting thing that happened to me this week was I won Jimi Hendrix's guitar.

One of the stops I make every month as part of my day job is at a Bartell's store in Marysville to deliver DVDs and CDs, and I often eat at the pizza joint located inside a Thriftway store nearby. At this same store, they also serve something called Jimi Hendrix Coffee.

Don't ask.

Anyway, so one day last month I was in there having lunch and noticed a box to win an Fender Strat autographed by Hendrix himself, along with an amp, some of that coffee and some Hendrix CDs. So I filled it out and dropped my name inside. Well, damned if they didn't call me Tuesday night to tell me I'd won.


Whoo-Hoo!

I Mean, Aint America Great?

By the way, to Josh and Mark, sorry I forgot to mention that tonight on the radio show. Pretty freaking cool though, huh?

So yeah, it's been an interesting week. Not bad for a guy they call "Iguana Glen" eh?

For You: The Bruce Tramps Tell Their Own Stories

Book Review: - For You: Original Stories And Photographs By Bruce Springsteen's Legendary Fans by Lawrence Kirsch

Outside of perhaps Bob Dylan, few rock and roll artists have been written about, and studied from as many different angles as Bruce Springsteen. He has been the subject of several books, from official and semi-official biographies by the likes of writers like Dave Marsh, Robert Santelli, and Backstreets Magazine founder Charles R. Cross, to the more weightier fare examining his impact on culture like Robert Coles' Bruce Springsteen's America.

Yet, of the many words, and numerous books written about this American icon over the years, none of them are quite like this one.

In For You: Original Stories And Photographs By Bruce Springsteen's Legendary Fans, editor Lawrence Kirsch has assembled hundreds of amazing photographs taken by the fans themselves, and covering every phase of Springsteen's extraordinary career, into a beautiful coffee table book. Accompanying the photographs, are personal stories told by the fans -- usually recalling memories of a favorite tour or show.

Springsteen fans -- the so-called nation of "Bruce Tramps" that have been known to follow the man on tour from coast to coast -- are of course legendary for their devotion which often borders on obsession. They, and by that I mean "we", are like no group of fans outside of maybe the Deadheads.

Which needless to say, makes for some great storytelling in this book. The stories told here are heartfelt, poignant, and occasionally even humorous -- much like the songs of the man they honor here themselves.



At this point I should also include something of a disclaimer on this review since one of the stories told in this book is by yours truly. It appears on page 33 of the book, and talks about my very first Springsteen concert, which I was basically dragged out to see by a friend back in 1975. Next spring, I'll be attending my 33rd and 34th Springsteen concerts in Seattle and Portland.

In that story, I also touch upon a few other memorable Bruce shows I've seen, such as the time in 1980 I saw Bruce in Portland on the same day Mount St. Helens had one of its many eruptions that year. To commemorate the event, Bruce included what I am pretty sure is the only time he has ever performed the American folk standard "On Top Of Old Smokey," in his set, changing a key line to "I know that she's smoking, I hope she don't blow."

In the interest of giving equal time to my fellow Blogcritics, I should also mention that my BC brothers Mark Saleski and Alessandro Nicolo tell their own Bruce stories in the book as well. Saleski's appears on page 142, while Alessandro's is on page 170.

So now that we've cleared that particular hurdle, and since I can also report that none of us received any payment whatsoever for our contributions, I can also give this book my highest recommendation.

For anyone who has ever wondered just what it is about Bruce Springsteen that produces such rabid devotion amongst his hardcore fans, all I can say is that short of getting out and seeing a show yourself, this book comes as close to explaining it as any I have read.

And the hundreds of pictures here are really nothing short of amazing.



The way I've tried to explain that special sort of sense of community among Springsteen fans, boils down to two things really. One, is that the songs heard on Springsteen's records tell stories that really connect with everyday Joes like us. And the other is that going to a Springsteen show is really like no other live concert experience I can think of.

With the way, you look all around you and see nothing but those shit-eating ear to ear grins, and the way his audience is known to break into impromptu sing alongs at any given moment, a Springsteen concert is really like being in a room with about 20,000 of the best friends you ever met. As far as an interactive experience between a performer and his audience, there really is nothing quite like it.

