Brianland

Here’s an article I wrote on the film Festival Express, published in Relix Magazine, April 2004. Drivin’ That Train . . .         The Festival Express Rolls Again After 30 Years by Brian Hassett “That was the best time I’ve had in rock and roll,” said Jerry Garcia. “There were no straight people.” In the summer […]

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 Got live if you want it . . . The last great Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. There’ll never be another with as many key, great musical artists in one year. The following is a customized composite of tweets, blogs n news reports on the untelevised Induction ceremony, including sequence and set-lists, […]

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Long slow line winding around industrial waterfront of Toronto, on Lake Ontario, minus about 20 with the wind-chill, waiting to go into big square industrial box to absorb some very organic music. Beers, you could smoke, and it wasn’t over packed. He comes on about 8:35 wearing big white cowboy hat, and black western show […]

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. NYC, Dec. 8th, 1980 . . . the 3rd month and 3rd day in New York City, America, for this 19 year old kid.  My first week in town I went to the free Elton John concert in Central Park.  He played Imagine, and introduced it with, “He can probably hear us right now,” referring […]

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I’m just stunned. Speechless. Maybe it was the set-up, cuz i was thinkin early on … this ain’t happening, this is sad, capitalizing on their name and what they’d done. . . . and then . . . . . . . :-0 they were playing Dylan’s “Infidels” as the warm-up music!!!! The whole album, […]

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Here’s a poem I wrote about the eternal spirit of New York City . . . including the ever-present ghosts of Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady . . . turned into a jazzy song by Will Hodgson and The Mighty Manatees, and played here with special guests Walter Tate Jr. on sax and Jason […]

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The Bob Night at Springsteen . . .   I noticed that no one seems to be talking about Bruce’s Dylan rap moment. So, first Bruce returns after the 1st round of encores, “And I’m thinking, ‘Okay, if anybody’s comin out, this is it.’”  Being a New Yorker, I’m always pullin for this, there being […]

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After Christina Aguilera’s performance of James Brown’s “It’s A Man’s World” at the Grammys, this is one of the more transcendent performances by any musician I’ve seen in years.  Or ever.  This woman’s a channel, for sure. “Live Earth” was the most watched event in human history, the single event experienced by more people at […]

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I’m looking for an autographed copy of the book “Barefoot in Babylon” by Bob Spitz, about the Woodstock ’69 concert. It has all sorts of autographs in it of people who were at Woodtsock ’69, many of them “To Brian” I am that Brian, and have been looking for the book since it disappeared from […]

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  I’m Not There — film review “Life is a crazy, dark circus.” FANTASTIC, inspired filmmaking.  (I gotta look for more Todd Haynes.)  Maybe I was super-well prepared for it by this late date, but as it was, I could easily follow it, and it painted a brilliant million-dollar-picture. Obviously the unsuspecting could be caught […]

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