Kodachrome made all the world a sunny day DANIEL BAYER An image from Daniel Bayer’s Kodachrome Project, viewable online at Flickr. Dead at 74, Kodachrome leaves a legacy for the ages. A last snapshot blast is planned BEN RAYNER STAFF REPORTER We don't expect technologies and human beings to enjoy similar lifespans in this accelerated age. Rapid obsolescence is the norm, "On to the next!" the prevailing battle cry of the digital era. Small surprise, then, that the announcement this past week that Kodak was finally ceasing production of its storied Kodachrome film line after 74 years provoked so many printed expressions of sadness and nostalgia. Even if you knew this day was coming – and, most devotees agree, the writing's been on the wall for 10 or 15 years – you had to keep rooting that this epoch-defining slide film unveiled in 1936 and which dominated the gleaming pages of Time, Life and National Geographic well into the 1980s would keep improbably hanging on against the onslaught of point-and-shoot digital cameras. To read the rest of the article click here.

There was another thread about this exact same subject just a few weeks ago: Should Marijuana Be Legalized?

No Depression has announced the winners of the Reckoning contest: http://community.nodepression.com

By Jeff Herrin It’s a tricky thing to dance with icons, and not just because we mortals look so goofy when we dance. (I’m not allowed to moonwalk in public, for example). Fame itself is as fleeting as Ben Johnson — if anyone even remembers the man formerly known as the fastest sprinter in the world. We’ve grown weary of stars who burn out after 15 minutes. Can the Jonas Brothers last? Is Usher a flash in the pan? If I was on the Springsteen bandwagon in 1984, is it OK to be there 25 years later? Lighting up the universe is a pretty tall order for anyone. But finding love from an audience with massive attention deficit disorder is even tougher. And that’s all the more reason why the careers of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett were so remarkable for so many years, and why we’ll probably never see stars of their magnitude again. Entertainment is a rocket that takes us into a dazzling alternate reality, and for much of the 20th century, we were all aboard the same spaceship. Our media options were so limited before cable television and the Internet became fixtures that prime time meant the same thing from coast to coast. We all knew Farrah because “Charlie’s Angels” competed against only two other shows in its time slot. Her famous swimsuit pinup — the one with the curls, the smile and the … um, other attributes — occupied dorm room walls like one-third of Mount Rushmore — right next to the poster that came with “Dark Side of the Moon” and the one from the Beatles’ “White Album.” The lowest price I could find for an original Farrah pinup on eBay on Thursday was $76 — and every entry had bids. Click here to read the rest of the article.

That isn't really my point as I share the same view. I'm referring to those that bank on nostalgia.

] Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey at the Cat's Cradle 6.27.09

I'm all about seeing what I'm into as well, I guess I just don't care for a lot of the "going through the motions" aspects of some of these type of bills. I know it may not be true of all of them but I would imagine it's true of a lot of them. I also prefer the intimacy afforded by seeing artists in smaller venues rather than stadiums and arenas and all of the hassles that usually entails.

I'm far from done with going to concerts I just don't have a whole lot of interest in seeing what basically amounts to nostalgia acts. In all fairness though, I have seen Van Halen and the Police in recent years, both of whom performed no new music whatsoever. I went to see the Police simply because I'd never seen them. Though I enjoyed it I would have rather seen them back when I originally wanted to, on the Synchronicity tour. As for Van Halen, I went purely for nostalgic reasons and have never made any secret of that fact. I'd only seen them once before (1979) and wanted to see them just one more time with Dave.

The Church at the State Theatre in Falls Church , VA.

Have these type of shows become the modern day equivalent of say the Inkspots and other artists touring solely for the purpose of nostalgia, especially since there's no new music involved? On the one hand I wouldn't mind seeing Bad Company (and even the Doobie Brothers) but I think it would have been much better to have seen both in their prime. Not that both aren't still good now but back when they were releasing new material during their respective heydays. For the Doobies, that would be the years without Michael McDonald.