As to those who still just don't get it, as another wise old songwriter once observed, "its like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll."

Lawrence Kirsch's For You: Original Stories And Photographs By Bruce Springsteen's Legendary Fans, is currently available in a limited run of 2000 copies which can be ordered exclusively by going to ForYouBruce.com.

Music DVD Review: On The McCartney Years, The Payoff Comes With The Third Disc

The McCartney Years is a new anthology set that attempts to sum up four decades of Sir Paul's post-Beatles career on three DVDs.

So what you get here -- at least on the first two discs -- is all of the short films (many made before they were actually called videos) McCartney made for his solo work, from the McCartney album, through Wings, right on up to 2005's Chaos And Creation In The Backyard.

As such, sitting down to actually watch the first two discs becomes something of a daunting task, simply because so much ground is covered here. When watching the earliest of these short films, for songs like "Maybe I'm Amazed," "Band On The Run," and "Silly Love Songs," it also becomes apparent just how limited the technology was back then.

Although these films are often charming (particularly with the use of the Beatles images for "Band On The Run"), and there is likewise little doubt that Paul was clearly on to the possibilities of the promotional film long before MTV, there is no getting around the simple fact of how dated they look today. However, that is also a big part of their charm.

By the time McCartney was actually making videos specifically with MTV in mind during the eighties, he already had a leg up on the competition in the experience department. Even though these latter promo films look equally dated now, McCartney still comes across as ever the charmer.


The video for "Coming Up" is particularly clever, as Paul plays every member of the fictional "Plastic Band" (so named in tribute to his former partner John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band). His take on the Hitler mustached keyboard player for Sparks is particularly hilarious for those old enough to remember that band. Corny as it may seem today, McCartney's duet with Stevie Wonder for "Ebony And Ivory," where they run across the keys of a piano is also a lot of fun to watch.

The most notable of the extras included on the first two DVDs of this set is probably the documentary "Creating Chaos At Abbey Road." Although it is billed mainly as the story of the making of McCartney's 2005 album Chaos And Creation In The Backyard, you also get to see Sir Paul talk about the songwriting process he used when writing with Lennon. He also plays acoustic versions of Beatles tunes like "I've Got A Feeling" and "Lady Madonna."

So you've probably noticed I've held back talking about the third disc here -- and that is because I've saved the best part of this set for last. Disc three is what takes The McCartney Years from being a self-congratulatory retrospective, into something that any McCartney fan must own. It includes large chunks of three McCartney concerts, from three different eras. There's the 1976 performance with Wings that became the long since hard to find film Rockshow, as well as McCartney's 1991 MTV Unplugged performance, and the 2004 tour closer at Glastonbury.

Of these three concerts, the 1976 performance with Wings holds the most personal significance for me, given the fact that it is from a show at Seattle's gargantuan Kingdome that I actually attended as a then twenty-year-old fan. Although the quality of the film is grainy, I am absolutely amazed at how good it sounds, as the Kingdome was this huge stadium built out of cement for NFL football that was an acoustical nightmare.

When Jeff Beck played there that same summer in 1976 opening for Aerosmith, he even referred to it onstage as the "Kingdome echo chamber." When it eventually became obvious that the cement building wasn't even any good for the Seattle Seahawks football games, they finally just blew the damn thing up.

The 2004 Glastonbury performance included here is also a great one. When McCartney released his Space Between US DVD documenting his 2005 tour last year -- as good, and visually dazzling as it was -- I was frustrated with the way they totally chopped up the song "Hey Jude." Here, we get the song uncut in a performance that actually brought a tear to my eye watching all those Brits sing along. Although McCartney's band is on the last night of their tour, they seem particularly energized by the huge crowd.

Mainly because of this third disc, The McCartney Years gets a mild thumbs up here.

As nostalgic a trip down memory lane as some of these videos were, I still found that it was a lot to sit through in one viewing (I actually had to spend two nights watching it). But with the concert footage comes the real payoff.

Springsteen/E Street Band Tour Returns In 2008 Amidst Federici Health Concerns



It's official. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band will be back to play a string of new American concert dates in March and April of 2008.

