Elvis Ate Dynamite
Good-Bye Elvis
Category: Uncategorized
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Last December, Raul Malo, the lead singer and songwriter for the Mavericks, passed away from a particularly aggressive type of brain cancer. He was just 60 years old. Shortly after his death, I posted a brief tribute to him, but my words can never do justice to a legend like Raul. The Mavericks were the…
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*Bill Murray from Groundhog Day voice* “It’s Monday. Again.” This weekend flew by, as all weekends do, but it was a good one. Our youngest daughter and her boyfriend visited, driving up from downstate Illinois to celebrate my birthday. They’re kind enough to come up often, but it never seems like enough time. How did…
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It was 37º Fahrenheit when we went for our morning walk today. I’m sitting in my office now, with the heat on, wearing a flannel shirt. It’s May 1st, and, in Chicago, this is not unusual. This is what passes for Spring. Spring is an odd time of year for another reason. In my family,…
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Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap has made a lot of waves in their relatively short existence. From their provocative name to rapping in the Irish language to their vocal support for Palestinian rights, they leapt from obscurity to international celebrity status in just a few years. So I did not expect the band to take a…
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Presenting the Irish bouzouki, my latest obsession. It’s basically just a bouzouki (or Greek bouzouki) but tuned differently. It has four pairs of strings tuned together. From top to bottom, they are tuned to GDAD. An alternate tuning for the Irish bouzouki is GDAE, as explained below. Have a great day!
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Quite a stressful weekend, huh? I’m not going to delve into all the political implications of what happened Saturday night, nor am I going to jump to conclusions about what did or didn’t happen. If you’ve spent any time on social media over the past 24 hours or so, you’ve likely seen every possible angle,…
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Since I mentioned TS Eliot yesterday, this time of year always reminds me of the opening lines from “The Waste Land”: But whatever counts for spring here comes only begrudgingly. And then, in an instant, it turns into oppressively hot summer. So, I guess I’ll take what I can. 78º in the third week of…
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… that brief transit where the dreams cross, to quote legendary Chicago DJ Lin Brehmer quoting TS Eliot. Two days down and three to go. Lately, I’ve found a bit more time to pick up the guitar, working on some songs I’m familiar with and some songs I’m playing for the first time. A couple…
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Unless you came of age in the Chicago area in the late 1970s or early 1980s, you probably can’t appreciate this, but it’s true. Chicago once was the center of the power pop universe. Or so it seemed. Material Issue. Shoes. Off Broadway. The Slugs. Pezband. And, of course, honorary Chicagoans-by-way-of-Rockford, Cheap Trick. Power pop…
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Well, that was some weekend. Between the apocalyptic storms Friday night and the flooded streets and sidewalks on Saturday, I think the universe was trying to tell us something. And we hardly got the worst of it. We may have had biblical thunderstorms and gale-force winds, but at least we dodged the tornadoes. It’s been…
Elvis Ate Dynamite 