Posts by Alby

Guest post by Nathan Arizona A lot is going on with the British monarchy. There’s a third King Charles after 337 years. The second Queen Elizabeth, it turns out, couldn’t…

At 11 a.m. France fell silent for one minute to mark the end of World War I on the Western Front. It's a solemn day -- nearly 1.4 million French…

Al Kooper spent the '60s and '70s showing that he could do almost anything musically, from writing songs to playing as a sideman for Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Jimi…

Nationally, Democrats did better than expected, if not as well as hoped. "You Can't Win Them All" was included on the 1972 album "Rock and Roll Music to the World,"…

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.…