for those who never gave up their turntables
THIS IS THE SIXTH in a series of ten articles addressing the #1 records of the year on Cash Box magazine’s pop chart from 1960 through 1969. It was originally published as “Let’s Hang On To Our Ticket To Ride” in my publication Tell It Like It Was on Medium back on June 2, 2019. [Continue reading]
IT’S DIFFICULT TO SAY why the Kinks fell out of favor as hit-makers, but by the end of 1968 they looked like they were already a part of rock & roll’s history. They were making music that veered off from most contemporary music pathways and as 1969 opened, remaining a Kinks fan was almost an act of defiance. [Continue reading]
AS WE BEGIN OUR STORY sometime in late 1970, the Kinks were in a bit of a bad way. Despite being one of the premier groups of the British Invasion of 1964, they had not reached the Top 40 in the US since mid-1966. Even in their homeland—their own Village Green, filled with Arthur and millions like him—it had been more than a year since they’d had a hit! [Continue reading]
IT WAS 1975, and I was out of my hippie wannabe stage. I was playing it straight; not out of choice, but necessity. (But that’s another story.) I was still as anti-authoritarian as all get-out—at least when it came to bosses who were really bullies with authority—taking crap from no one. [Continue reading]
THE ORIGINAL TITLE to this piece on David Bowie was “Damn That Damn Disco Music!” But that was really an inadequate opening for the tone of this ‘true story’ about conversion. Then I dallied with variations on “The Day I Came Out as a David Bowie Fan,” which was an allusion to his androgynous Ziggy Stardust period. [Continue reading]
AS A TARGET OF BULLIES most of my high school years, I have grown up as a reasonably ‘controlled’ adult (I have a veeeeeery long, veeeeeery slow-burning fuse to my once hair-trigger temper), constitutionally and philosophically anti-violence instigation (versus the necessity of using violence in defense), but quite capable of taking care of myself. [Continue reading]