Good evening, Crassholes. Have you been drinking? I hope so. Are you ready to shake your ass like your life depends on it? Are you ready to bop your head like a damn bobblehead? Are you ready to work up a sweat? You better be. What would Friday night on Crasstalk be without some music sharing? Let’s get this thing started. With any luck I’ll stagger home in time to play along with you for a while. In the meantime, though, check out these tracks to get your juices flowing: Continue reading
Thirty-seven years ago this morning, Sir Tone was walking towards his office on Music Row in Nashville when he heard one of Elvis’ side men yell out “You hear Elvis is dead?”
Sir Tone: “Drugs?”
Side Man: “Yeah.”
The mere mention of Elvis’ name is enough to throw Sir Tone into a fury. The primary reason black blues musicians and early pop recording artists never got their due, Sir Tone says. Not half so good a musician as a multitude of them, never wrote a song of his own and most egregious of all, failed even to acknowledge his debt to the Delta black music his baby self breathed in along with its white country and church music. Continue reading
Hello my little chickens! Are you ready to do some chair dancing in front of your computer? I suggest you find some earphones or maybe some rockin’ external speakers (I favor Bose, just so’s ya know) because it is time to Throw to the Down. Continue reading
http://youtu.be/e1yCs7EWttw
Before there were shows like So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars, there were dance shows where everyday people got to be on the TV and dance their hearts out. Dance Fever, Solid Gold, Dance Party USA, each showcased dance and music representative of its time. Continue reading
Hip-hop collaboration albums are a rare fruit. Fans are always pining for that Nas and DJ Premier album, or the mythical Dr. Dre and Rakim partnership. And oftentimes when collaborations do happen, it doesn’t sound like an actual union of two styles and moreso just two separate guys in the studio. Watch the Throne, the hotly-anticipated collaboration album between Jay-Z and Kanye West somehow manages to never really mesh two very strong personalities together into some Voltron made of Hermes and Yankees caps, but fortunately they have strong enough chemistry and incredible production that it works out. Continue reading
Michael, Prince, Madonna, Cher, Tina (with or without the Ike), the Beatles, Stevie, and of course, Elvis. One word and you know exactly who people are talking about. Ground-breakers whose music is timeless. Their looks were spot on for the time, each time, which for these artists, means decades. Unfortunately, we lost some of them tragically but we thankfully have their music to remind us of their genius.
Ok, so now that you know what Spotify is, let’s discuss what people are listening to on it.
Here are a few of the bands I’ve been checking out since I got my Spotify account. Continue reading
What do you think of when you think of metal? For many, it remains a 1980’s punchline: Spinal Tap, big hair, and leather pants. Others with a slightly more recent frame of reference may instead imagine barely comprehensible noise. Both are correct descriptions, but only partially so.
Like its punk and hardcore cousins, the term ‘metal’ encompasses a multitude of sub-genres and micro-genres, some of them ludicrously specific, and many of them sounding nothing like each other. In an attempt to bring some order to the chaos, I have combined my encyclopedic knowledge of metal with the graphical skills of the wonderfully talented tomqvaxy to bring you this genealogical chart: Continue reading
I like lists and have been making a lot of them lately. I’ve made lists of things I can’t afford but want, jobs I wish I had but don’t, places I’ve applied to that haven’t called me back, and everything else you can imagine.
Today’s list is comprised of eleven terribly awful and annoying songs. Continue reading
Ever see that bumper sticker that says: “Women are natural born leaders. You’re following one right now?” Today we are going to salute those bad mamma jammas. Those leading ladies of pop, rock, punk and R&B who funked up the scene and kept the boys in the back. Continue reading