Let's get this out of the way first: The Flying Burrito Brothers is a terrible band name. I mean, it's like Strawberry Alarm Clock bad. They were a very good, bordering on great, band but I would propose that a stupid band name helped keep them from realizing their full potential. Gram Parson's drug use and wanderlust were also major problems...

I recently won tickets to see The Who when they come to Indianapolis in May. Even with two members deceased and the living members in their 70s, I'm pretty excited. Still, I can't help but wonder how epic songs like "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" will sound. I guess I'll find out and I think I'll enjoy the experience regardless...

In my experience, Christmas morning as a dad leaves little reason for excitement -- at least not for myself. Sure, I'm excited to see how the new Lego set will work out for Miles or how the new dolly might light up Hannah's eyes. But for me? There's not much in it besides several sensible gifts -- a new dress shirt, some dress pants and underwear, socks and undershirts to replace the ones I got in the year before...

Most of you don’t know the name Pete Shelley. Unless you’re well acquainted with punk rock or the British music scene of a certain era, that actually makes sense. Shelley, who died yesterday at age 63, was the lead singer, lead guitarist and chief songwriter of the Buzzcocks, a band that was commercially successful in its time, but that’s criminally under-appreciated when compared to contemporaries like the Sex Pistols, The Clash or The Jam...

I thought it would be appropriate today to feature a song that expresses some level of thankfulness. I briefly considered both Led Zeppelin's "Thank You" and Ian Dury and the Blockheads' "Reasons to Be Cheerful Part 3" (which is, literally, a six-minute list of reasons to be cheerful set to a background of late '70s funk-soul-disco-punk), but neither one seemed quite right...

I spent years mixing up Boz Scaggs and Ry Cooder. In fact, I still have trouble deciding which one is which. (They really aren't all that similar.) In the weird associations of my mind, they are "those dudes from the '70s with nonsense syllables for first names."...

Jackson Browne is 70 years old today. Does that seem right? Think about it. We've all heard him say at least 1,000 times that in '65 he was 17 then in '69 he was 21. You do the math...

Healthy dietary choices don’t exactly come naturally to me. (Full disclosure: I’m writing this while happily digesting a delicious late-night bacon sandwich.) If not for the fear of heart disease and diabetes, every meal might feature beef, potatoes and a delicious helping of ice cream...

It's the weekend, which means that many of you are going to be hearing a lot of '80s music as some nostalgia-driven station does the obligatory "All '80s Weekend." As a man who draws much of his favorite music from the decades on either side of the '80s, I think I'm supposed to speak ill of the decade of Madonna and Reagan and Mötley Crüe and Rubik's Cube...

The world lost Aretha Franklin Thursday morning at age 76. I won't claim to be an Aretha expert, but I've long found her voice to be beautiful and timeless, the songs deeply touching. The 1960s were the golden era for soul as well as rock 'n' roll music. That was longer ago than many of us probably care to admit, and I'm afraid we're going to be losing more and more of our music luminaries in the coming years...

Is this a good song? No. Does Rick James' involvement somehow give the project some legitimacy?...

I grew up on classic country music but I have to confess that I've never been overly fond of George Jones. That comes with a caveat, as "He Stopped Loving Her Today" was one of the staples of Country Gold Saturday Night and if I didn't hear it on a given Saturday evening as a kid, I was unhappy. The same could be said of "I Will Always Love You" or "Eastbound and Down" or a half dozen other songs...

Robert Palmer was cooler than most of us can imagine being. That’s right, the guy from the '80s with the suits and the all the girls in his videos. That Robert Palmer might be the coolest rock star ever...

I'm not necessarily a big show tunes guy, and I have to admit that I've never actually seen "Carousel," but it's Friday, it's June and it sure as heck feels like summer. In celebration, I'm feeling playful...

Not a whole lot to say this week, but Chris Cornell died one year ago today. I could have chosen a Soundgarden song for this post. I could have chosen Audioslave. I could have gone Cornell solo. But Temple of the Dog will always have a soft spot in my heart...

In my teenage years, I often operated under the (flawed) assumption that bands needed to be serious to truly be good. Having fun was OK, but it was always secondary to the music actually "meaning something," whatever that means. As such, a saw a strong line of division between the stupid (but actually fun) bands of the '80s and the respectable (but probably a bit too dour) bands of the '90s. ...

While driving around yesterday listening to Weezer's Blue Album, I had a rather lucid moment of self-awareness. After safely parking my car (of course) I picked up my phone and shared my observation with the Twitterverse:...

I think we're all over winter, right? It is about time, given that April is almost over. With some of the better days recently, I've been doing a bit of cruising with the windows down. This especially excites my kids because not only do they like the windows down, but their especially excited about the "new" car we just acquired. It's a 2005 Toyota Corolla, so it's more exciting to a kid than it is to anyone else. But, hey, it runs...

The last four mayors of Greencastle agree. So do workers from Fedex, UPS and the United States Postal Service. Even the two candidates in a hotly-contested race for Putnam County sheriff agree. Those beautiful, peaceful bioluminescent insects that show up floating in the evening breeze every June? They’re called lightning bugs...

As many of you know, my dad died two weeks ago today. In the time since, I've fielded a lot of questions about how I'm doing. The truth is, I'm doing just about as well as can be expected. While it's true that you only get one dad and it's also true that I am now an orphan with both parents gone, Dad's dementia meant we had been losing him incrementally for years now...