Five From Frank Zappa
Sean MurphyDecember 4, 1993: impossible as it is (at least for me) to believe, Frank Zappa passed away (yet another casualty of the Big C.) twent-one years ago, today. Zappa, to…
My Most Embarrassing Thanksgiving Memory?
Question: What was your most embarrassing Thanksgiving moment ever? Answer: I’ve got nothing here. I mean, I was raised in an Irish-Italian Catholic household so there were two things we…
The Moody Blues: Masters of the Mini Epic
The Moody Blues have not aged particularly well. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To be sure, more than a handful of their songs are as timeless as any…
Brooklyn Reading #5: Bright Moments
May 29, 2014. It was billed as a throwback to the old Beatnik days, minus the bongos and clove cigarettes. As such, New York City was a mandatory locale; Brooklyn…
Serpico and Turning Black Friday into Good Friday
Look at that dude. Pacino, clean-shaven and short-haired as the movie begins, sports the best 'stache of the decade, then goes goatee, then gets full facial (hair and head), all…
Let Us Give Thanks for the Guitar Solo (Revisited)
Let us give thanks for the guitar solo. This excercise is equal parts pointless and onanistic, which, of course, is the entire point. (Quick: what was your favorite orgasm? Thought…
The Whiteness of the Whale: Remembering The White Album (Revisited)
Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest idealized significance it calls up a peculiar…
If I Could Wave My Magic Wand… (Revisited)
(Editor's note: Rush's last great album (in my opinion), Presto, was released this week, in 1989. A quarter-century ago. Yikes. Here is a piece I wrote in October, 2009) ***…
Pete La Roca, R.I.P. (Two Years Later)
It will be an ongoing, and very somber, progression, watching so many old-school jazz musicians (many of whom recorded on the epic Blue Note label during the glory years of…
Brooklyn Reading #4: Waiting Room
May 29, 2014. It was billed as a throwback to the old Beatnik days, minus the bongos and clove cigarettes. As such, New York City was a mandatory locale; Brooklyn…