I have a fond memory of my band driving 2 hours to a gig in the summer of 2007 and listening to NOFX's I Heard They Suck LIVE! album. Except we fast-forwarded through all the songs — we had kind of gotten over NOFX by that point — and just listening to the hilariously vulgar talking parts (which of course, we had all memorized by then). — Read the rest

Enjoy disco diva Donna Summer's incredible isolated vocal track from "Bad Girls" (1979). Toot toot, beep BEEP. The song is about sex work and the police. From Gavin Edwards' book "Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton's Little John?":

"I was in my office in the old Casablanca [records] building," Summer told me.

History has been kind to Fred Rogers' legacy; the beloved children's entertainer does not have the intergenerational staying power of Sesame Street (thanks in large part to Rogers' relentless focus on making programming aimed exclusively at small children, without any pretense to entertaining their grownups), but touchstones like his Congressional testimony on public TV funding, his remarks after 9/11 and his look for the helpers speech continue to bring a smile and a tear to all who see them, whether for the first time or the five hundredth; Mr Rogers was exactly what he appeared to be, incredibly, and the riddle of how someone could be so sincere and loving has sent rumormongers off to the land of conspiracy looking for an answer. But the real Mr Rogers story -- as chronicled in Gavin Edwards' new book, Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever -- is both more mundane and more amazing than any outlandish story.

A legend of American music has departed.

His name was Malcolm John Rebennack, or Mac Rebennack, but we knew him as Dr. John.

On June 7, the Prince estate will release Originals, a compilation of familiar songs that the artist put to tape as demos but eventually gave to other musicians to record and release. Included are the original versions of killer Prince songs later recorded by Sheila E., — Read the rest

Rolling Stone's Gavin Edwards posted a list of ten experimental, outré, outside, or otherwise curious albums that the magazine's critics raved about in the 1970s. I know and love most of them, especially John Cale and Terry Riley's "Church of Anthrax" and "The Art Ensemble of Chicago With Fontella Bass," but several of the selections are totally new to me.

A "Dante's Inferno of Brazilian art" to accompany The N.A.S.A. Project's song, Strange Enough.