Warren Zevon died yesterday. Steve Rhodes has the news here. He lived four times longer than was predicted when his cancer was announced a year ago (almost to the day) – that, and the amazing accomplishment that is his new album The Wind, amounts to a near-total victory over entropy. …

I love the British ska revival of the late-’70 and early-’80s, led by the Specials and a group with two different names: “The Beat” in the U.K., and “The English Beat” in the U.S., where another group had prior claim to the shorter name. The movement combined groovy biracial calls …

Whenever I feel my resolve or sense of clarity wavering regarding the war on terror – and it happens to most of us with near daily casualties in Iraq, continued conflict in Afghanistan, not unreasonable concerns over costs and priorities – a little Victor Davis Hanson is the ideal tonic: …

Rob Pegoraro discusses the impediments to going legit for online digital music: “I’m trying to make my kids legal, really I am,” wrote Ashburn resident Jane Ellis in an e-mail. But after going to BuyMusic.com, installing the required Windows Media Player 9 software (which left her PC half-crippled) and making …

As much as I enjoy Paul Simon as a solo artist, especially his classic first album (“Me and Julio,” “Mother and Child,” um um good), There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, and Graceland, he has never accomplished anything quite as sublime as the primal pairing of the tall skinny one with the …

Marilyn Manson doesn’t seem to be able to leave security guards alone: A security guard is suing Manson for an incident at Minneapolis’ Historic Orpheum Theater in October 2000, when Manson crouched at the end of the stage, pulled the guard’s head back toward his crotch and gyrated. Lawyers for …

People have the impression that when I was DJing those fraternity and sorority parties at UCLA, USC, and all over SoCal back in the go-go ’80s, there was nothing but the mad chaos of beers, bongs, babes, and beats. Oh ye jumpers to conclusions! There were moments of near-Germanic precision. …

And if I’m going to talk about Chris Isaak, I’d be seriously remiss to not acknowledge the stylistc and thematic wellspring from which Isaak derives, the late great Roy Orbison. In late-’59 Fred Foster, the owner of Monument Records and its producer, heard the pop potential of a shy rockabilly …

If nothing else, the controversial Rolling Stone list of greatest guitarists has generated much thought. I was sitting around thinking about the different guitar sounds I value, and it suddenly occurred to me how much I love James Calvin Wilsey’s (ex of the punk band the Avengers) neo-classicist work with …

Being something of a purest, I have generally looked askance at the slicing and dicing of the “horizontal” recorded catalog into “vertical,” i.e. thematic, collections, but I am starting to see this perspective as elitist and kind of stupid. Who looses if Prestige gathers great music by Miles Davis or …