The Once and Future King: Brian Wilson
Sean MurphyWhat can be added to the mostly excellent obits and tributes coming in from around the globe, including shout outs from all-time heavyweight champs like Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen?…
They Will Rock You, They Are The Champions: The Consummate American Bands (Revisited)
October ’08. In the spirit of two quintessentially American inventions (obsessions, really), baseball and rock and roll, it seemed like a swell idea to merge the two in a lighthearted…
The Once and Future King: ‘SMiLE’ and Brian Wilson’s Very American Dream (Revisited)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Icarus soars too close to the sun. Othello, vulnerable and halfway crazy, mistakenly trusts the evil Iago. The product of a celebrated…
Roky Erickson: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Genius (Revisited)
(For the remainder of the month, I’ll be revisiting some personal favorites, all of which are available in my recently-released collection, MURPHY’S LAW VOL. ONE, which is available NOW!) Preface You’re…
Ten Songs From 1967 That Shaped Prog-Rock (Revisited)
1. "Heroes and Villains", The Beach Boys What has tended to get lost or forgotten in the shuffle of sensationalistic trivia (of the infamously aborted SMiLE sessions) is that Wilson…
Improving Upon Perfection, Part Two: Brian Wilson and Danny Gatton
One of the best ballads ever? No question. Brian Wilson, whom one can never say enough about, evinced such astonishing growth in such a short period of time, only The…
The Once and Future King: ‘SMiLE’ and Brian Wilson’s Very American Dream
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Icarus soars too close to the sun. Othello, vulnerable and halfway crazy, mistakenly trusts the evil Iago. The product of a celebrated…
Pet Sounds: The Kind of World Where We Belong (Revisited)
5/16/66. A day that changed music, forever, for the better. A case could, and probably should, be made that we ought to refer to rock music as "BP" and "AP"…
Ten Songs From 1967 That Shaped Prog-Rock (Revisited)
1. "Heroes and Villains", The Beach Boys What has tended to get lost or forgotten in the shuffle of sensationalistic trivia (of the infamously aborted SMiLE sessions) is that Wilson…
The Once and Future King: ‘SMiLE’ and Brian Wilson’s Very American Dream
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Icarus soars too close to the sun. Othello, vulnerable and halfway crazy, mistakenly trusts the evil Iago. The product of a celebrated…