Brianland

Up and Clean – How “Down & Dirty” Captured Johnny Winter’s New Spring . . Johnny Johnny Johnny … where for art thou, Johnny? In the long strange lineage of tragic rock n roll irony — see: Keith Moon sitting in the “Not To Be Taken Away” chair on his last album cover — Johnny […]

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  I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time! As a teenager in Winnipeg in the ’70s, Neil was a god to us. We drove the 500 miles to Minneapolis during grade 12 at Kelvin to see him for the first time — and to our great dumb-luck fortune, it was the Rust […]

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The Prankster Woodstock . “I’ve got to get back to the land and set my soul free … “ Two of the coolest events of the ’60s just came together in the 21st century — and I lived it from start to finish. The Merry Pranksters’ Bus, which pulled out of Ken Kesey’s house in […]

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. Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld were the Lennon & McCartney of comedy. That’s the way I see it, anyway. Larry was a Lennon — mercurial, opinionated, sharp tongued, bull-headed, idea generating, creatively uncompromising, a supremely gifted artist born to his medium, with an enormous elaborate expansive vision. And Jerry was the McCartney — an […]

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 Not Fade Away — Birthday Adventure 2014     The start of the Adventure.   Just home from the 5-show birthday blow-out!  Sheesh!  Started with New Orleans’ Soul Rebels outdoors in a park with my New Orleans Soul Brother Ross Perlmutter.  The funky brass-n-drums combo were joined for some songs by Toronto’s own frontline horndogs […]

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“It’s Your World, So Live In It” . . Note:  Years ago when I picked the best musical performances I ever saw after watching thousands and reviewing hundreds for RockPeaks, it was a Johnny Clegg clip that I considered the greatest single musical performance I ever saw. *          *     […]

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  With the passing of The Giant I thought of all great music he inspired … and interestingly enough I’d reviewed a lot of it over the years so thought I’d put some of the best together here … This is my single favorite clip of all the live music performances I’ve ever seen on […]

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  So … oh man … I took a nap that afternoon and lived a dream where I stayed home and didn’t go to this show and regretted it later … then woke up to find it was only 3:30 in the afternoon!  Insane.  Follow your dreams, baby. God works in mysterious ways. It’s Toronto […]

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  Soooo, this happened . . . We were out there at Sands Point, Long Island, shooting a Steve Winwood video in one of those Great Gatsby mansions, hanging at this round banquet table with just Steve and the prop guy and a couple others, and he was talking in his gentle British accent which […]

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The Day I Heard The Tambourine Man          I, like others, was whisked away by the Gallatin genie just as I was about to drown in the requirements of my previous school.  If NYU hadn’t had a school-without-walls, I wouldn’t have graduated, if you want a soundbite about it.  The trade-off they offered was that […]

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