Steve Knopper [knopps.com] covers the music business
for Rolling Stone. His next book, on the record
business in the digital age, is due from Free
Press/Simon & Schuster in January 2009.
So, Metamorphosis. How could I have missed this one? Amazon says it's the only Stones' rarities collection, rushed into print by ex-manager Allen Klein after a lawsuit. Of course I know "Heart of Stone," but the rest are new to me. I'm not sure what Klein's original intent was for the title, but about halfway through the disc it shifts abruptly from Phil Spector-like symphonic arrangements (with not nearly enough Keith or Charlie) to the sort of raw '70s sound we've come to love from Exile On Main St. and Sticky Fingers. The revelation is "I Don't Know Why," which starts with the spooky strummed guitar and blows up when Charlie and Bill come in. Had to listen to that one thrice or so.
The Stones really did have an amazing run from 1968 to 1972, didn't they? Check out that list of songs in the poll link. It's impossible to pick just one or two or 20. I voted "Rocks Off" -- for Charlie. Always for Charlie.
Last summer I tracked down a copy of Clive, the out-of-print 1975 book by veteran music-business mogul Clive Davis, on Amazon for something like $35. (I see three copies now for as low as $9.91, so the joke's on me.) He wrote it shortly after then-extremely-powerful... Read More
Crap. The first member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band to die is keyboardist Danny Federici. Check out the end of that March 20 concert video on The Boss' site -- I think Bruce whispers "My brother" to him, but I'm not sure. In any case,... Read More
Man, I hope XM and Sirius merge -- and lower the monthly subscription prices! I've been paying $12.95 a month for a year for XM, which I absolutely love. My favorite channel is The Rhyme, an old-school hip-hop extravaganza that plays a great song every... Read More
Dolly has been singing "Jolene" live for some time -- my wife and I saw her do it about two years ago at the Denver Convention Center. (For the record, her best song there was Tommy James and the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover," in... Read More
Spent a great, relaxing Sunday catching up on new music and watching the Tigers and Kenny Rogers get crushed.Here's a review of the first one. More coming soon.Dolly Parton, Backwoods Barbie. Good for Dolly for ditching her record label(s) and putting... Read More
Why couldn't I have picked the Yankees as "my team"? Or the Celtics?No, I grew up in Detroit, so am stuck with the Tigers. (It's getting to be an obsession -- every day there's some new injury to Google-news: Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney, Curtis... Read More
Every morning, my 5-year-old wants to read Heart of the City and Family Circus in our morning newspaper. She likes the strips with characters close to her age who sort of talk like she does. So every day I read them to her, and she stares blankly and... Read More
As a 39-year-old still stuck in the Dinosaur Land of buying music on little pieces of plastic, I'm finding it harder and harder to discover new songs. There's so much good stuff on the Internet, and tracking it all via MySpace, blogs, eMusic, iTunes,... Read More
Thanks to coaxing (and one excellent free lunch) from my pal Gil, I'm the new Music Examiner on this site. I'll be writing about music I like, where to find it, occasional music-business issues and various personal crap.By way of introduction: I cover... Read More