Column writing, for better or worse, means fitting your ideas into a single established space. In my case, the limit is 700 words. Since I started this a couple of months ago there has not been a column in which I was finished after 600 words; every one has required a trim before I turn it in.
Balancing pure opinion with interview pieces seems to be working out well although this week I hit a bit of a snag. The idea behind the piece was to explore how AEG Live had invested in concert tours of TV programs. As much as I attempt to get inside the music industry I did not have the space to get as deep as possible in this one and when it came time to reduce my word count, an explanation of how the shows get to the promoter was cut out.
There is a healthy food chain in the adaptation of TV shows as live entertainment. The creators/copyright holders are entities such as the BBC and Granada; they are then represented by talent agencies who approach a promoter such as AEG with a package deal. CAA handles "American Idol," ICM covers "Dancing With the Stars" for example.
If I were writing for the Internet those facts would have made it into the column as would an anecdote about music publishers who give an employee the single task of landing songs on "Idol" or "Dancing."
TV is what sells music these days and few shows have track records to equal these two. Let the TV people worry about the ratings - these shows are where stars go to sell records, often in some of the most fallow sales periods of the year.

I have made it to three more concerts - only eight to go to hit 100 for the year - one of which had almost as many acts as an edition of "American Idol." Somehow, I still need to catch 53 performers to hit 300.

Madonna fans in the expensive seats were climbing over chairs, security and other fans at Dodger Stadium Thursday with the hope of snapping a pic or two or eight of a celebrity taking their seat.
The area at the end of the catwalk that formed a 'T' off the mainstage was as well-stocked with talent as any Hollywood premiere - J. Lo, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu. Management, agents and Ryan Seacrest. Slide over a section and Heidi Klum, Fergie and Nicole Ritchie were garnering attention. Poor Jillian Michael, the trainer from NBC's "Biggest Loser": She was the first to arrive and the first to be ignored.
This was a bit astonishing though in L.A. where celebs are pointed at or waved to - their presence is just a fact of life. Perhaps it was the place or the performer, but this evening felt different from others. This is not bold-faced names cavorting with the hoi polloi. These people - the ones paying $350 for a seat or higher if they use a scalper, the ones who call in favors to secure the best seat possible - are apparently starved for a connection with fame. From a few rows away, it was palpable, that difference between Barrymore's nonchalance and Jennifer Lopez' glow.
Same difference in the area that held Klum and Fergie: Both are stars, but only one has that aura of distinctiveness. (This was one of those rare instances in which reviewers had obscenely good seats: If Madonna slips when she puts the body of her guitar into her crotch during "Borderline" and the instrument falls, I'm the one getting hit on the noggin).
Hardly surprising that the rich and famous want to see Madonna, the one star who presented personal and sexual evolution as art, who beguiles and mystifies consistently and who only disappoints when she becomes a stationary object. The celebs present - Barrymore being the exception - may well look on in awe and envy: Madge is expected to have no boundaries, while the others are boxed and ready for shipping. Change is good for her and it's evident in the colorful and high energy show; the new material is dance-floor ready, the older songs amped up and pushed toward rump shaking or Guitar Hero.
As a celebrity. Madonna dwarfed those in the audience. At 50, she may well be presenting the best show of her life - the set list was the same as New Jersey but with Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake as guests and a "Dress You Up" sing-along - and it may well be the first example of an artist taking Barack Obama's lead and going the extra mile to push themseleves toward excelllence rather than the status quo.

Over the last three weeks, I have had a fair number of conversations with major and indie label executives as well as concert promoters and music publishers. Bouncing between uptown HQs in New York and the Lower East Side during CMJ certainly brought out the dichotomy that makes the music industry so confusing these days.
And then Obama won the election. It brought out some clarity about what's so desperatley missing whether you're tryign to figure out how to pay the mortgage, get to the next gig or add to your collection of copyrights: The need, no matter what walk of life you are in, to have individuals to believe in.
The music industry is struggling to find those worthy individuals. Those tiny Gotham clubs were packed during CMJ with people praying they had found an artist who could lead.
But it's not just the fans. I swear you can tell the smart executives from the guys attracted to the perks just by talking about legends. I thik back on people I have been taking about in recent weeks - Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, Stax and Elektra in the '60s - subjects that bring out passion, knowledge and anecdotes among execs charged with finding a way to create new stars and new hits. It's not nostalgia on their part, just a sense that music and musicians once stood for something that has disappeared from the current landscape.
Obama arrives and I sense he will inspire a nation to take a look in the mirror. May they all realize how superficial our culture has become.

