Punk Turns 30

Johan Kugelberg has historically been on the leading edge of pop culture. While the Swedish ex-pat who calls NYC home has a resume that sounds like a jack of all trades - worked in the music industry as an A&R guy (American Recordings and Matador; he was responsible for the Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments getting signed), played in a garage band or two (Union Carbide Productions, The Action Swingers), is a collector and preserver of pop culture (so much so that he was able to endow Cornell University's hip hop collection ) - he is the master of quite a LOT. Johan has a new book entitled Brad Pitt's Dog, Essays on Fame, Death, Punk: A Punch and Judy show of intellectual diaspora making mincemeat of some pop culture sacred cows. It is published by Zero Books and available for pre-order on Amazon and is now available as an Ebook "The book isn't about Brad Pitt, or about dogs, or about Brad Pitt's Dog. The title refers to what happens to you if you are tol...

I first met Karl Wallinger, aka World Party back in the 1980s. He was always a Prince -like musician, capable of being the entire band in Seaview, his own studio, writing and producing at a level above and beyond his years (we are age peers, as is Prince, so maybe its just par for the course for the musicians of my g-g-generation?). But to play live, one needs a band, and rising out of the generation that gave birth to punk rock and a more democratic way of presenting ones' musical self, Karl Wallinger presented his music via the band name World Party . The band that plays as World Party featured and features some of the most adept musical talent the world has to offer. His prolific genius is unveiled next week (April 10) on Arkeology, a career-spanning 5 CD collection of 70 never-before-heard tracks packaged in a unique Any Year Diary intended for the purchasers’ personal use. Arkeology is at once a new album — with songs finished as recently as 2011 - and a treasure trove ...

Today is many things rolled into one. Its Opening Day in baseball as I write this - and for the Detroit Tigers, Opening Day is April 5. April 5 is also Eddie Baranek's birthday. He's in The Sights... well, he IS the one constant of the Sights, a band he formed in 1999... a garage band in the vein of what garage bands were meant to be: suburban teenagers trying to play their favorite records. And it sounds like Eddie's favorite records included the catalogs of Humble Pie and Badfinger as well as the rich pop/R&B heritage of his hometown, the Motor City, which also helped give birth to punk rock while fomenting a revolution (see: MC5). So, on his 2012 birthday, Eddie Baranek and The Sights will rock the Hard Rock Cafe in a very old skool way - with two sets, alongside their friends, Six and the Sevens - to celebrate what they're certain will be a Tiger victory. You might be able to watch the Tigers pounce all over the Boston Red Sox on the teevee, but you've ...