Blackie Pagano Shows Off Vintage Guitar Amps, Including One That Belonged to Django Reinhardt

≡ Category: Music |Leave a Comment

A long time ago, in a New York that seems a galaxy away, I found myself stumbling out into Times Square in the rain-drenched, pre-dawn hours from a friend’s recording studio, and stumbling into a discarded Ampeg Jet J12, a vintage guitar amp powered by tubes (or as the Brits say, valves). Someone had abandoned this beautiful relic on the curb.

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Amanda Palmer’s Tips for Being an Artist in the Rough-and-Tumble Digital Age

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Life, Music |Leave a Comment

Amanda Palmer is an artist who totally gets the power of the Internet.

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Watch Another Green World, a Hypnotic Portrait of Brian Eno (2010)

≡ Category: Art, Music, Television |Leave a Comment

In September 1975, Brian Eno released his album Another Green World. The following month, the BBC’s acclaimed documentary series Arena first aired, using Another Green World‘s title track as its theme music. 35 years later, the show finally got around to documenting Eno himself.

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Nina Simone Performs Six Songs in 1968 TV Special, The Sound of Soul

≡ Category: Music |2 Comments

On September 14, 1968, Granada Television broadcast The Sound of Soul, an intimate studio concert in London by the jazz pianist and singer Nina Simone.
Most of the program can be seen in the 22-minute video above. Simone’s choice of material is characteristically eclectic.

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Dave Grohl, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt & Other Friends Make Surprise Appearances on Rolling Stones Tour

≡ Category: Music |1 Comment

It’s good to be Dave Grohl these days. One day you get to serenade Paul McCartney; the next, Sir Paul jams with you and the surviving members of Nirvana; and then it’s off to play with the Rolling Stones.

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Ricky Gervais Presents “Learn Guitar with David Brent”

≡ Category: Music |Leave a Comment

To help celebrate YouTube’s first Comedy Week, Ricky Gervais has revived David Brent, the bumbling “Regional Manager” that ran the Wernham Hogg Paper Company in the UK version of The Office.

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Doors Keyboardist Ray Manzarek (1939-2013) Tells the Story of the Classic Song, ‘Riders on the Storm’

≡ Category: Music |4 Comments

Ray Manzarek of the Doors died Monday of cancer. He was 74. Manzarek’s jazz-inflected, classically influenced keyboard playing, woven together with Jim Morrison’s baritone vocals, helped define the sound of the 1960s.

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Keith Moon’s Last Interview, 1978

≡ Category: Music, Television |Leave a Comment

Here’s a sad little piece of rock and roll history: the last television interview of Keith Moon, mercurial drummer for The Who. It was broadcast live on the morning of August 7, 1978, exactly one month before Moon’s death from a drug overdose at the age of 32.

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Duke Ellington’s Symphony in Black, Starring a 19-Year-old Billie Holiday

≡ Category: Film, Music |3 Comments

In September of 1935 Paramount Pictures released a nine-minute movie remarkable in several ways. Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life is one of the earliest cinematic explorations of African-American culture for a mass audience. It features Duke Ellington and his orchestra performing his first extended composition.

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Listen to the National’s New Album, Trouble Will Find Me, on iTunes (Free for a Limited Time)

≡ Category: Music |Leave a Comment

Another quick heads up: The National’s sixth LP, Trouble Will Find Me, will be released on May 21. But, right now, you can jump over to iTunes and stream it for free on your computer or iPad (for a limited time).

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