Garage rock is an amorphous label, embracing virtually anything from the mid-1960s that sounds intense and energetic and isn’t overly polished. The term has been used interchangeably with punk rock and has been applied to surf music, psychedelia, and more. That’s one reason why you’ll find extremely disparate material on the three-CD Steppin’ Out: The […]
Since Bob Dylan is arguably the best and most important songwriter of the entire rock era, it’s not surprising that his tunes show up on countless albums by other artists, including many that consist entirely of his compositions. This writer’s collection includes more than 800 Dylan covers, and while not all of them hit their […]
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Film Eyes Pink Floyd Co-founder Syd Barrett Creativity and stardom often trigger or exacerbate mental illness and self-destruction. In the rock world, the list of casualties includes such names as the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones, 13th Floor Elevators’ Roky Erickson, folk singer Nick Drake, Derek & the Dominos drummer Jim Gordon, producers Phil Spector and […]
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Music Reviews: I See You Live on Love Street: Music from Laurel Canyon, plus Robert Hunter, Roy Brown, Soft Machine, and Jay Gordon California’s Laurel Canyon music scene still garners attention half a century after its heyday. In 2019, for example, Jakob Dylan and friends produced Echo in the Canyon, a terrific film documentary and […]
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Dead of Winter “I will measure up my life, my days as they go screaming by With Xs on the calendar, till pennies on my eyes I will count my many blessings with gratefulness my mentor And I will count myself in luck as I count the dead of winter” An unfinished song by […]
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Eyeing L.A.’s Late 60s Rock Scene Heroes & Villains: The Sound of Los Angeles 1965–68, a new anthology on Britain’s Grapefruit label, mines the exact same territory as Rhino’s 2009 box, Where the Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968. The Grapefruit set packs in 90 tracks on three discs—almost as many as the 101 in […]
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Sometimes it feels like Gene Clark never really left us. The discovery and periodic releases of the former Byrd’s solo recordings have graced us over the past few decades. As time has passed, his inestimable multi-generational influence becomes more apparent spanning folk and country rock, rock stalwarts like Tom Petty and R.E.M., and a new […]
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