As the curtain went down on the first American leg of Springsteen's Magic tour in Boston this past Monday night, it was already common knowledge that they would be back, with tickets already on sale in a few cities (Hartford, Rochester, Buffalo, Anaheim, Atlanta). But on Tuesday, the entire schedule became official, as dates covering the Northwest (Seattle, Portland), the South (Dallas, Orlando, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, Greensboro, Charlotte), and Canada (Vancouver BC, Montreal QC), lasting through the end of April were announced.

While this is great news for fans, it comes amidst what could prove to be a troubling development. Rumors are circulating on the internet that longtime E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici will not be part of the upcoming dates, due to unspecified health reasons.

Monday night's first-leg closing performance in Boston seemed to lend some credence to these rumors. In one of the wildest setlists of the tour, Federici was heavily featured on rarely played songs like "This Hard Land," as well as "4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy)" and "The E Street Shuffle" (both from Springsteen's second album The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle).

In a review of the Boston show published yesterday by Backstreets Magazine, it was clear that the night was an emotional one, and that those moments of emotion were centered on Federici. As the concert drew to a close, Bruce and the rest of the band embraced the keyboardist at center stage as the crowd chanted "Danny! Danny!"

The closing moments from that show -- and the emotional scene -- can be viewed in the video below:



While the rumors of Federici's health problems and his leave of absense from the remaining tour dates are at this point, just that -- rumors -- there has already also been idle chatter of a potential replacement for Federici on the soon-to-start European leg, Seeger Sessions Band keyboardist Charles Giordano.

Here are the 2008 American tour dates -- along with ticket on sale times for each city -- for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, as reported by Backstreets Magazine:

February 2008
28 - Hartford, CT - HCC Arena (on sale now)

March 2008
2 - Montreal, QC - Bell Centre (on sale 11/24)
3 - Hamilton, ON - Copps Coliseum (on sale 11/23)
6 - Rochester, NY - Blue Cross Arena (on sale now)
7 - Buffalo, NY - HSBC Arena (on sale now)
10 - Hempstead, NY - Nassau Coliseum (on sale 1/19)
14 - Omaha, NE - Quest Center (on sale 12/8)
16 - St. Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center (on sale now)
17 - Milwaukee, WI - Bradley Center (on sale 11/26)
20 - Indianapolis, IN - Canseco Center (on sale 12/8)
22 - Cincinnati, OH - U.S. Bank Arena (on sale 12/1)
24 - Columbus, OH - Schottenstein Center (on sale 12/1)
28 - Portland, OR - The Rose Garden (on sale 12/8)
29 - Seattle, WA - Key Arena (on sale 12/8)
31 - Vancouver, BC - GM Place (on sale 11/30)

April 2008
4 - Sacramento, CA - Arco Arena (on sale 1/19)
5 - San Jose, CA - HP Pavillion (on sale 1/21)
7 - Anaheim, CA - Honda Center (on sale now)
8 - Anaheim, CA - Honda Center (on sale now)
13 - Dallas, TX - TBA (on sale TBA)
14 - Houston, TX - TBA (on sale TBA)
18 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Bank Atlantic Center (on sale 12/1)
19 - Orlando, FL - Amway Arena (on sale 12/1)
21 - Tampa, FL - St. Pete Times Forum (on sale 12/1)
25 - Atlanta, GA - Philips Arena (on sale now)
27 - Charlotte, NC - Charlotte Bobcat Arena (on sale 12/7)
28 - Greensboro, NC - Greensboro Coliseum (on sale 12/7)
30 - Charlottesville, VA - John Paul Jones Arena (on sale TBA)

Update: The status of Danny Federici's health and his leave of absense from the tour was confirmed earlier today in an official statement, which reads as follows:

Danny Federici, an original member of the E Street Band, is taking a leave of absence from the current Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band tour to pursue treatment for melanoma. Charles Giordano, who played with Bruce as a member of the Sessions Band, will temporarily fill in for Danny until he is able to return. Federici has been playing keyboards with Springsteen since the late Sixties. Said Springsteen, "Danny is one of the pillars of our sound and has played beside me as a great friend for more than 40 years. We all eagerly await his healthy and speedy return." Federici has been actively supporting the Melanoma Research Foundation and its Wings of Hope Gala, honoring Dr. Paul Chapman.