For the record, Madonna was the 89th concert I attended this year and I have now seen 238 acts this year. The goal is 100 shows/300 acts.

My column this week for Daily Variety concerns the CMJ Music Marathon in New York. Here are a few more thoughts from CMJ chief Bobby Habert, specifically on parties and last year's dust-up over whether some applicants were never listened to.
"We're dealing with 1,000 bands playing officially and 500 to 1,000 play unofficially, five or six gigs. Clearly there's a bit of anarchy but I don't discourage it.
"My only concern is when people who should participate choose not to. It's annoying when people appropriate the CMJ name but in New York there's no way to police it.
"The parties are a necessary evil. Bands can play outside of CMJ and from a consumer's point of view it's a 24/7 event for a week. The benefits outweigh the liabilities."
In regards to last year's complaints that bands were not being listened to: "There have been (no complaints) this year. We have used Sonic Bids as our technical partner for four years. Last year we saw simultaneously how wonderful and evil the Internet could be. "There's a streaming tool on Sonic Bids that chalks up the numbers of listeners. Some people decided we were rejecting bands without listening (based on no recorded streams). We download and audition.But the din was so loud (our response) fell on deaf ears."
From my perspective, Tuesday night's CMJ highlights are Bowery Ballroom with Lykke Li, Friendly Fires, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson and Micachu; Middle Distance Runner at Crash Mansion; Belleville Outift and Del McCoury Band at Highline Ballroom; Vivian Girls at Red Bull Space; and the bill at Union Pool of Phil and the Osophers, Army Navy and the Poison Control Center.
It has been almost a month since I did a concert tally and since then I have seen 27 acts at eight shows, leaving me with 20 concerts and 91 acts left to see to hit my goal of 100 shows/300 acts. 

The last several weeks have put me in small rooms with singer-songwriters performing for other invited guests, the ultimate goal being that someone takes note and when a record is released they will remember the beauty of the intimate performance.
These are showcases and not so much gigs, though occasionally they will be held in public places in the early evening, the audience might even include a few people who know the artists' work and do not have a business relationship with the performer.
Armed with my theory that the average newcomer in the singer-songwriter arena is going to need film and TV placement - no guarantee of a hit or stardom, just rent money - I find myself listening for those bits of songs that would be perfect for driving home a character's state of mind or songs with both mood and story. That filter in place, the results were a bit startling: The artist whose music I knew and liked best came off the worst; a female duo with good songs have created perfect, mad- for-TV blocks of 45 seconds in every tune; and the guy whose debut album is rumored to be overproduced has a satchel full of solid, honest songs filled with strong wordplay.

There are records from our youth that endure. Time can't tamper with them, changing tastes can't remove them from our hearts, our opinions of the creators might be altered but  our feelings for the work do not diminish. They are ours and ours alone. It's music that hits on a primal level and sticks, like our affection for some obscure second baseman  or the taste of particular hamburger. Only decades later, after revisiting childhood landmarks or looking in the record books, do we realize the truly personal aspect of that connection.
Only in art and music do we really have the opportunity to revisit those moments from our teen years and attempt to look, through adult eyes, at something we held dear logn ago. Is what I heard as an 11-year-old or saw as a ninth grader or experienced when I first climbed behind the wheel of the a car as good as I thought it was back then?
Graham Nash's debut solo album from 1971, "Songs for Beginners," has prompted this re-examination of the heart and memory. For me, it was a monumental effort, a musical manifestation of a crushed man attempting to find a light at the end of a tunnel, one of those first records to enter the collection and truly be affecting. Its not a stretch to say I memorized every aspect of this album when I was 13.  His voice, eloquent and pleading on "Crosby, Stills & Nash" and "Deja Vu," was the initial attraction; that he had so much to say about the human condition was the secondary appeal and ultimately the key to its staying power.
But when I purchased the Atlantic Records version on CD I wondered what the fuss was about. The sound was horrifying. It reduced what had been a rich and layered album to a one-dimensional, lifeless album that sounded more like a demo tape than a finished product. Significantly, Nash's voice no longer had rage or pain, that I heard loud and clear on my vinyl copy.
The Rhino reissue has remedied that. The new version, which comes out Tuesday and contains a CD and 5.1 DVD-A remastered at 48k/24 bit is a reminder of how alive this recording is.
This is an album of depth and truth. Fresh from a breakup with Joni Mitchell, it's Nash exposing his wounds in the lyrics, in the delivery, in the piercing cry of Jerry Garcia's pedal steel and even the gunshot quality of the drumming on the larger songs. It's pensive and quiet on numbers such as "Wounded Bird" and "Man in the Mirror," then turns majestic and determined on "I Used to be a King" and "There's Only One."
Living in  an age in which kids think that setting diary entries to music constitutes a song, here is the Rosetta Stone of emotional archaeology. Thankfully, its power has been fully restored.

