I caught snippets of the T.A.M.I. Show in the ’60s when a short segment would turn up on network television or a smaller local station. I didn’t make it to the theatrical release at one of the locations around the country, which started just a few weeks after the show was filmed. So watching the … Continue reading Time machine called the T.A.M.I. Show
Experience Hendrix, the group headed by Janie Hendrix, the adopted daughter of Jimi Hendrix’s father Al, oversees Hendrix’s body of work and recently struck a new agreement with Sony after years of working with MCA. The first joint venture from the two entities is Valleys Of Neptune, 12 previously unreleased tracks by Hendrix, most recorded … Continue reading Jimi’s legacy lives on
In the early 1970s, a good friend and outstanding drummer, Peter Nowlin, was working with me in a band with the Aiardo brothers in New Haven. Peter is from Virginia and traveled with an extensive record collection and quality stereo system. At some point, he turned me on to Passport, a German fusion group led … Continue reading Under The Radar, No. 4: Passport
Them Crooked Vultures is a very heavy band. Not heavy as in heavy metal, heavy as in heavy hard rock. Featuring three hard rock virtuosos in Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl, from Foo Fighters, who switches from guitar back to drums, his spot in Nirvana, and Josh Homme of Queens Of The … Continue reading Vulture sighting
Winter and spring of 1968 in Boston was a particularly memorable and remarkable time for me as far as the music to which I was exposed. My group Pulse opened for the Lovin’ Spoonful at the Back Bay Theatre; I saw Michael Bloomfield’s Electric Flag at the Psychedelic Supermarket, where I had earlier first seen … Continue reading Concerts Vol. 11: Traffic
A friend of mine has asked me several times to write about what I felt was the most disappointing concert I’d ever been to. I’ve already mentioned a couple, Poco at the Shakespearean Theatre in Stratford, CT, mostly because of the horrendous acoustics, and the fourth Cream concert I went to in 1967-68 at the … Continue reading Concerts Vol. 10: Zappa and Zappa
It’s rare that I get a chance to see an artist more than once in a calendar year. It happened last night. I drove down to New London to see The Derek Trucks Band at the Garde Arts Center, a theater built in the ’20s, saved by the townspeople in the ’80s from becoming an open … Continue reading Derek Trucks at the Garde
I saw guitarist Robben Ford play with Joni Mitchell during the Miles Of Aisles Tour at Woolsey Hall in New Haven in the mid-1970s. I’ve followed his career since, but not until the late ’80s did I start to take a closer look. Even then, I wasn’t familiar with everything he released. In the past … Continue reading From The Vaults: Hidden Treasure No. 5
In the spring of 1968 I was studying at Berklee School of Music in Boston and going back to Connecticut on weekends to rehearse and play out on the club circuit with Pulse. I lived on upper Commonwealth Avenue, not far from the dorm I had lived in when I was at Boston University, with two … Continue reading Concerts Vol. 8: The Doors
Acclaimed guitarist Robben Ford has an affinity with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band of the mid-1960s that featured the duo guitar lineup of Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield. I can relate to that. That was one of Ford’s earliest influences and he has kept that foundation of blues and blues-rock alive in his music, combining it with … Continue reading Ford updates the blues tradition