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Friday's Playlist: Instru-Mentals!

Happy Friday! This is our 101st Friday's Playlist. Where does the time go?

Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize turns five

Five years ago today Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize in literature. How mind boggling is it that someone who, until not so long ago, was reviled by the establishment, portrayed as a drug addict (which to be fait wasn't without merit), dismissed as a mere figure of a shallow sub-culture, the icon of an ephemeral counter-culture which produced nothing?

Popa Chubby @ Olympia, Paris - October 10th, 2021

New York City's Popa Chubby is a bona fide superstar here in France, and consequently the Olympia is packed to the brim with twelve-bar connoisseurs and guitar aficionados flocking like pentatonic pilgrims to attend the twice-postponed Parisian return of the blues-rock heavyweight. 

Friday's Playlist: Mixing Desk Hero: Tom Dowd

This Friday's Playlist celebrates one of the most legendary producers in popular music, whose career in genres as diverse as soul, jazz, blues, Southern rock and even punk (!) has spanned half a century and has led him to work with such luminaries as Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton... But enough with the man's credentials. 

Little Caesar @ Les Étoiles, Paris - October 3rd, 2021

Little Caesar at les Étoiles is our second show since the return of live music after nearly two years of living in suspended animation, with concerts, cinemas, restaurants and travels shut down for most of the world's population, in the same venue where we saw Robert Jon & the Wreck three weeks ago.

Incredibly, this is the band's first Parisian concert in a thirty plus-year career. They've played other French cities before, and lead singer Ron Young did play the capital with his Manic Eden project in the nineties but this is Little Caesar's Parisian debut!

Friday's Playlist: Awesome Guitar Solos (pt. 5)

Happy Friday, happy payday!

This is our fifth installment in our ongoing Awesome Guitar Solos playlist series. Click HERE to check out the previous installments. As usual, it's a mix of stone-cold classics and more left-field choices. These solos will either make you want to pick up a guitar or to throw it away in disgust, knowing you will never be able to come up with anything so mind-meltingly awesome.

Listen to the lost Rolling Stones song Troubles A' Comin' here

The Rolling Stones reissue campaign is once again heating up, with Tattoo You now getting the super duper extra deluxe treatment, complete with out-takes, left out tracks and other unnecessary artefacts that fans like me can't wait to spend their hard-earned cash to lap up frantically.

Listen to David Bowie's "new" single here.

Any new music released by David Bowie before his death would've been awaited with trepidation and welcomed as the return of the messiah, as exampled by the surprise release of his fantastic last two records. Now that the man has been dead over half a decade, the rabid fans are understandably thirsty for more.

Farewell, Mr. Mayall.

A few days ago, John Mayall announced that he was cancelling most of his upcoming farewell tour dates due to the pandemic and his advancing age. You can find his statement HERE.

Friday's Playlist: Rhythm in Peace, Charlie Watts.

It's been almost four weeks since the beloved drummer passed away. Never a showy musician, Charlie Watts was nonetheless an incredible drummer as evidenced by the numbers in this playlist.

Robert Jon & the Wreck @ les Étoiles, Paris - September 14th, 2021

Finally. It had been twenty months since we last set foot in a concert hall (it was at the Zénith and the band was Tenacious D). Tonight we finally ended that dry spell and attended the Parisian return of Robert Jon & the Wreck.

Album Review: Iron Maiden - Senjutsu

Iron Maiden is one of the biggest Metal bands on the planet and any new album by them is going to create some trepidation among music fans. It's also inevitably going to be compared to the classics they produced in their mid-eighties heyday, and whether it is fair or unfair doesn't matter: it simply is. And let's be honest: in the eyes of the record-buying public, they are never going to recapture the magic of Piece of Mind or Powerslave.

Rhythm in Peace, Charlie Watts.

We just got the shitty, although not altogether unexpected, news that Charlie Watts passed away earlier today.

Of course, dying at the age of 80, after a lifetime of accomplishments, a successful career, and a beautiful family is perhaps not a tragedy.

But, man, is it ever sad. Charlie Watts. The Stones just lost their Roll. As awesome as the songs are, as commanding as Jagger is onstage, as cool as Keith's riffs are, the real backbone of "the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band" (tm) has always been Charlie and Keith's interplay.

Friday's Playlist: Pretty Songs

In contrast to last week's playlist, this Friday's entry focuses on beautiful, delicate songs. No agression, no heavily distorted guitars, no blast beats. A little respite from the brutality of everyday life.