Adam Graham
I'm moving
I am in the process of moving my base of operations to my own blog, where I will discuss music, movies, TV shows, my Blockbuster Online cue, Britney Spears, Slayer, and whatever else I feel like talking about.
Check me out at detnews.com/adamgrahamblog. See you there!
Adam Graham
If only I had an extra $3 million sitting around
Think you've got a lot of albums? Think they're worth a lot?
Pittsburgh's Paul Mawhinney is selling his entire record collection -- about 3 million records and 300,000 CDs, give or take -- for a cool $3 million.
Mawhinney's collection spans just about every genre imaginable, from bluegrass to children's to folk to comedy to anything else you can fit in a football field-sized warehouse (we bet he's even got the first Test Icicles EP). About half of the albums are unopened, by his estimation.
Interested? Of course you're not (for starters, where would you keep everything, the Gibralter Trade Center?). But here's the link anyway.
Via The Daily Swarm.
Susan Whitall
Funk Brothers' Joe Hunter at the Grammys
I intended to blog about the Grammys mostly to highlight the fact that they did spend about three seconds honoring Joe Hunter, in the montage of photos and music toward the end when music figures who died in the previous year are shown.
It was great to see Joe's sly grin as he picked out a tune on the piano. The song chosen to showcase him wasn't one of the Motown tunes Joe is front and center on, like Marvin Gaye's "Pride and Joy," so I'm assuming it was a solo number.
Would the Grammy folks even know who Joe is, if Allan Slutsky hadn't written the James Jamerson biography "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" book, or slogged for more than a decade to make the "SITSOM" documentary film, tour and if they hadn't won those Grammy awards? Doubtful. The Grammys never recognized the Funk Brothers until that film. They know now who the guys were whose musicianship shines through on every Motown song, and even this many years on, better late than never.
Susan Whitall
Kim Wilson rocks the Lager House
Go see Kim Wilson at the Lager House this Saturday night and you'll see not only one of the primo blues-rock vocalists of the last few decades(known for fronting the Fabulous Thunderbirds), but also one of the best blues harmonica players out there today.
For many of us, it'll be almost like one of those great nights when Wilson played with the T-Birds at the now-defunct Sully's blues bar in Dearborn.
Wilson's harmonica sound is caught in that delicious, deep blues vortex that lies between the Mississippi Delta and Chicago blues, much like that of his greatest influences, Muddy Waters and Little Walter.
The last time I saw Kim he was, like me, in the audience at the Ponderosa Stomp at the Rock 'n' Bowl in New Orleans, soaking up some good rhythm and blues, so it'll be good to see him doing his solo thing. Doug Deming and the Jeweltones open the show Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door. (313) 961-4668.
Adam Graham
Stargate: Melding acoustic guitars with lite hip-hop beats since 2006
It's time to give it up for Stargate, the production team that keeps cranking out hits by melding acoustic guitars and lite hip-hop beats since it first struck gold with Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" in 2006.
Since then, Stargate has repeated the exact same formula on hits for Jordin Sparks ("Tattoo") and Chris Brown ("With You"). Hey, in today's unsure marketplace, why mess with a good thing?
But don't these songs sound just a little too close to one another? Check 'em out and decide for yourself.
Beyonce, "Irreplaceable"
Jordin Sparks, "Tattoo"
Chris Brown, "With You"
Susan Whitall
Aretha to Beyonce: Oh no you don't!
Who's the Queen, Aretha or Tina? On Sunday's Grammycast, as we blogged earlier, we were perplexed when Beyonce Knowles introduced Tina Turner as "the Queen."
Apparently "The Queen" herself was surprised by the reference. It's the first time we've heard Turner referred to in that way, while Aretha Franklin has been the "Queen of Soul" or "the Queen" as long as anyone can remember.
Just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Aretha's publicists emailed the press corps Aretha's thoughts on the "quip":
"I am not sure whose toes I may have stepped on or whose ego I may have bruised between the Grammy writers and Beyonce, however I dismissed it as a cheap shot for controversy. In addition to that, I thank the Grammys and the voting academy for my 20th Grammy and love to Beyonce anyway."
Susan Whitall
Post-Grammy Thoughts
The rampant commercialism was sickening this year, with constant flogging of the Grammy "Ultimate Collection" CDs, and putting a C-lister like Jason Bateman outside with "contestants" vying to play with Foo Fighters was worse than "Let's Make a Deal."
