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John Perry Barlow on Cassidy

I came across this beautifully written piece from Barlow describing the origins of the song Cassidy: Then my father began to die. He went into the hospital in Salt Lake City and I stayed on the ranch feeding cows and keeping the feed trails open with an ancient Allis-Chalmers bulldozer. The snow was three and […]

Sad news: John Perry Barlow

Awoke today to read that John Perry Barlow has died. He was remarkable Renaissance Man: a cattle rancher, song-writing partner of the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir and a pioneer of the internet, co-founding the Electronic Frontier Foundation. See the BBC’s obituary, here. And, the EFF’s announcement, here. Here’s Barlow talking about one of his Barlow-Weir […]

Rock and roll rhetoric: Merry Xmas Everybody

Are you hanging up the stocking on your wall? Are you hoping that the snow will start to fall? Do you ride on down the hillside In a buggy you have made? When you land upon your head Then you’ve been slayed. Merry Xmas Everybody (Holder, Lea), Slade A raucous, joyous Christmas favourite and a […]

Rock and roll rhetoric: Life In The Fast Lane

There were lines on the mirror, Lines on her face She pretended not to notice, She was caught up in the race. Life In The Fast Lane, (Walsh, Henley, Frey), Eagles That first couplet works so well because it takes a mental double-take to realise that the first set of lines are on and not in the mirror. […]

Rock and roll rhetoric: Lions

Red sun going down, way over dirty town Starlings they’re sweeping around, crazy shoals Yes and a girl is there, high heeling out across the square The wind, it blows around in her hair and the flags upon the poles Lions (Knopfler), Dire Straits “High heeling out across the square”, not walking or striding in high […]

Rock and roll rhetoric: Even the Losers

Well it was nearly summer, we sat on your roof Yeah we smoked cigarettes and we stared at the moon And I’d show you stars you never could see Babe, it couldn’t have been that easy to forget about me. Even the Losers (Petty), Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers What a picture. We are there, […]

Stevie Ray Vaughan, Texas Flood – @HardenKurt #guitar

Kurt at Cultural Offering celebrates the might Stevie Ray’s amazing debut. I remember being blown away when I first heard this album. ““Stevie said that we waited all of our lives to make that first record,” Double Trouble bassist Tommy Shannon says. “After that, making records was work.”  

Rosewood, CITES and vintage guitars – @Fender #Guitar

Fender is promoting its switch to pau ferro in place of rosewood for its darker, unvarnished fretboards. The tonewood has been around for a while, sometimes overtly (my Traveler Speedster guitar had a pau ferro fretboard) and sometimes less obviously. However, citing the tighter CITES regulations, Fender will be now using it for all its […]

As Tears Go By #Writing

Steve Layman has a great excerpt from Keith Richards’ Life: “We had two lines and an interesting chord sequence, and then something else took over somewhere in this process.  I don’t want to say mystical, but you can’t put your finger on it.  Once you’ve got that idea, the rest will come.  It’s like you’ve […]

Surely not! “Maybe the guitar is over” – MusicRadar.com #guitar

MusicRadar / Total Guitar headlines its article with a quote from Eric Clapton: “Maybe the guitar is over”. However, beneath the slightly unfair quote, it reports: “The WP article quotes data gathered by Music Trades magazine that indicates a 19% (approx.) fall in revenue at Fender, from $675 million to $545 million, with Gibson down by a […]

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