Album notes for J Catz: Survival Stew — J Catz is a virtual band, a hodgepodge of musical friends, a folk-rock experiment, and a brainstorm concocted out of a post-run pitcher of brew shared by my niece Jordan Cherry and me a few years ago at NYC’s Dive Bar 96. There we knocked about ideas about creating an…

After 56 years, a fresh listen to the Beatles’ subsea echo chamber — When the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” shot to the top of the charts in 1966, I was smack dab in its target audience: a 5-year-old with a tractor-tire sandbox out back. I was past infancy and, of course, aware of the Beatles, but this was their first song I could really…

A fab show traces the long strange trip of the Godfather of Punk — I remember it like yesterday: my phone chat with Lou Reed (1942-2013). It was scheduled for 15 minutes, a Q&A for a podcast on popphoto.com, to run with a 2007 story on Reed’s photography in American Photo magazine, where I worked. I listened to Reed’s 1989 magnum opus New York…

16 Awesome Do-Overs + a few Honorable Mentions — This essay was co-written with my writing buddy Clay Coppedge. For simplicity, we’re posting it in my blog string here at The Riff, but it was his idea and he shares credit for the content. Clay and I have initialed each of our write-ups. After I posted a tribute to…

At age 89, Willie Nelson drops yet another brilliant album — One recent Sunday as I started to cook brunch, my wife cued up a new album on Spotify. Over country strains a somewhat gruff voice came on, sounding like a cross between Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. “Who is this?” I asked. She replied, “Who do ya think?” Then an…

The gods broke the mold after they made Woody Guthrie, but the shards shine on — Nora Guthrie gestures with open arms. “Woody wanted to know the work would still be around when he’s gone,” she says, with a grin partly obscured by her Covid mask. She’s leading a walk-through tour of a riveting exhibition about her father — Woody Guthrie: People Are the Song —…

It’s funny how a great tune can pull you right out of the dumps — One of my childhood buddies, Marty Kuhlman, deejays a weekly classic-rock radio show called Psychotic Reaction on KWTS FM, broadcasting out of our hometown of Canyon, TX. It’s affiliated with West Texas A&M University, where Marty teaches history. I’m a devoted fan on Friday nights and I often ping Marty…

For chronic Beatlemaniacs, is this whole Let It Be/Get Back revisitation the last hurrah? After all, we’re at the end of the long and winding road. The one that finished off the most celebrated and dissected rock group the world ever knew. The trailhead we circled back to with a…

This entry of The Out There Side blog series spotlights an NYC art venue that inadvertently arose after the pandemic set in. Like all too many cityscapes, the bustling area surrounding New York City’s Lincoln Center has been transformed by Covid-19. What was once the hoity-toity Brooks Brothers menswear shop…