I have reduced the rather clumsy title of this  (mostly) weekly column  that gets into the personal rather than the newsworthy. In the last week I have been to four concerts and seen five acts; to get to 100 concerts and 300 acts ina year, I have 30 shows and 123 acts to go.

It's always a treat when an artist sends you back into the library to pull out old vinyl or CDs that you have not thought about for awhile. Kurt Elling, the jazz singer, and the saxophonist Ernie Watts are touring with a tribute to "John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman," the album of duets they recorded on March 7, 1963. The album  is one of those distinctly beautiful and romantic albums that any jazz fan would hold onto it with a hope to someday share it; it's jazz at its most sensual and inviting.
Hartman's baritone, Trane's tenor sax and McCoy Tyner's supple piano take the album's six ballads at a relaxed pace, each note articulated with warmth and belying the fact that there was little, if any, rehearsal for the work. It reflected Coltrane's mood at the time, his most recent recordings being the equally sensitive "Ballads" and his collaboration with Duke Ellington. (Their "Prelude to a Kiss" still sends shivers).
Elling and Watts, whose best known work has been with Charlie Haden's Quartet West, add a string quartet and take their program into more upbeat terrain. Thursday at USC's Bing Theater, "Coltrane and Hartman" was a starting point - two of the album's cuts, "Lush Life" and "Autumn Serenade," went into a medley with "What's New" and  "My One and Only Love" was partnered "Nancy (With the Laughing  Face)." The emphasis was Coltrane, with Elling using his voice in the styles of both Hartman and Trane. He connected in the baritone with the singer, using flourishes, some of them wordless, to channel a Coltrane improvisation.
Watts has a tone substantially  different from Coltrane. Trane's playing at the time was moans, caresses and hallelujahs; Watts opts for pleas, promises and linear thought. Pianist Laurence Hobgood, who has been with Elling for 15 years, combined Tyner's romanticism with some of Bill Evans'' pensiveness in addition to writing the arrangements for the evening.
There are no plans at this time to record the program, which also includes Coltrane versions of "Bessie's Blues," "All of Nothing at All and "Say It (Over and Over Again)."   Elling, who now records for Concord after a decade with Blue Note, is in the early stages of selecting songs with producer Don Was for his next album.   
On a side note, Elling has one of the most interesting collection of links I have ever seen on a website.

For the record, my quest to attend 100 shows and see 300 acts this year is down to  34 shows and 128 acts to go.