Our best wishes go out to Danny Federici and his family.

Stop Worrying! Help! Is Here!

DVD Review: The Beatles Help! (Standard Edition)

"Stop Worrying! Help Is On The Way!"

That line, or catch phrase if you will -- from one of two trailers (both included here as extras) for the American release of the Beatles' 1965 film Help! -- is just one of the many great things about it that I had completely forgotten about, when I sat down to watch this great film tonight for the first time in at least a decade or two.

For me, the Beatles second movie Help! represents a unique snapshot in time. And as I watched it tonight on the newly restored version they finally made available on DVD, the memories came flooding back.

Thank God, that whatever hurdles which kept this release from the public for so many years have finally been cleared. For me, Help! holds personal significance.



At the risk of sounding like a total music nerd -- but of course, you already knew that -- the Beatles, for better or worse, changed my life.

If there are moments in your life you forever remember -- things like 9/11 or when Kennedy was shot -- for me, the first of these moments was seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show when I was a seven year old boy. Even at that young age, I knew in my heart, that what I was witnessing was something that would alter history -- a fact which has since certainly proven true, and then some.

But as that same seven year old boy who sat transfixed in front of my parents television set on that night in 1964, there is absolutely no doubt that what I saw forever altered the course of my own life.

What I can also say, is that the first movie I saw in a theatre that I remember having a deep -- and as profound as it gets at that age -- effect on me was Help!. I had also seen the first Beatles movie A Hard Days Night in the theatre the year prior. My grandma -- who was as ultra-cool as grandmas get -- had taken me. But outside of the music, I didn't really get the movie. At seven, I was probably too young.

Help! on the other hand, held me glued to my seat, with its mix of great Beatles tunes, and way cool plot which (at the far more mature age of eight), reminded me of the great secret agent shows like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. I liked to watch on TV. Even some of the non-Beatles music on the soundtrack had that sort of secret agent thing about it. By the time I saw my first James Bond movie as a pre-teen, I was finally able to fully connect those dots.

Anyway, after I saw Help!, when the rest of my boyhood chums wanted to play "Army" or something, all I wanted to do was play Help!.

Which involved running around on the grass in my parents' yard like we we're being chased by a religious cult and a mad scientist, and then going down into my parents basement and bashing away at my toy drum set. In retrospect, I guess I can see why I wasn't able to drum up much interest amongst my boyhood chums.

So let's get the quibbles out of the way first about this new DVD release.

Unlike some of my fellow Blogcritics, I have to say for starters, that I am perfectly satisfied with the standard release. The main thing that seperates it from the much pricier deluxe version -- outside of things like a bigger and nicer box, a bigger book, a poster, and director Richard Lester's original annotated script -- is that the deluxe version comes in the original 1:75 aspect ratio.

Personally, I'm completely satisfied with the 1:33 (fullscreen) ratio offered here. And like I said, watching this DVD tonight, the memories came flooding back. What also comes from the benefit of a few decades of life experience, is the realization of just how smart a movie Help! really was.

There are the obvious things of course. Like the way this movie, made in 1965, pretty much wrote the original book for the way MTV styled videos would be made two decades later. There are also the less obvious references you pick up on in the actual dialog when you see Help! today.

There are all kinds of weird little things you pick up on watching Help! today. Like the references to things like the Freemasons in the original script (and who would have ever pegged the then still ever innocent moptops as conspiracy theorists?)

But I would have never made the obvious connection for example, to the scene where the recording engineer asks "who is buzzing?" in one scene. The culprit in the movie is of course the cultists chainsawing a hole under Ringo's drum kit -- but the inside joke becomes more obvious today given what we know now about the Beatles fondness for pot at the time.

I also really like the extras on the standard release. The booklet is modest, but really, really informative. It goes into detail for example about how they arrived on the final title of Help!, after rejecting Ringo's suggestion of "Eight Arms To Hold You" -- effectively blowing my ace-in-the-hole on rock trivia night at my local bar. I also like the way that the book explains how and why the exclamation point was added to the eventual title of Help!.

