Aural Fixations

BUDDY GUY
Sweet Tea
There are plenty of blues scholars (or fanatics, depending on your perspective) who think the blues lost something after consorting with the demon electricity. Records by Waters, Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James, etc. don't bear this impression out, but perhaps the music that came after them sometimes does. Once a bluesman was able to plug in his guitar or harmonica and make it scream and cry, he was encouraged to keep it screaming and crying. That drew the attention of the white boys, who used their more practiced skill to extend the tradition into five, ten, even twenty-minute solos. Then the white boys started writing songs to showcase their skill and many of the black bluesman followed suit. Everybody kept cranking up those amps and flailing away at those six-strings, and somewhere along the way the emotional expression that is supposed to be the heart of the blues got lost in the flash and feedback. (more)

Worst of the 80s

If you've never visited writer Boon Sheridan's long-running site Fluffybunny.com, you should. He recently decided (for some demented reason) to do a roundup of the Worst Songs of the 80s and invited me to do the same. My list, preceded by his intro and parameters, can be found here. Once you've perused it, be sure to check out his side of the story.

Michael Toland
Editor-in-Chief