I love that West Coast Seattle Boy box that came out a couple years ago. It was cool to finally hear some of the songs Hendrix played on rather than just reading about them.

I consider Whatever Happened To Jugula? to be one of my favorite albums ever. Maybe I'm in the minority but I don't think of any of it as "boring".

I once heard it theorized that humans aren't natives of Earth, that we're aliens ourselves. Not saying I believe that but when it comes to stuff like this, it is food for thought.

They had Kymani Marley open for them on their last tour. I'm also for diversity in music myself. Just look at some of the bills Bill Graham used to put together back in the day.

A lot has been done in that regard (paying royalties to blues artists who got ripped off by bad deals) but since most of them are gone now, the funds mostly go to their estates. Still, every little bit counts. I know that to name just a couple of artists, Bonnie Raitt and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top have done a lot of work in that area.

I've probably seen journalists use "Dylan-esque" more often than Beatles-esque or Zeppelin-esque. I don't consider any of them to be an example of lazy journalism or using the name of the artists mentioned as "cache". While it's certainly admirable for a writer to describe music without making comparisons to other artists, I don't necessarily fault them for it either. Sometimes, making such comparisons is a great way of describing music by giving the reader some touchstones they can relate to.

Earth Day 1990 footage from C-Span featuring Natalie Merchant and Robert Buck from 10,000 Maniacs and Michael Stipe and Billy Bragg. Songs include "Dust Bowl Days", "Campfire Song" (with Stipe) and a partial version of R.E.M.'s "Disturbance at the Heron House".

That saying has been around for much longer than any Morgan Freeman movie.

New Kelly Hogan due in June.

This is an incomplete piece from ABC's Nightline from back in March of '82 but still worth a looksee. If you're anything like me, you can remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard this very unfortunate news. http://youtu.be/YyDbkzFZY1Q

Matt Patton ready to hit the road with the Drive-By Truckers (Q&A)

Real nice read from the folks at Pop Matters. Stacked Wax: The Vinyl Comeback

I think I have Deliverin' on CD somewhere. I picked it up out of a budget bin several years back. Recently, a friend of mine was complaining about Poco being played on the Outlaw Country channel on Sirius/XM. Goes to show how opinions can differ so greatly as to what is country and what isn't. Then again, if it was one of their latter day songs (especially from the Legend era) then I could see why one would complain. Some of their material from that era has more in common with latter day Eagles than it does with the early days of Poco, when they were definitely a country (or at least a "country rock") band. The Gourds at Threadgill's in Austin doing the rarely played "Flamenco Cabaret" from their Bolsa De Agua album.

If you're referring to the Sex Pistols, just look at their career and the comment Johnny Rotten made at their last show, "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" which was in reference to Malcolm McLauren and how he orchestrated their entire career. You would think the infamous note the Sex Pistols sent to the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame was meant to elicit a less than favorable response. Instead, it was greeted with cheering and approval from Jan Wenner and others who are responsible for inducting artists. In other words, if it was meant to piss off the Hall of Fame people, Rotten failed miserably. All of that said, even though I'm not necessarily a fan of punk rock, I admire the Sex Pistols (and similar bands) for what they did, which was to shake up the world of rock n' roll which was very needed at the time. You would think their note to the Hall would have had a similar effect but it didn't, it had none at all. That made it seem more like a publicity stunt gone wrong than the "fuck you" to the Hall that it was supposedly intended to be. By the way, if Deep Purple ever are nominated and inducted, it will be interesting to see if they actually follow up on their refusal to take part in the induction ceremonies. I remember Ozzy expressing very similar thoughts about Black Sabbath but when it became a reality, they showed up and took part in their induction.

I never owned any Montrose albums so I can't say that I was a fan but he was definitely a name I was familiar with throughout the 70s.

Funny how when the Sex Pistols refused to appear for their induction, that decision was met with applause and much merry making from Wenner and others who choose the inductees. Something tells me that if the members of Deep Purple are actually ever chosen and refuse to show up, their refusal won't be met with the same response. By the way, that whole Sex Pistols thing was just as calculated as their entire career.

The Beatles take on Shakespeare. http://youtu.be/y24geONER0k

Couple more tunes from The Complex Sessions.

Shonna Tucker's first public performance since leaving the Drive-By Truckers. This was recorded at the 40 Watt in Athens, GA last night during the final night of a three day celebration of the release of Cracker's debut record. The band, named Eye Candy, includes, in addition to Shonna, John Neff (guitar, sitar, pedal steel), Bo Beddingfield (guitar) and Clay Leverett (drums).

Rolling Stone did something like a 17 page spread on them several years ago which caught me completely off guard. Perhaps Wennner is finally coming around.

The Grateful Dead, Phish and Pearl Jam (just to name a few) all played (and in the cases of latter two, continue to play) marathon length shows and that hasn't deterred them from releasing actual compact discs. If this were to ever happen, perhaps Page (and whoever is behind the project) could take the Dylan approach release only one or two albums a years in the series. Dylan's series also includes outtakes and other rarities. I doubt that would ever happen with Zeppelin either but it sure would be nice if it did. Again, it will probably never happen anyway but I would certainly welcome it.