Seeing the original trailers for the film (one of which I referenced above) is also really cool. Likewise, I found the present-day interviews with everyone from director Richard Lester, to actors like Victor Spinetti and Eleanor Bron (one of my earliest childhood fantasies as the ultra sexy cult babe Ahme in the film) to be highly informative.

And then there is of course the music.

As a kid, when I bought the soundtrack for Help!, I was always used to skip past the orchestral score, just to get to the Beatles tunes. I never got the point of all that orchestra music back then. But it actually makes sense now. In addition to the James Bond sort of feel of those songs, you also hear how they were incorporating things like sitar into the mix -- no doubt due to the George Harrison influence.

And to this day, "The Night Before," which is only available on this soundtrack, remains one of my favorite Beatle songs.



So stop worrying. Help! is on the way.

Correction. Help! is here.

Blogcritics At Blogworld: We Came, We Saw, We Drank

Last week, I attended the 1st Annual Blogworld conference in Las Vegas, as part of a team of editors and writers from Blogcritics, the online magazine where I have been a writer for going on three years now, and where I currently serve as assistant music editor.

Blogcritics is read by about two million people every month, and has played a very big role (along with this blog) in revitalizing my writing (which I had basically put on a shelf somewhere to gather dust for about ten years, for reasons I'm not sure I'll ever completely understand).

All I know is that the past 2 1/2 years, I've written nearly 200 articles for BC and owe them a debt of gratitude for basically re-energizing my writing muse. Right now, I feel I'm doing some of the best work I've ever done, and over the past year or so my work for BC has been recognized in one way or another by everyone from ABC News to Howard Stern.

They have provided me the best forum for getting my work out there of my entire career as a writer, and as I already said I am extremely thankful to them for that. Besides that, they are also -- besides being some of the most intelligent folks I've ever met, some of the nicest as well.

Some of those folks are seen in the picture above, taken at our booth at the conference, including (L to R) executive editor Lisa McKay (whose husband Jim also took the pictures you see here), Gordon "El Bicho" Miller, Josh Lasser, Phillip Winn (back to camera), Matt "Suss" Sussman, Dave Nalle, our publisher Eric Olsen, and Anna Creech.

So as you can imagine, I was very excited about meeting the Blogcritics crew, and they did not disapoint. We had a blast in Vegas, and actually got a lot of work done as well -- that is, when we weren't out drinking until all hours of the morning anyway.

For most of the trip, the hardcore party crew basically boiled down to myself, Bicho, Phillip (who I also roomed with), and surprisingly (to me anyway) our culture editor Diana Hartman, who despite the "proper" image I had of her (online perceptions can be quite deceiving) more than held her own during one night out which began at the Hard Rock and ended up at 3 AM at an IHOP on the Strip.

Phillip, Bicho, and myself are pictured on a critics panel here that was attended by pretty much no one (a panel on ethics across the hall held at the same time was SRO I later heard). I'm in the middle between Phillip and Bicho, and the gentlemen on the end's name unfortunately escapes me. Speaking of that panel, we did have a very good discussion about the whole "critic" thing, although I fear I may have bored the others somewhat with my continuous references to Springsteen.

What can I say?

On the final night though, our publisher Eric Olsen and his lovely wife Dawn also got into the party act. Besides being every bit as fun (and funny) as her Glosslip columns would indicate, Dawn is also one hell of a dancer! Eric for his part is the master schmoozer, and was absolutely the right guy to have representing us with all the bigwigs at the conference.

As for the Blogcritics booth, we had a great location in the center of the convention hall, and seemed to be a lot busier during the event, then the big boys at Yahoo located directly across from us. I was also told by many we had the best swag at the event -- with our free books including one by "fake Steve Jobs," and the 2007 edition of Best Music Writing being particularly big hits. Blogcritics had great presesnse at Blogworld.

It was also nice getting to hang with my fellow music editor Connie Phillips at the event (we are pictured together here). Connie's kind of like the female equivalent of a teddy bear -- just a total sweetheart.

But she is also sharp as a tack and was all about business at Blogworld. We did a lot of tag teaming on the conference floor at the booth talking to folks about Blogcritics, including one gal who had a common link with me from my past -- Public Enemy's "Media Assassin" Harry Allen.

