San Diego music scene news
I'm a lousy housekeeper, and by the end of the week dishes are stacked on every available surface of my kitchen. The thought of cleaning them is overwhelming. So I've developed this ritual. I slip …
Artur Schnabel Plays Beethoven, Volume 1 Sonata no. 19 in G Minor, op. 49, no. 1 My father bought my first piano from the Briscoes in Sumter, South Carolina. We knew the Briscoes from church …
James Taylor was the soundtrack for my adolescence. I would sit in the living room and play his records over and over on our big console while I tried to imagine what anyone would ever …
What one album would I take with me to a desert island? Immediately, it occurs to me that perhaps I shouldn't take any music with me at all. I'd have my untainted memory of other …
In 1991, God seized my attention. So did Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and U2. I was 20, a freshman in college, raised Catholic but without much understanding or interest in practicing my faith. I had plenty …
"If you like Hendrix, you'll like this," my guitar teacher said, handing me a cassette of the Psychedelic Furs' second album, Talk Talk Talk. More than 20 years later, I have no idea what he …
Though I had anticipated its arrival, I dreaded this day. The exact hour when the desire to experience something thrilling had effervesced within me for so long, it expired. Cognitive reservoirs of gumption, drive, purposefulness …
RE: the rock and roll album and unfurnished island situation. I'm going to have a problem packing my rucksack. The fact is, I don't have a relationship with music, although at one time in my …
My life changed forever when I was 13 years old. Up until this time, my thoughts were filled with jumping my BMX bike off curbs and lighting things on fire in my back yard. This …
I was grounded, which was a worse proposition than it sounded in my house. I was 14. It was 1965. My father's decree, he knew not to what he was consigning me. A summer in …
It was the stuff we did in high school band class that eventually told how my life would play out. It's hard to imagine any public school music class as being influential, but this was …
I've been sleeping on a lumpy sofa for several days, and my back is on fire. The sofa isn't in my own house, a take-no-prisoners zone I return to only to collect fresh clothes, but …
Stranded on a desert island, I'd find relief from the blazing sun in the wintry imagery of Joni Mitchell's album Hejira. Just gazing at the black-and-white album cover would start cooling me down: Joni in …
When I was 12, most of my time was spent (a) being mad at absolutely everybody and everything, (b) writing furiously, or (c) being mad at absolutely everybody and everything and writing furiously at the …
"Like a Rolling Stone," the most famous song on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, portrays somebody who thought she was on top contending with her fall to the bottom. It's a fun song but not …