classic

‘ If you are looking for big-guitar rock n’ roll teen anthems, it doesn’t get any better than the opening track of off Cheap Trick‘s 1978 album “Heaven Tonight.” (My unrepentant love for Cheap Trick will be on full display this Saturday, as J.D. Warnock and I perform with Nick Colby and Peter Buxton as […]

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Chow Yun Fat and John Woo at their best. “Hard Boiled” is a band apart from other action movies.

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“Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face? Do you realize we’re floating in space?” So begins the most recent song to appear in The Great Songs series. It’s a simple statement that says so much about humanity’s tiny, fragile existence and forms the beginning of multiple musical crescendos that make you want […]

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After joining The Byrds for one legendary album in 1967 (“Sweetheart of the Rodeo”) and singlehandedly turning them into a country band (the first major rock act to do so), restless singer/songwriter Gram Parsons moved on. He quit The Byrds, took Byrds member Chris Hillman with him and formed The Flying Burrito Brothers. When I […]

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You knew it was bound to happen. Hell, I’m wondering why it took me 10 weeks to get to this band. Here it is. Let the debate begin. My 10th choice (not ranked, just the 10th “Great Song” I’ve chosen for this series) for a classic, timeless rock n’ roll song is by a band […]

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Producers Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff formed Philadelphia International Records in 1971 to rival the Berry Gordy Motown empire, and the sound of Philly Soul, which had been bubbling for some time, was solidified. “Backstabbers,” from the album of the same name was performed by The O’Jays, but it was written by Huff and the […]

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In June 1967, just after The Beatles recorded “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and Pink Floyd recorded “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” at the same studio, The Zombies entered Abbey Road to record nine songs that would appear on “Odessey and Oracle” (and no, that’s not my misspelling, but one by the album cover’s designer which The […]

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Now that the weather’s getting better, it’s just about time to bring out one of my favorite summer songs. It’s not like a Beach Boys fun-in-the-sun-surfin’-safari summer song or anything like that, though. It’s more of an obtuse, I’m-feeling-kinda-lonely-and-surly song. 1992’s “Summer Babe” was the first song I ever heard by Pavement and it was […]

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Seeing Double is the new Scene-Stealers series that celebrates the only thing better than watching one movie—watching two movies. Each week we look for a more perfect cinematic union as we view and discuss a pair of movies chosen either for things they have in common or things they don’t. The films may be old […]

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Welcome the the second installment of our new weekly series The Great Songs. This week, I want to spotlight Ray Davies and The Kinks. I saw Davies earlier this month (here’s my review for the Kansas City Star) and was struck by how humble, laid back, and amiable he was for a guy that has […]

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I think this is as good a time as any to start a new weekly series here at Scene-Stealers. As you may or may not know, in addition to starting this website and being a full-time movie critic, I also play the rock n’ roll drums. (See The Dead Girls, Ultimate Fakebook, and Truck Stop […]

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