A Life of Music Posts

When David Crosby died, a Rolling Stone podcaster remarked on how much of a career Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash managed to get out of what was essentially two classic albums (their debut as CSN and Déjà Vu, their first album …

I used to love going to see this band. Known as "The Quintet", this was the longest-running incarnation of Phil Lesh & Friends. In addition to Phil Lesh on bass and vocals (always a 'yikes'), there was the twin guitar attack of Warren Haynes an…

This show was the first of a three night run to close out the Grateful Dead's 1990 Summer Tour. The band was on a stellar, multi-year tear that began with the Spring East Coast Tour in 1987 but really found its legs throughout 1989. By Summer of 19…

This show took place during the era when hip hop shows had a reputation (and oftentimes reality) of being hit or miss affairs, with late artists, middling sound, stage full of posse (out numbering band members)...off-kilter, chaotic and unpredictabl…

The Furthur “festival” tours represented the first attempts by former members of the Grateful Dead to carry on in the wake of Jerry Garcia’s passing in 1995, something that seemed unthinkable at the time. In retrospect, it makes to…

Each week, Spotify creates a roughly two-hour, custom playlist for every one of its subscribers called, “Release Radar”. According to the company, “Listeners get new music from artists they follow, artists they listen to, other art…

Once upon a time, a wicked and wretched people were smitten with a catastrophe - potentially of their own making - which ground their world to a halt. Great conflicts and controversies were unleashed, dividing families, pitting neighbor against nei…

When the Rolling Stones announced their Zip Code tour on March 31, 2015 it was to be their first stadium tour of North America since 2007. I had been skipping the stadium shows since even before that, preferring the band as an arena act (and in club…

Over the course of a few short months in early 1992, several albums I have spent a ton of time with came out: Tongues & Tails by Sophie B. Hawkins (April), Funky Divas by En Vogue and Ingénue by K.D. Lang (March). My favorite of the bunch…

“What was your first concert?” Whenever I hear people answer that question, I typically witness either embarrassment or pride. I feel neither when I answer the question but I will say that I have never met someone with the same answer a…