So over all, it was a very gratifying trip for me on a personal level, and I have to believe it was a very successful one for Blogcritics as well.

The Rockologist: Welcome To The Hotel...Edgewater

It is a matter of record that the life of the touring rock star has two different sides to it. There are on the one hand the bright lights of the stage, the glitz and the glamour, the radio interviews, and the certain rush of thousands of adoring fans.

And then there is -- well, life on the road. It is also no secret that part of that life on the road -- and often, a significantly big part -- is spent trapped inside a series of interchangable hotel rooms.

Although it is probably not as true now as it was then, there was a time -- particularly during the seventies -- that bored rock stars confined to their hotel rooms before the big show, became particularly creative at finding ways to amuse themselves within these four walled prisons. For most, trashing their rooms was simply one of the required rites of passage for rock stardom. While for others -- like the Who's Keith Moon -- such activity was elevated to something of a high art.

It's one thing to toss a lamp out the window of a downtown high rise. It's quite another to drive a Rolls Royce into the hotel swimming pool.

But while such behaviour has earned several bands the distinction of being permanently banned from some of the nation's major hotel chains, a few brave innkeepers once actually embraced the concept. I mean, what's the cost of a few trashed rooms compared to the marketing possibilities of branding your inn as a destination point for touring rock stars?

During the seventies, the best known of these "rock-friendly" hotels was undoubtedly Los Angeles' Hyatt on the Sunset Strip. The Hyatt's history with touring rock bands is practically a primer itself in touring rock and roll hedonism, rife as it is with its countless tales of rock and roll nights of debauchery. The last time I checked, Little Richard even still maintained a permanent room there.

Although it is not nearly as famous -- at least not these days -- as the infamous "Riot Hyatt," Seattle's waterfront Edgewater Inn was also a required stay for touring rock bands back in the sixties and seventies. I haven't been down to the Edgewater in years. But the last time I was, the gift shop in the lobby was still decorated with pictures of its most famous rock and roll guests. The Beatles have stayed there, as have the Stones.

And the lure of the Edgewater back then, over the more posh five star hotels in Seattle?

It's painted right on the side of the building: "Fish Out Your Window."

Probably the most famous rock story to come out of the Edgewater's history involves Led Zeppelin, a mudshark caught on one such window fishing adventure, and a hapless groupie who wound up with said mudshark stuck between her -- well, I'll let you the connect the dots there. This is, after all, still a family publication. Frank Zappa also immortalized the Edgewater in his song "The Mudshark," from the album Mothers Live At Fillmore East.

The Edgewater was also the best, and the easiest, place to meet visiting rock stars in the seventies. Like Cameron Crowe in the movie Almost Famous, I was an aspiring teenaged rock journalist back then, and I would regularly stake the place out with my buddies both before and after concerts, hoping to catch a glimpse of visiting rock royalty.

Surprisingly, I got lucky a lot more often than I didn't. From the age of sixteen up until about college, I actually ended up partying with a lot of rock stars as a result of such stakeouts. Later in life, when I finally fulfilled my boyhood dream of becoming a rock writer myself, I think that those early experiences actually helped ease my nerves when interviewing famous musicians.

As for the experiences themselves?

They are both numerous and quite memorable. Like the time I took southern rockers Wet Willie out to Seattle's waterfront restaurant Ivar's for some good old Seattle Fish And Chips. Or the time I took the Hendrix inspired guitarist Frank Marino from Mahogany Rush out to see Seattle's own best Hendrix tribute act Randy Hansen. When I took Marino backstage to meet Hansen (who was a friend of mine back then), he actually asked Randy to join his band.
I was in my early twenties then. But the best memories I have of partying with the rock stars at the Edgewater remain those that I experienced as a teenaged fan.

For example, there was the night I partied with Uriah Heep, after meeting drummer Lee Kerslake in the lobby of the Edgewater earlier in the day. Over the course of that evening, I threw martial arts stars into the door with vocalist David Byron, tossed a lamp out the window into the water below, and was sent to the front desk for salt to keep the mudshark Kerslake had caught alive in the bathtub (don't ask).

At sixteen years old, I also drank in the bar with the band. I had my first Harvey Wallbanger that night.