The tough call in reviewing is almost always how much of curve is one willing to grade on when it comes to a legend.
Recently, Glen Campbell, Solomon Burke and Steely Dan made it easy. Campbell, for example,showed up with a big band of ace rock and country musicians capable of re-creating his current album and his hits from the '60s. The others were impeccable.
Some acts you go in knowing it might be  a struggle. Crosby, Stills and Nash can't find a note to save their lives on some nights, but if they don't embarrass themselves or tarnish their legacy they get the benefit of the doubt. Al Green is chief among the artists whose careers began in the '60s and '50s who always gives a good show yet rarely a great one.
Then there's Bob Dylan, the ultimate iconoclast. How in the world does one judge one of his performances without basing the quality of the show on the critic's experiences? Can a show's greatness be determined by a setlist? Can the abilities of the backing band scale the bar that separates good from great? Can exuberance in Bob's vocals make up for problems in pitch?
It seems like anyone seeing Dylan for the first times, whether they are a critic or an observer making a post on a website, cut considerable slack for Bob and his crusty vocal delivery. For those of us who see nearly every show on every tour, a line has to be drawn between nitpicking and deciding whether he is as good as he could be on any given night. I gave a thumbs down to Wednesday night's show, one of the last concerts on his North America trek, even though he thrilled another critic or two.
In this case it's personal. My odyssey with Dylan recordings began when I was 10 and I acquired Dylan's "Greatest Hits." "Positively Fourth Street" hit like few other songs; "Blowin' in the Wind" felt like it was 100 years old. I kept buying more records until the Dylan section was the largest in my collection. That occurred when I was in high school and remained true for a decade after college. "Blood on the Tracks," released when I was 15,was one of those life-changing records, music that makes you see the world through a different set of eyes.
As far as concerts go, my first  came in 1978, when Dylan was wearing the clear mask and traveling with a good-sized band, many of the musicians carrying over from the Rolling Thunder Revue that never got closer than 1,500 miles to my home.
But over the years I never got that great Dylan show, regardless of whether I was seeing him in New York, Philly, Boston or L.A. A Hollywood Bowl show came close, but it was not until the December 1997 run at the El Rey that I finally saw a great one, a concert worthy of his stature that made the songs all magical. Night one of the El Rey stand was my 14th Dylan concert, bringing about a monumental shift in my desire to see him every time he visits.
That run from 1997 to 2002 really spoiled us, and for a good three or four years after that it was quite easy to cut him a break, especially when he was moving between piano and guitar. Wednesday night it felt like Bob forced my critical and fan sides into a corner, making it hard to defend his 100 minutes onstage. He's still the greatest, he just does not look it.

One of the most common questions I am asked regards rights, as in "who gave the Democrats the rights to use that awful song after Barack Obama's excellent speech last night?" It evolves into a discussion about the difference between synch/mechanical rights and a writer's copyright, which is not even clear when the all-sample work of Girls Talk is explained by someone who might understand the issue and still draws no distinction between a recording and a copyright.
Using a performer's recording, like John Williams' Olympics themes, can be a big payday for the writer, but a writer needs to make sure that when their songs are covered, they are still credited. Like the people who may or may not have written the Elmore James hit "Done Somebody Wrong," perhaps best known  by the Allman Brothers Band's cover.
I had been looking at a few of their set lists since the Allmans resumed touring on the heels of Gregg Allman's recovery from hepatitis C. One of my favorite bands ever and an addiction I have never been able to shake, I was jonesing for a little Duane Allman and Dickey Betts interplay so I threw on disc 2 of the 2006 edition of "Eat a Peach."
Scanning the liner notes, I noticed "Done Somebody Wrong" was credited to James, Clarence L. Lewis and everybody's favorite white bluesman in a business suit with mob ties, Morris Levy. For some reason, I had never noticed Levy's name in the credits for the song and wondered if it had always been an oversight on my part.
On the original vinyl of "Live at the Fillmore East," which is the first place most of us ever heard the tune, lists the songwriting credit as Lewis, James, David C. Thomas and Morgan Robinson. Lewis and Robinson were something of a team, writing songs such as Lee Dorsey's "Ya-Ya" with their "co-writer" Levy. Who Thomas is remains a mystery.
In 1992, Polygram issued a complete, two-CD edition of the Fillmore East recordings from 1971 and credited "Done Somebody Wrong"to the team of Lewis, James and Levy. But when it came time for Universal to issue a version of the album - in 2003 through its Mercury Chronicles unit - the writing credit was changed to just Elmore James.
Perhaps not too oddly, James gets the lone credit on the song Rhino Records' "Very Best Of" issued in 2000.
A significant reason I lament the digital migration of music to Internet services such as iTunes is the absence of this arcana - the list of musicians on tracks, songwriting and producing credits, recording dates, etc. So many of my peers grew up not just on the albums, but the information held within and these days listeners who limit their purchases to Apple do not even get the benefit of having the label listed. "Live at Fillmore East" brought a fair number of new names to my world as a 13-year-old - specifically James, Willie McTell and T-Bone Walker - that exposed me to a world I did not know existed, and I have long credited the combination of credits on records and curiosity for my insatiable desire to consume as much music as possible. (Last weekend my soundtrack while I was cooking was Mosaic Records' T-Bone Walker set; that stuff has an enduring appeal even if many of the songs are structured exactly the same way).
There's no way to know how many other tunes fit the example of "Done Somebody Wrong" and one wonders how vigilant an heir needs to be to ensure that money from their ancestors' work is going to the right places and is in the right amount. Technology may short change a good number of artists down the road as all it will take is the wrong information being printed once and then repeated; it's bad enough that "American idol" does not require that songwriters be properly credited when the contestants give the wrong name before a song. It's small, but it's one more step toward crushing our musical heritage and the writers upon whose work the American songbook is built. And in the case of Levy, the business executives who stole from the creatives.

