One week ago tonight, I was privileged to attend The Hoover Hootenanny in Asbury Park, N.J.. This was the sixth go-round for the Hootenanny, but, for one reason or another—mostly because they’re in Asbury Park and I live a thousand miles away in St. Louis—I was never able to attend before. But this year, with...
List: Top Five Story Songs — No. 1
This week, it’s been all about Story Songs, those songs that adopt their own meanings, sometimes far from what the original artists meant. Previous editions are here and here and here and here. And finally, we come to: 1. Stay Free, by The Clash. Way back then, in the early early 1980s, we wrote...
Who’s Next
A good portion of my summer vacation in 1971 was spent trailing my two older brothers and cousin around Brainerd, Minn., visiting every record store and head shop in hopes of finding the new album by The Who. My cousin had just seen them in concert at the Mississippi River Festival, and “obsessed” is...
Why Should I Care If I Have To Cut My Hair?
“I’ve got to move with the fashions, or be outcast…” The story of our WHO weekend in 1980 continues. Episode 1 is here. After our adventure in Columbia, Geoff and I rode the bus back to St. Louis on Monday, arriving mid-afternoon at the downtown bus station. I showed him around a bit; I...
A One-Way Drive In 1980
Preface: Maybe I have a strong internal calendar. I seem to remember a lot of key dates in my life ; I remember way more birthdays than I have a right to; and if I hear it’s the anniversary of something or other, it always seems to be more interesting to me than to...
London Calling
It was 30 years ago this spring that music–both my own and the world’s at large–got an incredible jolt. The Clash album London Calling was released in England in December of 1979, and in the U.S. in January 1980. Normally I’m not an “early adopter” of new music, but thanks to my good friend...
Thanks Joe!
Way, way back in 1981, I traveled to Provincetown, Mass., to visit my brother, and then to New York to visit my friend Geoff, spending about a week in each place. While I was in New York, another friend of Geoff’s, Joe Streno, hung out with us for a couple of days. We all...