I found this is article reprinted on MOG. It also appeared on Counterpunch. I know Counterpunch to be fairly reputable, so I’m going to assume it really was written by the guy who claims it.Regardless, it makes sense. I’ve been talking about this for a while, the fact that the major labels (i.e., the wish-we-were-still-a-monopoly [...]
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Fusion 45: Stop Sobbing About Free Music Downloads
Fusion 45: If His Name Had Been McCartney…
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Album:Best Of Shawn Phillips: The A&M Years
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I'd never heard of Shawn Phillips before yesterday. I was tooling around a site written mostly in Italian when I came across his now out-of-print record called Collaboration. The cover looked interesting; it had a sort of Leon Russell-lives-with-the-gypsies look. So with nothing to lose, like in the 70's when records were cheap enough to [...]
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Fusion 45 On Snow And Dogs
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LET IT POWDER, LET IT POWDER, LET IT POWDER Our snowbelt inhabiting friend, Whiteray over at Echoes In The Wind will find this one amusing: they canceled school today in the greater Portland area because of snow. All TWO INCHES of it! The kids, of course, are ecstatic, bundled up in snow pants and hats and mittens, [...]
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Fusion 45 on Paul McCartney
I didn’t realize until a few days ago that Paul McCartney (along with Orb wunderkind, Youth) has been recording electronica under a different name (or, as one music journo put it, “something other than Brand McCartney”).I’ve downloaded Electric Arguments , recorded under the McCartney/Youth nom de plume, The Fireman, and I’m looking forward to listening [...]
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Fusion 45 Shows Rolling Stone Who’s Dorkier
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Artist:Fusion 45
When I started posting my 42 Favorite Finds of 2008 over at WNEW, I declined to say what I thought were the best records of the year. Instead I decided to write about my favorite listens of the year. That means anything from any year could be included thereby freeing myself myself from writing the [...]
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Fusion 45 On Life In The Band
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Artist:Fusion 45
Our bass player, the guy who originally invited me to jam with him and the guitar player, has decided he doesn't want to play with us anymore. Just when we were on the verge of our first recording contract! Since we first met five years ago, he's been forever telling me that he needed to [...]
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Fusion 45 Turns Two
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Artist:Fusion 45
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Track:Trippie Hippie
William Burrows (Under Under Some Pillows) It's Friday afternoon in Southern Washington and winter has finally swatted its big, wet, windy hand across the face of fall. It's 40 degrees, windy and raining. Even though it's about 3:30 in the afternoon, it's dark enough to feel like the middle of the night. Energy costs being what they [...]
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Fusion 45 And The Irresponsibility of Love
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Album:Home Of The Blues
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I have no excuse. She's a Great Pyrenees. She was free. Now she's mine. Has been for the past 8 hours and already I'm in love. John Mayall - All Your Love
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Fusion 45 on Amy Speace
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Album:Songs From Bright Street
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Track:Weight of the World
Discovered her on MOG. Visited her website. I'm not the type to stand up and salute CMT every morning, but I thought the video she just made for a song called Weight of the World was pretty moving. So, I went to eMusic and downloaded her 2006 album called Songs From Bright Street. That's where I found this [...]
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Fusion 45 on Brandon and Wanda Jackson
My wife and I watched A Streetcar Named Desire last night.My wife is a theater professor, the progeny of a playwright, a woman who spent her childhood reading Charles Dickens and Tennessee Williams. I’m the son of an advertising salesman who spent his pre-hormonal years memorizing baseball lineups and record jackets.We’re an interesting pair when [...]
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A Cold Rain Falling At Midnight
It got cold and frosty last night — more quilts and blankets coming out of the closet — and it’s gotten rainy today. Here are a couple tunes for the times:Howlin’ Wolf - Moanin’ At MidnightSam Phillips - Same RainPhoto from Chaotic Harmony
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Zeppelinius Riffisaurus
Finally, after 60-some pages of build-up, my good friend Barney Hoskyns finally came forward with the goods on Zeppelin IV, that after which his 170-page tome is named.Did you know that Rock and Roll was created in about 15 minutes? According to the story, the band was at Headley Grange working on various cuts, struggling [...]
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Stomping On Roy Harper
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I didn't really catch on to Led Zeppelin beyond Stairway To Heaven and the like until I started to do AOR radio in the 1980's. Even then, I didn't get much further than Whole Lotta Love. The blues influence on the boys from the Black Country, the nuances of what made them the biggest rock and [...]
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Vibe Confessional
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Sometimes I get so excited about music — listening to it, writing about it, playing it — that I just get this overwhelming vibe of peace, like something really good is on the horizon. Weird, huh? I got nothing else, 'cept for these: So, the Standells, who wrote about the "mighty River Charles," were actually from L.A? Hmmm… I'd [...]
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Bearsville Studios
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The Band. John Hartford. Jackie Lomax. Peter Yarrow. Loudon Wainwright. Muddy Waters. Cassandra Wilson. Branford Marsalis. Robert Fripp. The Rolling Stones. R.E.M. The B-52's. Those are just some of the names of the cool people who have recorded at Bearsville. (The list of uncool people is pretty long, as well.) Opened in 1970 by uber-manager Albert [...]
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The Automatt
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When CBS decided to get out of the San Francisco recording studio business, entrepreneur David Rubinson bought the facility at 829 Fulsom Street and renamed it The Automatt. For it's 10 years in existence, it was a go-to studio for a whole range of artists, from Herbie Hancock, Sister Sledge and Frankie Beverly to the [...]
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Kung Fu Panda
We acquired another kid last night: my 10-year old’s best friend, Sam, stayed over night. They got to stay up late, eat junk food for dinner and watch Kung Fu Panda on the big screen.It was an amusing little movie, kinda like Shrek meets Crouching Tiger. I submit for you both the original Carl Douglas [...]
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I Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Industry’s In
In between appointments yesterday, I spent 20 minutes wandering around the neighborhood Best Buy, getting a picture of what’s happening in the two industries in which I work: the consumer electronics business and the music business. (Yeah, I know: get into a real business.)I was encouraged by the fact that at least 6 different employees [...]
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Bo Diddley…Bo Diddley
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My new favorite song is Bob Seger's version of Bo Diddley, from his early 1970's record of covers, Smokin' O.P.'s (as in "Smoking Other People's"). I vaguely remembering hearing this a time or two back in the early 80's when I was doing AOR radio, but not enough for it to be anything less than fresh [...]
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The Sweet Smell of Music In The Air
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There's been lots of music going on around the house the past few days: We've been family air-guitaring around the living room to Foxboro Hot Tubs. The kids are preparing for their Christmas concerts. My wife is sitting in bed next to me telling me about Esperanza Spaulding (who is a Portland native and apparently dropped out of [...]
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