As I continue my quest to get to 100 shows and see 300 acts this year, I have slipped a bit lately, making it to two only three shows in the last two weeks and seen six acts. I have 41/136 to go.

Used to be that the music played over the PA before the headliner came out was handpicked by the artist and even if it was incongruous with the act, it somehow connected with the overall statement. The Beach Boys’ collection of instrumentals “Stack-O-Tracks” was played before every show on Neil Young’s”Rust Never Sleeps” tour; once music by the Beatles or John Lennon was heard at a U2 show, the audience would get restless as it was a sign Bono and the guys would be onstage soon; Tom Waits has long played music that sounds like it was recorded decades before he was born.
The other night, though, was absolutely magical. Three songs played in the lead-up to Inara George’s show with Van Dyke Parks at Largo were astounding revelations: Mixed together, they were essentially the sound, atmosphere and attitude of the entire George-Parks show. Elaine Stritch singing “Ladies Who Lunch” from “Company,” an Edith Piaf tune and Caetano Veloso’s Tropicalia tune “Maria Bethania” — toss ‘em in a blender and you have a complete idea of what the night was like – minus the French, of course. I wish every show was like this.
Nothing is worse than pre-concert music that has absolutely nothing in common with the artist about to take the stage – rap before a country act, for example – and it stuns me that an artist’s management would tolerate it. Off the mark, too, is playing music by the artist that will soon take the stage. I am finding that to be a regular occurrence in the hallways and box office area at Staples Center in L.A. It does no favors to the act or their fans. Maybe the recording being played is no longer in the set or radically altered - why remind the patron of a recording's sound co close to curtain?
You need something like the vintage blues and country that played before John Mellencamp’s recent show at the Greek Theatre. The music itself probably does not appeal to his fan base but it shares tone and texture with Mellencamp’s latest CD. I’m guessing John’s guys handled the music; if left up to the promoter or venue operator, they’d probably opt for some sort of “classic rock ‘80s mix” featuring Rod Stewart and Bob Seger.
Sure it’s speculation, but I figure the more performers think about the environment their fans are in – from the time the doors open until the house lights go on after the encores – the more the act will be appreciated.
In my quest to get to 100 concerts and see 300 acts this year, I am now have  44 shows and 142 performers to go.

Bob Belden, a fine producer, selected five neglected jazz masterpieces and came up with an intriguing list that covers a pretty broad spectrum and includes one of my favorite woodwind players, Bennie Maupin.
It's a lists that makes a critic believe there are other people out there with questions rattling around their brains about the endurance of art and music. "What's new that I should be listening to?" is the a common question, I would imagine for any critic but I invariably want to talk about music that they should have been listening to over the last 10-20-30 years.
(That's the beauty of reissues: They have the ability to get people talking about great music that disappears. Jeff Beck performed at a recent tribute to George Martin here in L.A., sparking talk about his greatness and how to go about collecting Beck's work. Thankfully, the early stuff received some nice reissues two years ago.)
But back to jazz. Belden’s got a fine list, but once again it positions jazz as strictly a catalog art form. Obviously, it’s tough to pick out “masterpieces” while they are still fresh, but Belden's list got me to thinking what are the jazz albums that dazzled me upon release that did not receive canonization down the road and yet remain vital.
A line had to be drawn somewhere  somewhere in the late 1980s, when the Wynton Marsalis effect has resuscitated and pigeonholed jazz at the same time. My choices are a bit freer than Belden's and four of the five picks are from pianists, which I did not set out to do although I will admit that I consider the 1990s a golden age for the piano trio.
A highly personal list of five overlooked jazz gems from the last 20 years, in alphabetical order:
Orrin Evans – “Meant to Shine” (Palmetto, 2002) A hard bop pianist from Philadelphia whose imagination seems endless, “meant to Shine” succeeds in moving the mind and the soul. Earlier albums “Captain Black” exposed him as a fine composer and “Grown Folk Bizness” displayed his interpretive skills; “Meant to Shine” cemented all the praise he had received as a  talent to watch.

