While Mike Chapman had a mess of hits as a songwriter (with Nicky Chinn) for Sweet and Suzi Quatro, his great effort as a producer is a cornerstone of the new wave era, Blondie’s Parallel Lines. “I saw Blondie three nights in a row at the Whiskey in L.A. in …

We are terribly sorry about the technical problems that caused the site to be down last night into this morning – we are updating the site now to bring it up to the present. We have been remarkably free of such things for some time. Again we apologize and ask …

Just as their run with Sweet was petering out in 1974, songwriters Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn hooked up with a spunky little leather-clad rocker from Detroit, transplanted to London, Suzi Quatro. When rehearsals for her first album were coming together, producer Mickie Most brought in the Chinnichap team to …

While Manfred Mann was classic ’60s British Invasion pop-rock, Sweet came along in the early-’70s and added power to the pop on the strength of slamming, goofy tunes by songwriters Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn (“Chinnichap”). The third song the pair wrote was “Funny Funny,” a takeoff on the Archies’ …

A lot of people know keyboardist-bandleader Manfred Mann from his prog rock-leaning Earth Band days of the ’70s, and especially for his interpretation of early Bruce Springsteen songs “Blinded By the Light,” “For You” and “Spirits In the Night.” But Mann’s first band, called simply “Manfred Mann,” was one of …

We pretty much all know that Saudi Arabia is a smug powder keg waiting to explode under the corrupt, venal, hypocritical, terrorist-breeding, terrorist-appeasing, misogynistic autocratic rule of Prince Asshole and his 999 Wahhabi Thieves. Thank God (Allah has nothing to do with it) we are pulling our military out of …

Classic reggae group Culture honored by NYC: A proclamation from the great city of New York was presented to reggae legend Joseph Hill and his band Culture recently by New York City Council member Yvette Clarke. During a touching ceremony before an SRO audience at SOB’s nightclub, Councilwoman Clarke honored …

Okay, it’s a little bit creepy and obsessive, but it’s mostly sweet and touching and another set of uses for the artifacts of our culture – that’s OUR culture, not the songwriters, the singers, the record labels – OURS: Kenneth Roberts is an old man with a broken heart and …

Call it a stinging rebuke, call it a swift kick to the nutsack, but FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s leadership has been eviscerated by the U.S. Senate: The Senate voted 55 to 40 today to wipe out all of the Federal Communication Commission’s controversial new media rules, employing a little used …

I have my music collection filed alphabetically by artist (and then chronologically, but no need to get that granular), and have done a pretty good job over the years of staying on top of it: pretty good until last year, that is. I have just started to file 2002, and …