The Loners and Cracker at Downtown Live in Raleigh.

That, it does. I lost my oldest brother to it earlier this year. Then again, he never really made any effort to stop smoking which made it all the more frustrating for those of us that cared for him. I realize no one here except maybe you has probably even heard of him but Duane Jarvis died of cancer earlier this year as well. Tim was only with Buffett for a short while (the Son of a Son of A Sailor album and he appeared with him on SNL in the 70s) but if not for his tenure in the Coral Reefer Band I probably would have never heard of him. Strange, I posted his obit on a Buffett board on the day he died and the board owner openly admitted he had no clue who Tim Krekel was. At least he was honest. It just surprises me that anyone that considers themselves a Jimmy Buffett fan wouldn't know about Tim Krekel. The Coral Reefer Band lineup has been pretty steady for a good number of years now but for a time it was a revolving cast of characters both on record and on tour. Everyone from Vassar Clements and Reggie Young to Keith Sykes have passed through it's ranks. Thanks to those folks (and Buffett himself) I got turned onto a lot of other artists through the years. The shortlist includes Jesse Winchester, Willis Alan Ramsey, Steve Goodman and Jerry Jeff Walker but I could name many more. By the way, Tim's son Jason has a band called the Mad Tea Party who are well worth checking out.

By Paula Burba • THE COURIER-JOURNAL Tim Krekel, a musician whose career started in Louisville before he was a teenager and soared to two stints as lead guitar for Jimmy Buffett's band and a reputation in Nashville as a hit songwriter, died Wednesday afternoon at his Louisville home. He was 58. Krekel died of cancer, which he had been fighting since a diagnosis and surgery in March, according to his family. "He had a major, successful career, but he was still based here. He's just a hometown boy," said friend John Gage. Krekel "had a way of writing and performing and singing that just put people in touch with a more spiritual sense. He was all about that," Gage said. Stacy Owen, program director at WFPK-FM, where Krekel was a perennial favorite of listeners, said Krekel "did so much to champion the local music scene." "I'm sure if you talked to a lot of local musicians here in town, they would consider Tim a mentor," Owen said. To read the rest of the article click here.

JOHN HOUGHTALING, 92 His Magic Fingers Moved the Motel Set By Matt Schudel Washington Post Staff Writer John Houghtaling, who put a little buzz in America's motel rooms with his invention of Magic Fingers, a once-ubiquitous device that caused beds to vibrate in a gentle rocking motion, died June 17 after a fall at his home in Fort Pierce, Fla. He was 92. Mr. Houghtaling (pronounced huff-tail-ing) had been a successful salesman of vitamins and cookware when he began working for a manufacturer of vibrating beds in the 1950s. Because the beds were expensive and unreliable, Mr. Houghtaling decided that there had to be a cheaper and more effective way to make them. He had always been a handyman and tinkerer, and in the basement of his home in Glen Rock, N.J., he experimented with 300 motors before finding the right formula in 1958. If the motor was too slow or too fast, he learned, it could either toss someone off the bed or not move at all. He patented a small, hand-size device that clipped onto a bed frame and produced a vibrating effect. The motor didn't shake the whole bed, son Paul Houghtaling said in a telephone interview, but created a gentle vibrating sensation through the resonance of sound waves among the motor, bed frame and springs. Mr. Houghtaling traveled to motels throughout the country to demonstrate his invention, which was marketed under the slogan, "It quickly takes you into the land of tingling and relaxation and ease." It cost 25 cents for 15 minutes, and the quarters quickly added up. At the peak of its popularity, Magic Fingers could be found in 250,000 motel rooms and Mr. Houghtaling's company was taking in $2 million a month. Magic Fingers became a part of pop culture, with mentions in a song by Jimmy Buffett, on the TV show "Roseanne" and in the Doonesbury comic strip. Click here to read the remainder of the article.

