Posts by Alby

Don't make yourself miserable. Try to remember that these midterms are going to be a shitshow by Republican design, and that making liberals suffer is part of the point. They…

I don't need to be in America to know that Democrats are demoralized about the midterms -- our site traffic took a dive after the primaries, a sure sign of…

Before the Jacksons stole their title, the Five Stairsteps were known as the First Family of Soul. The five children of Chicago police detective Clarence Burke Sr. went from winning…

Without Dr. Feelgood, punk rock never happens. The Ramones played fast, but they weren't threatening. Neither were the dozens of British bands in the back-to-basics pub rock scene, where country…

Shel Silverstein was a true triple threat. Though most remembered today for his children's books, he was also a Playboy cartoonist and a songwriter. Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show…

France has an odd relationship with religion. Those cathedrals and basilicas the tourists visit are owned not by the Catholic church but by the state, which nationalized all church property…

A song in honor of our modern celebration of the Celtic pagan harvest festival Samhain. Peter Green, the founder and original guitarist for Fleetwood Mac, wrote it about his girlfriend.…

It's rare for a hymn to become a hit on the pop charts, but that's what happened with Cat Stevens' "Morning Has Broken," which owes much of its popularity to…

A lot of people ignore the lyrics in popular music, and there's good evidence they're onto something -- some songs do better with the vocals removed. That's what happened to…

Jerry Lee Lewis has become Schrödinger's Rock Star -- TMZ didn't know if he was alive or dead until somebody checked. The tabloid-on-a-computer site apologized yesterday for taking the word…

The Beatles recorded output apparently will be mined for sales until the last Boomer is buried, if not beyond. Recent years have seen the serial remastering of the band's catalog,…