For Sneaky Pete’s Sake

Pete Kleinow – “Sneaky Pete” to legions of country rock fans – died on January 9th in a California nursing home. He was 72 years old, and for the past two years had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. It is painful to contemplate the musical memories that were slowly eroding away. And now they are gone. I grew up hating country music, and for the first two decades of my life considered it the exclusive domain of inbred cretins and rednecks. Sneaky Pete, along with Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, changed all that. Pete played the pedal steel guitar as...  read more

Indie Superstars, and Other Conundrums

The morose, black-clad, cappuccino-sipping legions are about to get happy, or as happy as morose, black-clad legions ever get. Three of the biggest indie bands in the world are set to release new albums in the next few weeks. And soon the fiercely independent masses will genuflect in unison and proclaim their everlasting hipness. It’s a public relations dream and a logician’s nightmare: selling mass-marketed music to people who guard each shrink-wrapped disc and downloaded song as their closely guarded secret treasure, along with several hundred thousand other people who fit their demographic niche. There was a time when “indie”...  read more

Favorite Music of 2006

No, it’s not the end of the year. But we’re in the traditional dead time in which no self-respecting musician/band releases new music. So, working on the assumption that no masterpiece will be forthcoming when people are distracted by turkey and tinsel, I offer you my favorite albums from 2006. In spite of the moaning from Corporate Musicdom, it’s actually been a great year for music, one of the best since the early ‘90s. Old farts like Paul Simon and Donald Fagen have released their best music in decades. Bob Dylan arose from his wheelchair and delivered another great...  read more

Baby’s First Metallica

The resourcefulness and general oddity of marketeers never ceases to amaze me. Lately I have been the recipient of not one, but two new CDs especially designed to introduce our youngest headbangers to the arcane world of rock ‘n roll. First it was Blues Clues and Veggie Tales. Then it was Mozart and Bach for the baby Einsteins. Now it’s Metallica and The Beatles, presented in nice, colorful, eye-catching packages and cute little storybooks. And what self-respecting parent wouldn’t want to pick up a copy of Rockabye Baby: Lullaby Renditions of Metallica for little Thor or Ozzy? These are recognizable...  read more