Ken Shane October 1, 2008 Work or play. Family or friends. Protein or carbohydrates. Life is about seeking balance. Lindsey Buckingham has been seeking balance too. In his case, the challenge is to balance his intriguing, but sometimes erratic
Read More » Ken Shane September 17, 2008 Christmas Eve, 1970. I was at the Fillmore East to see Laura Nyro. A month earlier, Nyro had released her fourth album, Christmas and the Beads of Sweat, and it had taken up more
Read More » Ken Shane September 3, 2008 Brian Wilson – That Lucky Old Sun purchase this album (Amazon) “Genius is the ability to make something very complex seem very simple.” There goes my lead. Brian Wilson speaks to The Guardian, and
Read More » Ken Shane August 15, 2008 A song comes on the radio. It’s one of those songs that has defined your life. It could be Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, or Wilson Pickett. If your romantic life has been like mine,
Read More » Ken Shane August 13, 2008 Tepoztlan, Morelas, Mexico is a place known for Aztec magic and extra-terrestrial sightings — so it only seems natural that Conor Oberst would head down there to record his latest album, his first solo
Read More » Ken Shane August 6, 2008 Randy Newman will be 65 years old in November. On his first album of new material since 1999’s Bad Love, he emphatically demonstrates that he has not lost one bit of his rather unique
Read More » Ken Shane July 30, 2008 The final entry in Ry Cooder’s California trilogy, I, Flathead finds Cooder exploring the Southern California drag-racing culture that centered on the state’s salt flats. Much like the first entry in the series, 2005’s
Read More » Ken Shane July 16, 2008 We’ve been hearing the “rock is dead” pronouncements for so many years now that we don’t even listen anymore. “It is what it is,” we blithely proclaim, pretending not to care. But if you’re
Read More » Ken Shane July 9, 2008 Success is problematic for a band. When you’re flying under the radar, no one expects much from you. But then, when you deliver a breakthrough, as The Hold Steady did with Boys and Girls
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