We adore Tina Turner. In fact, while Beyonce was trilling that she was going to sing "Proud Mary" "rough," Tina was showing her how it actually is done "rough." But the big build-up introduction for Tina was strange; when it was announced that "THE QUEEN" was coming out, pardon us for thinking it must be time for Aretha. Mary J. Blige is the "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul," but just "The Queen" ...wouldn't that be Ms. Franklin?
Speaking of The Queen, the gospel interlude was great, although BeBe Winans' style was almost too smooth as a counterpoint, and Aretha was just starting to get going when unfortunately her segment was over.
Kid Rock channeling Louis Prima for a duet with Keely Smithi was so startling for many of us that there were Danny Thomas-style spit-takes across America, although musically Smith had to work hard to keep him in the same song.
It was great that jazz pianist Herbie Hancock won the big prize; Album of the Year, for "The Joni Letters," and it was high drama to watch Hancock and pianist Lang Lang perform George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" in front of an orchestra (although things almost careened out of control a few times). Even better was that everybody had to absorb so much Gershwin before seeing pop trainwreck Amy Winehouse perform at the end of the show.
Winehouse was merely OK, although it was diverting to watch her five-minute conversation with her mother when she won the Grammy, before deciding to say her thank yous. I'd much rather have seen (and heard) Bettye LaVette singing in that star time slot.
In the closing number, it was sad to see Jerry Lee Lewis appear so stiff, not fluid and energetic as he was for so many years. But some of the oldsters kicked butt; Little Richard sang and played "Good Golly Miss Molly" as if his life depended on it. Although Richard's been known to phone it in recently, perhaps the national exposure inspired him. When Fogerty joined him it was what all Grammy finales should be.
Although there were moments of amusement, including Vince Gill's quip to Kanye West (asking him if he'd ever had a Beatle present him with a Grammy) overall my feelings about "My Grammy Moment," the Fergie number, Jason Bateman etc. are best expressed by the master, Groucho:
Susan Whitall
May Pang's "lost weekend" with John Lennon
May Pang's book about John Lennon, "Instamatic Karma," will be released by St. Martins Press on March 4, and Britain's Mail on Sunday has an excerpt from the book on its website.
There are tantalizing details of a time when the Beatles were officially ending their partnership, but still friends, visiting with Pang and Lennon at the oceanside house they occupied, once owned by MGM boss Louis B. Mayer.
The former Beatle was of course married to Yoko Ono, but during a rough patch in their marriage in the early '70s, she encouraged him to date Pang, who was their personal assistant. The relationship has long been described as a brief Yoko-sanctioned interlude that only lasted a matter of months, but Pang reveals in the book that their relationship actually spanned 10 years, from 1970 to 1980.
Yoko's reaction to the book hasn't yet been heard.
This is the first time Pang has described her relationship with Lennon in detail, and because she took so many photos with her Nikkormat 35mm camera, the book is chock full of photos of a relaxed, healthy-looking Lennon, not the Lennon of the '70s we're used to seeing.
Adam Graham
Britney Spears' 'Everytime': Even creepier now
Utter desperation. Swarms of paparazzi. Hospital gurneys. Stephen Dorff.
Save for that last one, Britney Spears' "Everytime" seems to eerily foreshadow her current situation, even though it was shot way back in 2004.
Britney Spears was a massive tabloid target in '04, to be sure, but not to the extent that she is now. Mind you, this video came before the hospital stays, before the head-shaving, heck, even before Kevin Federline. At the time of "Everytime's" release, Britney Spears was still a touring pop star with a bright, if diminishing, career.
"Everytime" was a retort, of sorts, to Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River," a scathing indictment of Spears' affair while the two ex-Mouseketeers were dating.
Spears responded not by adding more fuel to the fire, but with a naked apology. "My weakness caused you pain," she sings, in her frail and weakened voice, "and this song's my sorry."
The video, directed by David LaChapelle, depicts Brit being hounded by hordes of paparazzi in Las Vegas. After escaping their clutches, she retreats to the sanctity of her hotel room where she proceeds to have an argument with her boyfriend (played by Dorff, in his best role in years). While Dorff fumes, Brit retreats to the bathroom, where she slips into a bathtub. Lightheaded, she slowly sinks below the surface of the water, apparently the result of a bizarre wound on the back of her head.
Flash forward to a hospital, where doctors are trying to revive her, and a frightened Britney is seen running down a hallway away from an ominous white light. Out-of-body, Britney watches over her own body as doctors try to revive her -- the target, for once, becoming the voyeur.
