jjtoothman

Category: Music

  • Remembering R.E.M.

    I was 15 years old the first time I can accurately recall hearing an R.E.M. song.  I used to listen to 105.9 WHCN in Hartford on this cheap Emerson brand AM/FM clock radio while I got dressed and ready for school in the morning.  And there it was – “Fall on Me.”  It had an…

  • Wilco in Boston

    Good show by Wilco at The Wang Theatre this past Tuesday night. Certainly not the best show I’ve seen them play ((Best show I’ve seen from them was at the Fillmore in San Francisco after they released A Ghost is Born. Among other things that night, they closed with a cover of “Don’t Fear the…

  • The day I discovered MTV

    It was 30 years ago today that MTV began broadcasting.  I was a 10 year old boy living in East Hartford, Connecticut – a typical suburban neighborhood where kids rode their bikes everywhere and played kickball in the streets while their parents did their best to shield them from the realities of life.  At the…

  • Five albums Phish should consider covering for Halloween 2010

    I have no idea if Phish is actually going to keep up their Halloween tradition of covering an entire album.  But if they do, here’s 5 I’d hope they’d consider.  This isn’t a prediction list as much as it is a wishlist. Pavement – “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” Boston (self titled) Wilco – “Yankee Hotel…

  • The best album of 2009

    I’ve told enough people about this and repeated myself so many times that it made sense to write a post about the recently released album by The Black Crowes.  Simply put – best new album of 2009. If you have yet to hear it, head over to Amoeba Records or click open Amazon or iTunes…

  • Revisiting the Beatles Albums: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

    If you read my post about Revolver, you already know that I believe that, despite what many a Rock critic believes, Revolver is the best Beatles album of all time.  In fact, if you stay tuned as I write about the rest of the Beatles catalogue, you’ll find out that I think Sgt Pepper’s Lonely…

  • Revisiting The Beatles Albums: Revolver

    Depending on what day you ask me, Revolver is either my favorite album by The Beatles, one of my 20 favorite albums of all time, or, quite simply, the greatest record I have ever listened to.  It is the album that has a little bit of everything. The song that makes a social statement –…

  • Revisiting The Beatles Albums: Help!

    A couple of my favorite Bealtes songs are present on Help!  Not suprisingly, Help! has always gotten plenty of play on my stereo if only so I can listen to “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and “Ticket to Ride”. I’ve sung karoke one time in my life.  It was a disaster.  I’ve sworn…

  • Revisiting The Beatles Albums: With the Beatles

    Note: This is part 2 in a series of series of posts I’m writing as I listen to the remastered Beatles discography.  See the entire series here.  I’ve heard that With the Beatles was rushed out by The Beatles’ record company in order to take financial advantage of Beatlemania.  Perhaps that’s why I’ve never listened…

  • Revisiting The Beatles Albums: Please Please Me

    First off, I admit that I’m not an “early Beatles” guy.  I much more preferred the psychedelic influenced explorations that started around Rubber Soul and continued all the way to end.  I doubt that I’ve ever listened to the Please Please Me album straight through more than a couple times and those times it was…