Shot in the Dark

Category: Favorites – Music

  • Carry On Wayward Renegade, All Along The Watchtower

    It’s not something I think about that much, but I do from time to time — why do Classic Rock stations sound the same, year after year? I wrote about this on my moribund blog a number of years ago and, based on recent listening to market-dominant KQRS, this list of faves hasn’t changed a…

  • Delp and Goudreau

    This is a CD I’ve been meaning to get around to for a long time, and finally checked off that box. It features two members of Boston, Brad Delp and Barry Goudreau. It was recorded in Goudreau’s home studio and released in 2003. The cover and reverse photos were taken on the beach near Goudreau’s…

  • One Place That Ain’t Looking Through Me

    About a decade back, I heard an interview on All Things Considered with Sarfraz Manzoor, who’d just come out with his book Greetings from Bury Park – his memoir about growing up as a British-Pakistani in Luton, in the Midlands, and getting immersed in Bruce Springsteen’s music. And I think I sat in the garage…

  • Stay Hard, Stay Hungry, Stay Alive If You Can

    I got an email from MPR the other day.  It was actually a combo email from MPR News and “The Current” asking what song we thought best summed up the state of the nation during this election season. I wrote back with my suggestion – a song that has layer upon layer of significance to…

  • Just Like A Spirit In The Night

    Someday if I ever made a movie of my own life,  most of the soundtrack would probably be Springsteen songs.  I associate one song or another with most of the big milestones of my life – teenage angst, love found and lost, hope, determination, grief, whatever you got. The E Street Band is just a…

  • Music Appreciation

    Among people who care about, or at least listen to music, the argument is eternal; were the eighties a vast wasteland, or among the greatest periods of the rock and roll era? The answer, of course, is “neither”. Music – specifically, genres of music – conform only loosely with calendar decades. But there are most…

  • It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, Part XL

    Tonight was the big night. Sunday, December 28, 1986. It was going to be a huge night on two fronts. The evening would kick off with my band’s first gig at Williams’ Uptown Bar on Hennepin in Minneapolis. Then, after load-out, I’d race out to KSTP to do my show. I was going to interview…