Which brings up another cool thing about hanging out with bands at the Edgewater back then. With my own long hair and standard issue platform shoes, I was able to blend right in with the band at the hotel bar. I drank in that damn bar with everyone from the lowly Heep to Rod Stewart and the Faces (on a tour where Ron Wood already knew he was leaving the band to join the Stones). I was never once asked for ID.

Of course not all visiting rock stars preferred the bar. When Brownsville "Smokin' In The Boys Room" Station played Seattle opening for ZZ Top, we piled them into our station wagon to go buy six packs of Rainier Beer (Cub Koda and the boys wanted a local brew) in Seattle's Chinatown. Our underaged beer retailer of choice back then was a place called the Wah Mee Club, which a few years later would gain notoriety as the site of a massacre involving Chinese gangs and gambling.

As God is my witness, I am not making this shit up.

So as me and my friends by this time had became somewhat regular fixtures at the Edgewater both before and after rock shows, we also got to know some of the local groupies. They had names like Anita Bandita and Stars N' Stripes (so named for her patriotic taste in under-garments).

When the then red-hot T. Rex visited Seattle, these groupies literally had every floor staked out hoping to bed hearthrob Marc Bolan. I think I actually pissed a few of them off when Bolan granted me alone entrance to his room to conduct one of my first actual interviews. This was not set up through any publicist, but rather came as a result of me simply pitching the tour manager in the Edgewater lobby earlier that day.

The interview was later published by my high school newspaper.

So I'm not sure how many rock stars still stay at the Edgewater these days. Although I'm pretty sure that "Fish Out Your Window" sign is still there on the side of the building, they've really renovated the place. My best guess is that visiting rock stars these days more favor places like the Four Seasons. And if any still stay at the Edgewater, I'm equally sure the hotel security is a lot tighter now.

But I'll tell you what. When the final history of Seattle as a rock and roll town is written, the Edgewater's place is every bit as assured as those of Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix.

The Best Music Writing of 2007: And Not A Single Blogcritic In Sight

Book Review: - Best Music Writing 2007 Edited by Daphne Carr (Series Editor) and Robert Christgau (Guest Editor)

When my copy of the latest installment in Da Capo's Best Music Writing arrived in my mailbox earlier this week, I couldn't wait to read it. But upon opening the book to the table of contents, the first thing that I noticed was that there were no Blogcritics represented.

Which drew a reaction of "What?"...

Surely, one of Mark Saleski's ever insightful Friday Morning Listens, like his recent one on Kiss Alive, had to qualify as being among the year's best music writing, I thought to myself.

Or perhaps one of Josh Hathaway's gushing setlist reports from the Springsteen tour.

No? Well, how about Pico's amazingly detailed look at Miles Davis' On The Corner box set then? Or even -- if I may be ever so humble -- one of my own Rockologist columns, such as my recent Open Letter to Neil Young?
Then as I began to read the introduction to the book, written by guest editor Robert "The Dean Of Rock Critics" Christgau, it all became clear to me. The first thing which leapt out at me was Christgau's dismissal of internet journalism, which, in his own words he regards as "a trackless waste of hastily composed one-upsmanship."

Okay.

Then, as I read further, I noticed something else that has actually bothered me for a very long time. And that is the simple question of why guys like myself, Saleski, Hathaway, Pico, and the rest can't make a decent living doing something we enjoy doing so much -- and would like to think we are fairly good at? The answer to that question also comes in Christgau's introduction to this collection of the best music essays of 2007.

Out of the hundreds of submissions for this book, and the fifty or so that finally made the final cut, a grand total of ten of the articles represented here come from the internet. And out of those, only three received any sort of monetary compensation for their efforts.

So I guess that clears that matter up, and thank you very much for clarifying that point Mr. Christgau. To use your own letter grade system of rating albums, you get an A for that.

So as to the book itself, Best Music Writing 2007 is not so much a book for fans of music as it is for fans of music journalism. In this collection of music essays from 2007, the editors take what purports to be the best of the lot, and presents them as they originally appeared in print, or (apparently occasionally) online.
The sources here range from pieces written for places as obvious as Rolling Stone, to websites like Pitchfork Media (which Christgau again pulls no punches in hiding his disdain for). The writers range from seasoned -- and a few not-so seasoned -- journalists, to musicians like David Byrne and Richard Hell (who writes a particularly passionate piece on the closing of New York punk club CBGBs).

