Wig Bubbles

There was more to Duke Ellington than Take the “A” Train. There was more to The Beatles than She Loves You. There is more to Radiohead than Creep. But there’s not much more to The Fall than the ultra-lo-fi 1978 short sharp shock, Bingo Master’s Breakout. The full range of Johnny Cash’s talent, meanwhile, can be found in Folsom Prison Blues. And, frankly, Neil Diamond has rarely strayed successfully beyond the three chords at the heart of Cherry Cherry.

Don’t get me wrong. Bingo Master’s Breakout is a super-cool song and one can hardly blame Mark E. Smith and the gang for refusing to deviate from a winning formula. But formulaic it is, even if that formula belongs exclusively to the eccentric Mr. Smith. Likewise, I have the utmost respect for Messrs Cash and Diamond. Well, except for those Rick Rubin productions. But we all make mistakes.

I also enjoy me some AC/DC, a band that has for over 40 years recycled the same riffs in an admirable effort to avoid a descent into power-ballads all too common among veteran rock and roll combos. Continue reading →

Thursday evening, our city’s most massive music festival welcomed a former Ramone to the stage.

Blondie drummer Clem Burke was a member of that competing NYC institution for a mere two gigs, in 1987. And as he once told me, “I thought Blondie was a dysfunctional family until I joined The Ramones.”

A number of musicians, most of them drummers, can claim to have thumped the snare for The Ramones. But Tommy Erdelyi did it first. As Tommy Ramone, he was there in 1974 when the quartet first delivered a fast and furious antidote to the Eagles-isation of rock and roll. He had intended to be the band’s manager and producer, having already worked on studio sessions for the likes of Jimi Hendrix. But for four years, when Dee Dee counted-off, it was Tommy who answered the call. Continue reading →

Now here’s a dilemma.

It says here Robin Thicke’s latest album Here, My Dear, er, Pamela, sold only a few hundred copies in Canada during its first week of release. Worse, press giddy with schadenfraude are reporting, the awkward aural love-letter sold “less than 54 copies” in Australia. As in 53 copies? Well, less than 54, anyway.

It’s significant for two reasons. For one, it’s the first time sales figures in Australia have made international news. (Indeed, no one appears to have looked into how many copies Thicke’s previous album sold in Australia during its first week of release, which might have been a handy reference point.)

More than that, however, is the possibility — nay, the probability — that such apathy reflects the arrival of an artistic triumph. Continue reading →