HONOR THY FATHER: SKY SAXON, R.I.P. By Jonny Whiteside Almost lost amongst the lurid media tumult over Jacko and Farrah's passing, the death on Thursday morning of Seeds frontman Sky Sunlight Saxon was the day's genuine stop-the-presses newsflash, a gloomy finale that closed the book on one of rock & roll's most influential and misunderstood figures. While a nasty bolt from the blue -- Saxon had performed a show last Saturday and had just been admitted to an Austin Texas hospital on Monday for an "undetermined infection of the internal organs," it was nonetheless somewhat miraculous that he made it this far. Saxon, born Richard Marsh in Salt Lake City Utah on an apparently indeterminable date, was in myriad senses the most genuine of rock stars -- such an unhinged contrarian that not long after the Seeds initial burst of success most of his peers were compelled to deny him, an unhappy necessity dictated by Saxon's own notorious gimme-gimme appetites and thoroughly unpredictable behavior. To read the remainder of the obituary click here.

Apparently Nels does.

NELS CLINE ON SKY SAXON: “MY FIRST ROCK IDOL” Guitarist Nels Cline (spotted most recently with Wilco) grew up in the shadow of the Seeds and Sky Saxon and later went on to perform and record with Sky himself. He takes some time today to send L.A. RECORD these thoughts: I am truly saddened to learn of the death of Sky Saxon. As a boy growing up in Los Angeles, Sky Saxon was my first rock idol of sorts. The Seeds’ music was important to me, sure, but Sky’s amazing charisma—as he appeared rather ubiquitously on TV shows like “Boss City” and “The Groovy Show” around 1966—was galvanizing. I would stare in disbelief as he—clad in shiny satin Nehru shirts bedazzled with some gaudy brooch—would gyrate around lasciviously, holding the microphone in every cool way imaginable. He seemed from another planet. I thought he was amazing. Years later, in the late ’70s, Sky became known as “Sunlight,” and manifested a few eccentric and quite acid-soaked (or so they sounded) recordings that led credence to the rampant stories of his decaying mind and artistry. He came into the record store I worked at for years and—with his face covered in a long mane of hair, massive beard, and shades—went silently through the stacks with wraith-like fingers. I was dismayed and a bit freaked out by this creature—the former beautiful god of rock ‘n’ roll otherness. Click here to read the rest of Nels' remembrance of Sky.

I was mainly just commenting on how Simmons chooses to conduct business concerning my remarks about how he had the other two members just slap on the makeup made famous by Ace and Peter. I wasn't trying to belittle or minimize their history with the band. I stopped caring about Kiss around the time I turned 14 or 15. They're one of the few groups I loved during my youth that didn't carry over into my adulthood.

I haven't seen it but one review I've read about it said to avoid buying it. Even though it's obviously very important for historical reasons I always had a hard time with the split-screen aspect of the film. While it may have been considered innovative for the time I always found it distracting.

From the Friday Morning Quarterback site: R.E.M. has announced a new two-disc set, Live From The Olympia, due out in October. The release collects songs from the band's five-night "working rehearsals" during the making of Accelerate, where new songs were tried out and old chestnuts unearthed at the Olympia in Dublin in the summer of 2007. A four-song digital sampler of Live From The Olympia will be released on July 7. The sampler will feature four songs off Reckoning, to tie in with today's deluxe re-issue of R.E.M.'s sophomore album.

"So I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd but I sure saw Ozzy Osbourne with Randy Rhoads in '82 Right before that plane crash." Drive-By Truckers "Let There Be Rock" From the album Southern Rock Opera

I was sort of being facetious but yeah, I meant Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer. As best as I can tell the tribute band Kiss Forever is something completely different. To the best of my understanding there were apparently plans for a "reality" show where new members would be picked for Kiss so Simmons and Stanley could retire. This was all before news of the new Kiss album hit which is evidently due sometime next year.