Tag Archives: john lennon

Live Review & Photos: Chris Cornell and Craig Wedren at Balboa Theatre, December 17, 2011

Photos by Sylvia Borgo

Stream: Chris Cornell – “Cleaning my Gun” (from Songbook)
MP3: Craig Wedren – “I Know”

At San Diego’s Balboa Theatre on Saturday, Chris Cornell told the audience, “No matter what happens, I play for a really long time.” Continue reading…

Poetic Memory: Birds & Batteries (List)

MP3: Birds & Batteries – “Squeeze Box” (The Who cover)
MP3: Birds & Batteries – “Strange Kind of Mirror”

Last year, San Francisco’s Birds & Batteries released Panorama, quite possibly their best album yet. Continue reading…

Maren Parusel: Summer 2011 Tour Diary

Pulled over

After a decidedly eventful U.S. tour that included a van breakdown, a robbery, a police stop, and many colorful characters, Maren Parusel and her band will finally return to the West Coast tonight at the Casbah. According to Mario, the band’s manager,

30 shows in 35 days, a Vitamin Water commercial with Foster The People, a van breakdown in Texas, 100 degrees on the East Coast, stolen guitars and gear in NYC, a live performance on Sirius Radio with legendary rock critic Dave Marsh, a bar fight in D.C. It’s been one hell of a five weeks, and not your average tour for an indie pop band, but these four have survived, thrived, and won over audiences around the country.

Please welcome Maren, Eric, Kyle, and Ariel back from tour with a return show at The Casbah.

The set starts at 9pm; the band’s tour diary is below. Continue reading…

Poetic Memory: Ivan & Alyosha (List)

MP3: Ivan & Alyosha – “Glorify”

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final novel, The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan reads a parable to Alyosha called “The Grand Inquisitor,” in which Jesus returns to earth during the Spanish Inquisition, only to be arrested and sentenced to death by the church. This take on human nature is regarded as one of the most important passages in modern literature.

It’s that kind of source material that lends Ivan and Alyosha — an indie-folk outfit named after the novel — their air of intrigue. New light will be shed on the Seattle quartet, however, as it plays SxSW and travels the West Coast like a band of Karamazov brothers. Ivan and Alyosha are touring to support their new Fathers Be Kind EP, a harmonious collection of soulful, sincere songs with a pop sensibility to match, and they play the Tin Can Ale House on March 24th.

Band member Tim Kim was kind enough to send us a list of the songs inspiring the guys as they travel, and you can read it below. Continue reading…

Book Review: “Life” by Keith Richards

Upon hearing that Keith Richards was writing a biography, my first thought was, “Wow, how can he even remember what happened, given his proclivity for illicit drug use and all-around hell raising?” Now, having finished the book, I am even more amazed at the vividness of his recollections. Everything is there that you would expect, including the requisite sex, drugs and rock and roll. But it’s the unexpected things in Life that enrich the reader’s experience and provide a genuine sense of historical context about how the The Rolling Stones thrived in the midst of such a socially volatile time.

Every man dreams of being in Keith Richards’ shoes at one point or another. After all, this man is the archetypal rock star: living a life of excess, denying himself no pleasure, and keeping the world perpetually at his fingertips. In recent years, Richards has become a pop culture caricature — a Hollywood pirate, an old dude who should have croaked years ago, the crazy guy who snorted his father’s ashes. There’s a degree of truth to all of those characterizations, but if Life is any indication, the man is much more than that. Continue reading…