Craigslist, baby!

Grace

Grace to me is the difference between those who can appreciate the remaining Moody Blues in concert, such as last night in Oakland, and those who, like a gentleman I met today, who still moan about the departure of Mike Pinder, an event now 21 years in the past.

May I grow old gracefully!

Alice Cooper, DeMolay alumnus

Fun fact (according to Wikipedia): Shock-rock musician Alice Cooper belonged to the DeMolay when he was growing up (that is, if you think he ever did grow up.)

Brian Wilson delights (again)

Jim Harrington: Brian Wilson delights lucky, small crowd. I was one of them.

That Lucky Old Sun preview at USA Today

If I hadn't been in Las Vegas yesterday morning, I probably wouldn't have noticed that USA Today was preview-streaming Brian Wilson's new CD, That Lucky Old Sun, in its entirety. I just finished listening to it, and it's far more satisfying than I first thought it would be when I heard snippets of it months ago. Brian sounds stronger and more soulful than he has in years.

The Moody Blues, reconsidered

For the past week or so I've been unable to get the songs of the Moody Blues out of my head. The Moodies probably were more vilified than any other rock band in the pages of Rolling Stone (the one exception being an album review by apparent fan Steve Ditlea) but damned if their tunes weren't catchy. Anyway, my head wouldn't have been filled if not for the fascinating documentary, The Moody Blues: Classic Artists, that reveals such juicy bits as the revelation that the producer of Days of Future Passed, a classical music A&R man named Tony Clarke, was in mid-production when he realized that they were making a psychedelic record! The subsequent breakup of the group is in its way as disheartening as the breakups of many other groups of the day, and the Moodies do not deserve the pillorying that Rolling Stone ended up giving them. It's not enough to make me cancel my lifetime RS subscription, but I just thought I'd have my say, while I'm waiting for Amazon to deliver Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.

1980s ELO videos appear

Electric Light Orchestra videos surface! Sony's opened the vaults. I'd never seen these before. Nice mashup lets me drop them in here.