Benny Green – “Testifyin’” (Blue Note, 1992) A live trio recording with Green on piano, Christian McBride on bass and Carl Allen on drums. Original compositions are stellar; the communication between the three is on a level rarely heard; and the concept of presenting the trio as a single unit, rather than a combination of solos and support work, is consistently apparent.

Cooper-Moore “The Beautiful” (Aum, 2005) Avant-garde pianist Cooper-Moore leads a trio that is precise in its knowledge of when to shake up the music to keep it from settling in and becoming comfortable. Not a moment is truly jarring; every idea gets played out as even the craziness ultimately makes sense.

Tomasz Stanko – “Suspended Night” (ECM, 2004) An absolutely gorgeous album from the Polish trumpeter who finally made some inroads in the States after working for 40 years in Europe. His band had been together for almost 10 years at the point this was recorded and none of his sidemen had entered their 30s. Balladry is Stanko’s strong suit and as long as the listener is willing to go with him on the ride, the journey is quite fruitful.

Randy Weston - “Spirits of Our Ancestors” (Antilles, 1991)  The bop-oriented pianist had been recording for 35 years when he ventured into a string of three albums under the aegis of portraits. First two, devoted to the music of Ellington and Monk, were winners that re-solidified him as a significant contributor. He followed that trio with “Spirits,” an album that reconnected him with the arranger Melba Liston. A 12-piece group that included Dewey Redman, Pharaoh Sanders and Dizzy Gillespie made this one of the best efforts connecting Africa with American jazz.
Unfortunately, I did not get to hear any live jazz last week, but I did attend five concerts and see nine acts, among them the Hold Steady and Gnarls Barkley,  to make it 47 shows and 147 performers to go in my quest to hit 100/300.

Q: Comic-Con is all anyone is talking about this week. Why is there no Music-Con?
A: Would that not be wonderful - music fans given the opportunity to interact with the musicians who are important to them and labels providing sneak peeks into what will be coming out over the next several months. But here's the reality: The people who travel to Comic-Con - regardless of whether they are dressed in costume - have a vested interest in character, a story, an artist, etc. It's not all that different than the L.A. Times Book Fair at which zillions of authors display their wares and make contact with readers. The music industry has always enjoyed a buffer between the public and the artist whether it be radio or retail, allowing those gatekeepers to handle the introductions between the creators and those who adore them. Just as the majors have been slow to grasp how to deal with the change in the retail landscape, so, too, have they been slow to to embrace the new generation of third parties who can provide artist access in conunction with their operations.
There is really only one place where passionate music fans can connect with artists in convention setting and that's Fan Fair in Nashville which, like Comic-Con, has grown enormous and been turned into CMA Fest.
The fan-boys have all of their paraphernalia and want to collect more; last I checked, no one has been able to sign a download - and that's the one product labels are most interested in selling. A Music-Con, one that would bring together new and established artists, producers and others who could tell stories - and not just pitch a product or look at a crowd with disdain, would be a welcome addition to the fan world.

Q: If someone is going to a local festival, any idea who they are likley to see?
A: Certainly. After charting out about six festivals occurring between now and the end of Labor Day weekend, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are the act most likely to appear at a festival.Black Keys are also a popular booking on the fest circuit.

Q: When Danger Mouse made the "Gray Album" he was considered something of a genius. When "Crazy" was played every hour on every radio station in America he became a bona-fide genius and Cee-Lo was working his way up the genius ladder, too. Now they're starting a U.S. tour and nobody's talking about them. Why?
A: Danger Mouse - Brian Burton - has become the Eric Mangini of pop music. A year with a winning record and the New York Jets coach is a genius  and making a cameo on "The Sopranos"; the next year he can only win 25% of the games and he's lucky to be the stiff in the first reel on "Law & Order." So Mouse, or Mr. Burton as the New York Times likes to write, is doing things like producing Beck's album and making sure he something to fall back on if the Gnarls thing does not rebound.
Truth be told, in the fickle world of pop music, the Downtown/Atlantic Records team stuck with making "Crazy" the song that everyone everywhere heard and delayed the release of second, third and even fourth singles. They got a little traction with "Gone Baby Gone," but nothing to signal that it was still worth working the first album. Second album gets released and there's no "Crazy," or even a reasonable facsimile. Gnarls Barkley gets labeled a one-song band and is busy playing the Slow Food Nation Festival and being referred to as  "the guys who sing 'Crazy'" rather than a serious band that delivers a fine concert.

