Jack Casady is one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most definitive, innovative, oft-imitated bass players. It was in San Francisco that he made his initial mark as a founding member of Jefferson Airplane and later Hot Tuna. He is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, yet it has taken until 2003 for him to […]
Frank De Blase
Posted inMusic
Cash died of a broken heart
by Frank De Blase A world where no Republican is safe: anywhere New York City’s Ed Hamell is performing. Hamell’s Thursday, September 11, show at Milestones was edgy and engaging. His lyrics and between-song banter were hysterical — not just with their occasional absurdity but with barefaced insight and honesty. Sure, Hamell plays acoustic, but […]
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A rebel within rebellion
Ed Hamell is bald. I mean Yul Brynner, cue-ball, Kojak bald. A regular guitar-wielding chrome dome. Yet when he mailed me a copy of his cool new disc, Tough Love, the package included an official Hamell On Trial comb. Yup, this Ed Hamell is an anti-folk smart aleck. Hamell, who has performed solo as […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Call of the congas
None of the women in the little club are standing still. Short-skirted and spike-heeled, they risk spilling Sangria as they hip-sway to the relentless Latin beat. Horns wail. Congas throb. Couples dance. Everybody is touching somebody. Tapas, a small club in the St. Paul Quarter, is hot and intimate, its dance floor swelling to capacity, […]
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Playing with dolls
So I’m standing on the corner of walk and don’t walk, minding my own affair, when I get a phone call. My ears were immediately treated to squeaks and shrieks of feedback, noise, and a faint voice in the background menacingly chanting; “I stick it deep inside, I stick it deep inside… ” It was […]
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No smashing allowed
So I’m standing on the Court Street Bridge, minding my own business, when I’m approached by this obviously dressed roadie-tour manager type. Seems he needs a guitar for his band (Linkin Park), so his guitarist can smash it on stage and can I direct him to a music store, please? I immediately saw red. […]
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The warped state of Third Estate
You’ve heard the story before: Friends hang out. Friends jam. Somehow it works. Friends start a band. Their parents and neighbors are sooo happy. The band inundates city dives, makes noise, makes fans, and eventually, a name for itself through all the hoopla. Maybe it even records a CD along the way. But vision […]
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Big man behind the scenes
For close to 30 of his 52 years, John Parkhurst has helped Rochester’s fickle music motor run. On the phone with agents and managers, in the audience with the people, or in the trenches with performers and stagehands, his casual confidence and charm belie the day-in day-out obstacles of the biz. He makes it look […]
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Sang like the kang
A couple of weeks ago found me eating fish tacos in the warm California sun. I was there to witness Lucha Va Voom — masked Mexican wrestlers and strippers in the gorgeous Mayan Theatre in downtown LA. It was a super sweaty, sexy, salacious, bodacious, bombastic, violent, gravity defying, awe-inspiring, ta-ta tassle-twirling extravaganza (whew). I […]
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A 30-year Journey
Any band that has survived career ups and downs, fickle music trends, and its own personal obstacles to achieve a certain degree of rock ‘n’ roll tenure has done so by making no distinctions between the past and present. Journey guitarist Neal Schon considers it all, well, one big journey: a journey where the […]
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Shut up, yuppie scum
I initially got into jazz because, frankly, it didn’t always make a lot of sense to me. And I liked that. It was a soulful respite from the day-in day-out cacophony of rock ‘n’ roll. It soothed, it swung, it eluded. The second annual Rochester International Jazz Fest offered more than I could eat, but […]
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A la wah-wah
It was Hell’s house band playing the Dinosaur last Wednesday. All that’s good and decent didn’t stand a chance as San Diego Diablo Eric Sardinas played some of the raunchiest, dirtiest blues you’ll ever hear, while wearing some of the tightest pants you’ll ever see. Women who looked like they were more up on Destiny’s […]
