Farm-Aid started as an idea at the Live Aid Concert when Bob Dylan said on stage, “Wouldn’t it be great if we did something for our own farmers right here in America?” Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp agreed that family farmers were in dire need of assistance and decided to plan a concert […]

Willie Dixon didn’t write “Spoonful” from “scratch” but he did take a song that had been around for a long time and put it into a distinctive form that became very popular. The song probably pre-dates recording altogether. Mississippi bluesman Charlie Patton’s “A Spoonful Blues” in 1929 is an early variant of the song, which […]

It doesn’t take a serious rock geek to realize that record labels are all manner of clueless - from dealing with genuine talent to making logical decisions. But the inside story of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart only reinforces that impression. Acclaimed alt-country band Wilco was nearing […]

Dan Reed, Music Director at XPN, recalls his experience at the Who concert tragedy at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum:
I was a ticket holder and witness. We got our tickets about a month before, and I drove two hours from college (I was a freshman) to meet my friends. It was a cold Monday evening. We arrived […]

Keith Moon “The Loon”, died a few weeks after the release of Who Are You in September 1978. Possessing a larger than life personality and proportionate capacity for crazed antics and gargantuan partying, Moon was only 32 when he died of an overdose of medication intended to wean him off alcohol. He earned his nickname […]

One of the most acclaimed bands to emerge from the last decade of rock, Detroit’s White Stripes came to stardom with a fully developed, striking visual style and an equally intriguing interpersonal dynamic. Not only did they astound with their blistering live shows, but they understood that myth-making and media manipulation are often as central […]

Village People are well known for its on-stage costumes as for its catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics. The members each dress as a police officer, an American Indian chief, a construction worker, a member of the military, a leatherman ( biker), and a cowboy. Village People scored a number of disco and dance hits, including […]

A staple Sunset Strip party band of the mid-70s, Van Halen was first championed by Gene Simmons. Simmons abandoned the recording of their first demo over “creative differences”. Mo Ostin and Ted Templeman of Warner Brothers were waiting in the wings and signed them months later. Despite a short recording process that left mistakes intact […]

Tropicalismo, or Tropicália, evolved in opposition to stifling social complacency in politically tense late 60s Brazil. Tropicalia artists were bound together more by an ideology of social awareness and creativity than any stock musical descriptors. However, a loose description would cite elements of bossa nova, psychedelia, folk, Portuguese, and African music but reinterpreted through unorthodox […]

1971’s The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys marked the commercial and artistic peak of Steve Winwood-led jazz/prog rock outfit Traffic. While their previous album, John Barleycorn Must Die, had evolved out of sessions for a solo Steve Winwood release and retained that focus, Low Spark sounded like the work of a fully collaborative, fleshed […]