As a music journalist, and as someone who really enjoys reading music journalism, I really enjoyed several of the essays in this book. Among those that really stood out for me were Ann Powers piece on how the Latino immigration movement has adopted Neil Diamond's song "America" as their own; Jonathan Lethem's excellent "Being James Brown,"; and a piece by Michaelangelo Matos on the Supremes' song "Love Child" that I understand actually became a multimedia presentation at a rock critics symposium here in Seattle, held earlier this year and sponsored by the Experience Music Project.

So as I said, this book is not so much necessarily for music fans as it is for fans of those who write about the subject. And on that note, it comes highly recommended from this music journalist.

As for any of us Blogcritics making the cut?

I got two words for ya' Christgau:

Next year.

Believe that!

Music Review: Van Morrison - Still On Top: The Greatest Hits

Van Morrison is one of those performers who rock critic types like me — you know, the folks who worship at the altar of people like Dylan and Springsteen — are supposed to be in absolute awe of.

But I've gotta tell ya' the truth here:
I've never completely got Van.

What I can tell you is this. I absolutely recognize the fact that Van Morrison has an undeniably soulful voice that, at its best, can take you to some pretty amazing places — at least as far as going into the furthest reaches of the subconscious goes. Van is definitely that rare breed of vocalist whose emotive quality can transport you to places far, far away.

Understood.

But for me, his catalog — vast as it is — has always been sort of spotty.

For the record, I've seen Van Morrison twice in concert.

The first time was in the late seventies. I think he was on his comeback tour for the album Wavelength, and I have to be honest here, the lure for me, like many on this night, wasn't Van so much as it was his opening act. Rockpile fronted by Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds, were shit hot at the time.

Still, I was curious to see the guy who had built such a great reputation for amazing concerts. Now, I've gotta be fair here. The billing of Van Morrison, the great Irish soul singer, with Rockpile, the pub rockers with the New Wave pedigree of Elvis Costello producer Lowe probably wasn't the best idea. Especially given the fact that music was particularly polarized along genre lines at the time.

Still, when Van did his entire set with his back to the audience — he was probably pissed because the Rockpile fans who comprised about one third of the audience had left — he didn't exactly win me over.

The next time I saw Van was a few years later, at the urging of a fellow writer — and Van Morrison disciple — at Seattle's music magazine The Rocket. Greg (God Bless him), pretty much dragged me out to see him. This time around Van was touring behind the great album Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart. And unlike the debacle with Rockplie, the show was absolutely amazing — especially when Van went into his trance like reading of that album's standout, spoken word poetry track, "Rave On, John Donne."

This was an awesome performance. And by now I was almost ready to be 100% on board on the Van Morrison train.

Which brings me back to that original problem.

Van has this amazingly huge, but very spotty catalog. There have been several songs and albums along the way which have genuinely moved me, but the thing that has always been lacking is consistency. If only there were a single album I could own with all of the songs I have loved from Van over the years — "Gloria" and "Here Comes The Night" from his years with Them; stuff like "Moondance," "Wavelength," "Crazy Love," "Rave On John Donne," and more recently, "Stranded" from his solo output.

Still On Top is almost that album. Almost.

As it stands, this is probably the most complete overview of the best of Van Morrison one could ask for. Many of those favorite songs of mine I mentioned are indeed here. You've got everything from those early hits with Them, all the way through his best solo stuff from albums like Moondance, Tupelo Honey, and Wavelength, to his more recent output like the aforementioned "Stranded."

Still, what's missing is somewhat frustrating. I can understand the exclusion of my own personal faves like "Rave On, John Donne." The Inarticlate Speech record, while a personal fave, wasn't exactly a big commercial hit. But what about the amazing Astral Weeks?

Now, that is what I would call a major hole.

Still, for casual Van fans like me — the ones who sit patiently on the fence waiting to be converted — Still On Top will do nicely for now.

At least until that comprehensive retrospective boxed set comes along.