Back in the hotel, Dorff pulls Britney's cold, lifeless body from the bathtub, but apparently it's too late. Britney's body is strapped to a gurney and rushed out of the hotel, in a scene that's strangely reminiscent of recent events. And even as she's being loaded into an ambulance, gawkers and autograph hounds stand by, trying to get a piece of the pop star. At the hospital, a baby is born, and the circle of life continues.
Pretty depressing stuff, especially for an artist best known for wearing school girl outfits and posing suggestively on the cover of Rolling Stone with a Teletubby. Britney attempts to throw a sheen on the whole enterprise in a postscript sequence where she raises from the tub and flashes her trademark smile, effectively rendering everything that came before a dream, but the moment strikes the one false note in an otherwise harrowing clip. Maybe it was just a little too dark for "TRL."
Right now, this video is scary, but should Britney go any further off the deep end, it will become downright terrifying.
Britney, by the way, is on the cover of the new Rolling Stone. Check out an excerpt from the article here, and check out the mag's overview of all of her music videos -- which served as the inspiration for this post -- here.
Adam Graham
Top five can't-miss moments of Kid Rock's 'Rock and Roll Revival' tour
If you live in Detroit, you've seen Kid Rock at least a dozen times. You've seen Kid Rock live as many times as you've watched Huel Perkins anchor a TV news broadcast.
But you've never seen Kid Rock quite like this before.
Rock's "Rock and Roll Revival" tour, touching down at Joe Louis Arena Friday and Saturday, is a full-scale rock and roll revue, with Rock and special guests Peter Wolf and Rev. Run tearing through rock, metal, hip-hop, country, soul and whatever else they feel like in the two-and-a-half hour show. It's a big, bad waltz through 40 years of American music, and it features Rock and his genre-mashing best.
I checked out the show Tuesday night at Saginaw's Dow Event Center, where the crowd was partying like it was still Super Bowl Sunday (don't those people have to go to work today?). The show was a warm-up of sorts for this weekend's shows, which will also feature Dickey Betts from the Allman Brothers.
Here are the top five can't-miss moments from the show. Time your bathroom breaks accordingly (or just wait for the show's built-in 12-minute intermission).
5. Peter Wolf's rant. The former J. Geils Band frontman may not be in the best shape of his life -- few 61-year-olds can pull off the leather pants look, and even fewer when pairing them with New Balance tennis shoes -- but the unkempt wildman, taking tugs of Jim Beam straight out of the bottle, has got a great rant in the middle of the show that leads into the J. Geils Band's "Must of Got Lost."
4. "Cowboy" and "Bawitdaba." Sure, you've heard them a million times before, but with Rock's expanded, 10-piece Twisted Brown Trucker band providing the muscle, the songs have rarely sounded this bombastic.
3. The new stuff. "Rock N Roll Jesus," "Amen" and "All Summer Long" already feel like Kid Rock staples, and "Lowlife (Living the Highlife)" fits in well with the likes of "Welcome 2 the Party." (I'm still not sure about the roller-coaster-as-metaphor-for-life "Roll On," which is a bit of a snooze.) Of course, I once felt like "Rock 'n' Roll Pain Train" was a grower, but it -- like everything else from Kid Rock's self-titled 2003 album -- has been excised from the setlist altogether, so who knows which songs will survive the cut the next go-round.
2. The closing number. No spoilers here, but don't miss the pre-encore show-closer when Rock is joined on-stage by his special guests for a surprise cover.
1. Rock and Run's set. For all his genre mixing and matching, Kid Rock is a hip-hop kid at heart, and his set with Run DMC's Rev. Run is not only the highlight of the show, it feels like it's what Rock should have been doing for years. He obligingly plays the hype man and lets Run take the show, and it's an arm-waving delight to watch the pair tear through Run DMC classics like "You Be Illin'" and "It's Tricky," not to mention a riff-tastic "Walk This Way." For everyone who has griped about Rock's lack of rapping on his last few records, this is what you've been waiting for.
And here's one to skip:
"Half Your Age." Kid Rock's kiss-off to Pamela Anderson is about half as clever as he thinks it is, and performing the song only makes him seem petty in his breakup with Pammy. The song is saved, last minute, by an assist from drummer Stefanie Eulinberg, but can still safely be axed from the setlist and no one would be bothered.
Photo by Jeff Schrier/ The Saginaw News
Come back to Thursday's Detroit News for an interview with Rock about his current tour.
