Duly Noted

It's been almost exactly 34 years since Bruce Springsteen arose and pulled off the rare feat of simultaneously being on the covers of Time and Newsweek. I was in college at the time and remember seeing the magazines side by side as I was waited in the checkout line at a grocery store.

At the time I had heard of the guy but never heard his music and I recall that I was not impressed by the dual magazine covers or even interested in hearing Springsteen. After all, I was in Austin, which had all the music scene anyone could possibly want -- Willie, Jerry Jeff, Stevie Ray, Doug Sahm, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Joe Ely just for starters. I saw no need to be importing music from New Jersey (although Springsteen did play Austin three times in 1975).

I'm starting to think I might have called that one wrong ...

Random Thought: I've spent a lot of time at home lately awaiting service calls. It's very nice to have a guitar on hand to help pass the time when you're sitting there alone waiting for the plumber/cable man/dishwasher installer/window replacer to call and tell you that he's going to be late ...

Eric Clapton had to cancel out of the huge, multi-night Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden last week. The reason: gallstones. Yes, gallstones.
Rock 'n' roll, baby! ...

Christmas list item for guitar nerds: the Electronic Rock Guitar shirt. Each fret contains two major chords -- one on the low side of the fretboard and one on the high side -- that are recorded from a real guitar. You use a magnetic pick to strum and it all comes out of a little clip-on amp. The ad says you can play dozens of classic rock songs with (here comes the part I like) "very little skill."

And just so the bass player will have someone to explain jokes to him, there's a drummer T-shirt, too, with seven different drum sounds. It goes something like this: