When I started at Berklee, I got a job in the jazz department at Tower Records. This was before iPods, before MySpace, and at a time when people were still asking what we had on cassette. The jazz department was up on the third floor, and nobody wandered in there unintentionally. As such, it was somewhat remote, and it gave the employee ample time to discover great music. As a new Berklee kid, I...
I bought new music.
Beware! Beware! The Ides of March are upon us …
…and they’re singing “Vehicle” 🙂
The best-est part of working in radio was being able to play amazingly topical music. Specifically, March 15th meant the one time we got to play “Vehicle” by the Ides of March. A personal favorite tune, it’s a total one-hit wonder doomed to obscurity 364 days out of the year.
But not today!
So you’re thinking: What does Scott want for his birthday?
I’m so glad you’re planning ahead. You see, lots of people tend to wait ’til the last minute. And at that point, I end up getting coffee mugs and gift cards. Not that those aren’t nice, mind you, but they’re not all that inspired. Instead, I’ll make it nice ‘n’ easy for you all. Possibly planned to coincide with my annual birthday celebration (which...
All the King’s Horses, Part II
So as Ian and I discussed the state of the industry, its cast of characters, and what kind of artists should be using Topspin (or Nimbit ... or Bandcamp ... or Audiolife ... ), it all became re-enforced by what I saw on the tv last night: style over substance, instant over earned, easy over challenging.
King EvRock’s Soulsonic Decade
Bringing The Party Back To The People… Despite the 2000’s being soaked with celebrity deaths, unwanted wars, cowboy presidents, and the bankruptcy of the U.S.A., there was an rebirth of music as power, public praise and acceptance of guerrilla art, and, most importantly, the reemergence of DIY basement parties. KingEvRock’s Soul Story by  KingEvRock This decade taught me that...
Happy Thanksgiving …
Happy Veterans Day from Phil Ochs
“I’ll do for you now, for you nice people here, a protest song. A protest song is defined as something, as a song you don’t hear on the radio. And they’ll say you don’t hear it on the radio ‘cuz the guy can’t sing, or cuz the words are no good, ‘cuz they play the shit that they play these days…” –Phil Ochs
Oh Bob ….
Like many music industry types, I read the Lefsetz Letter. And again, like many, I often think old Bob is just a cranky, washed-up, old-school record label type guy. Case in point: he recently shredded a performance by Mika. His complaint was that under all the lights and staging, the entire show was played off a hard drive: Bob writes: We’re fucked. I was standing in the back of the...
Picture of the Day: The Rat
Gone for nearly a decade, The Rat(hskellar) in Kenmore Square (Boston) was the dingy, local launchpad for all kinds of bands. A couple of note: The Police, The Talking Heads, and the Ramones. Take a little walk down memory lane, and remember the feeling of your lungs collapsing from the thick smoke while your feet stuck to the floor…