Q: What's the deal with the Mr. Burton thing in the New York Times. Why do they always have to use the real names of hip-hop artists?
A: That issue was raised in a rather interesting story by the Columbia Journalism Review. What is more intriguing is that soon after this was written, the Times did a profile of Beck Hansen in which he is never referred to as Mr. Hansen. he is Beck. Nowhere else in the paper is anyone referred to by their first name. Brian Burton is, of course, Mr. Burton; the Ramones were always treated as if that's what it says on their birth certificates.

Q: You are tracking the number of concerts you attend in 2008. What's that number up to?
A: Counting tonight's Diana Ross show at the Hollywood Bowl I will have 52 shows and 156 acts left to see in my quest to hit 100 concerts/300 acts in the year.

On the face of it, Rick Rubin's idea to have Crosby, Stills & Nash do an album of covers sounds like an "American Idol" for the AARP crowd.
The members of this trio are first and foremost songwriters, and one has to wonder how they might come up with a collection of tunes that won't make them sound like Johnny-Cash-come-latelys.
CSN -and the guy known as Y - were an important act to me in my formative years, so when this news broke I have to admit to being keenly interested. David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills qualify for Social Security right now so I am guessing they want to mix the old with the new, displaying how older material can be relevant and how the old guys can interpret the new stuff. All the songs are by well-known acts they have said.
Their unreleased version of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin" made it onto the reissue of their debut album so I am guessing that's out for the Rubin album. Otherwise the songs I'd like to see them tackle are:

Coldplay "Yellow"
Los Lobos - "Angels With Dirty Faces"
Bob Dylan - "Simple Twist of Fate"/"Mr. Tambourine Man"/"The Mighty Quinn"
Tom Petty - "Crawling Back to You"/"Mary Jane's Last Dance"
Elton John - "Come Down in Time"
John Legend - "Save Me"
Bruce Springsteen - "If I Should Fall Behind"
Oasis - "Wonderwall"
Jayhawks - "Blue"/"Waiting for the Sun"
Pink Floyd - "Wish You Were Here"
Paul Simon - "Old Friends"/"Graceland"
U2 - "Where the Streets Have No Name"
Ryan Adams - "When the Stars Go Blue"
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Dani California"
Buddy Holly -"Everyday"

Only made it out see three shows last week taking my quest to hit 100 shows and see 300 artists in 2008 down to 59 and 165.
Meanwhile, on the stereo
Home: Jason Reeves "The Magnificent Adventures of Heartache"; the Moody Blues; "Elton John"; Benji Hughes "A Love Extreme"; John Mellencamp "Life, Death, Love and Freedom"; Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis "Two Men With the Blues; Phil Ochs' "I Ain't Marching Anymore"
Car: Peter Salett "In the Ocean of the Stars"; Eric Hutchinson; the Moody Blues' "Days of Future Passed"

The front row - not the place Bob Uecker used to sit in his Miller Lite ads but the chair that puts the patron against the stage with no one other than the occasional security guard or photographer to get in the way.
Despite having been to at least a thousand concerts, the shows at which I had front row seats are easy to tally. There have been five of them: Rickie Lee Jones at the Tower in Philadelphia in 1979; Lucero, the singer from Mexico, at Universal Amphitheater in 1996; Tom Waits at the Wiltern in '99; Bruce Springsteen at Pantages on the "Devils & Dust" tour; and American Idols Live at Staples Center last week.
Great as it was to see Springsteen and Waits in that proximity, it's an odd sensation sitting that close, craning your neck and trying to digest all the activity, especially at a show that iinvolves a fari amount of movement. It's better than being at the back of the arena  - I know from experience - but neither position makes it easy to properly critique a show. With the 10 "AI" finalists pacing back and forth across the stage, my view was either so close I could read brand names on their jeans or else partially blocked and half a basketball court away disconnecting our micro-section from the rest of the show. The good news was that it was never very loud though I was rather shocked the audience felt little need to get out of their seats.
Not to complain about a frotn row ticket but placement of critics, one would think, would be important to artists, labels and promoters -  and there are plenty who understand that. (As a person who also covers legit theater, I am almost always placed in the same seats every time I go see a musical, play or opera. That sort of consistency is almost unheard of in the concert industry).
Since there