Posts by Bob Lange

The term "supergroup" may be popular music's greatest misnomer. Sure, supergroups are typically made up of musicians who have done some super things, but more often than not, the meeting of their superness is just not all that, well, super. So, as legendary as the meeting of Jaco Pastorius, John McLaughlin and Tony Williams may have become over the years, there's always room for skepticism.

Some albums kick off with the strongest or most accessible song as a means of sucking the listener in. Others, ease their way into the real meat of the album so as not to scare the listener with their boldest material. But very few jump in with their most grating and difficult content. Women's self-titled album is, however, just one of those anomalies.

The two shows on this DVD are a lot like hearing that stutter in "My Generation" or the huge guitar of "Baba O'Reilly" for the first time. It's just great rock n roll in its purest, most deliberate form.

Prog is a genre not particularly known for being understated. Restraint is a quality seldom found among its purveyors. Heavy Water Experiments is not quite a traditional prog band, but clearly wear their prog influences for all to see. However, they manage to do it without the esoteric musical exercises and unabashed bombast that seem to be the norm.

n June of 2007, the reunited Smashing Pumpkins (or Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlain and some new members) decided to forgo a U.S. tour and instead do two residencies, one in Asheville, NC and the other at the vaunted Fillmore in San Francisco. This was, as Jimmy Chamberlain said in the documentary portion of If All Goes Wrong, "art for art's sake," finding the band putting the present ahead of their celebrated past.

I'll always had a tough time understanding why Cheap Trick was so popular. Sure, "Surrender" is among rock's greatest songs and they had their share of other decent tunes, but why would they stand out like they did? The answer I was told is contained in their live show and this 30th Anniversary Edition of their Budokan set, re-packaging the original At Budokan shows into one DVD and three CDs, is the best thing short of being there.

These aren't just words from Charles Mingus. He didn't always manage to make things simple, but one of the many amazing things about Mingus Ah Um is that he took this incredibly challenging jazz, in perhaps its creative heyday, and made it as easy as pop music

So, what do you expect from a band called Scream Hello? I mean if it was Say Hello or Scream I Hate You, it'd be easy to form some preconception, but Scream Hello? Who knows. As it turns out, the name fits the band perfectly.

DOA is DOA and will likely always be, God bless them, DOA. If you're expecting something other than aggressive politico-punk from these guys, guess again. They still wrap up left-wing politics into simple, heartfelt songs whose anger and outrage never overarch their equal doses of life and fun

The Baseball Project, made up of Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate/Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows/Minus 5), Linda Pitmon (Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3) and Peter Buck (REM), is not simply a group of accomplished musicians who happen to like baseball, but rather a group as well-versed in baseball's deep human history as they are in America's musical tradition. This thoroughly American collection of songs about baseball, like the sport itself, is about so much more, because the band sees beyond the superficial.