Very ironic for a celebrity who “supports” workers rights. Business is Business, but how much money do some of these guys think they need? Bruce is just the latest to go against what they represent to add to their vast fortunes. Many have preceded him.
Greed is why we’re in the mess we are currently in, with no viable solutions in sight. Anyone care to rationalize?

Springsteen calls Wal-Mart deal a mistake
Jan. 30, 2009, 3:17 PM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — The Boss is owning up to a mistake.

In an interview with Sunday’s New York Times, Bruce Springsteen says he shouldn’t have made a deal with Wal-Mart. This month, the store started exclusively selling a Springsteen greatest hits CD.

Some fans were critical because Springsteen has been a longtime supporter of worker’s rights, and Wal-Mart has faced criticism for its labor practices.

Springsteen told the Times that his team didn’t vet the issue as closely as he should have, and that he “dropped the ball on it.”

Springsteen went on to say: “It was a mistake. Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be.”

Springsteen released his new CD “Working on a Dream” this week and is performing the halftime show at the Super Bowl.

I really liked an album he did in the early 70’s “Solid Air”.

British songwriter John Martyn dead at 60
Jan. 29, 2009, 1:14 PM EST

LONDON (AP) — British singer-songwriter John Martyn, whose soulful songs were covered by the likes of Eric Clapton, died Thursday. He was 60.

Martyn’s official Web site said the musician, who lived in Ireland, died Thursday morning. It did not give a cause of death.

A skilled guitarist and earthy vocalist influenced by folk, blues and jazz, Martyn performed with — and was admired by — musicians including Clapton, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Phil Collins.

Collins said Thursday that Martyn had been “a great friend.”

“He was uncompromising, which made him infuriating to some people, but he was unique and we’ll never see the likes of him again,” Collins said.

Martyn was born Iain David McGeachy near London in 1948, but grew up in Glasgow, Scotland.

He took up the guitar in his teens, moved to London and released a series of enduring albums, including “The Road to Ruin” and “Solid Air,” regarded by some critics as one of the best British albums of the 1970s.

Martyn never became a household name, but his songs were praised by critics and highly regarded by other musicians. One of the best known, “May You Never,” was recorded by Clapton and a host of other artists.

Martyn had a reputation as a hell-raiser, and acknowledged that alcohol and drugs had sometimes led him into trouble.

“I’ve been mugged in New York and luckily I fought my way out of it,” he told the Daily Mirror newspaper last year. “I’ve been shot a couple of times as well, but I just lay down and pretended to be dead.

“I guess I’m hard to kill.”

Martyn had suffered health problems in recent years, and in 2003 had a leg amputated below the knee because of a burst cyst. He continued to perform, appearing at last year’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow.

Last month, Martyn was named an OBE — Officer of the Order of the British Empire — by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to music.

There was no immediate word on survivors or funeral plans.

Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist dies at Florida home
Jan. 28, 2009, 12:53 PM EST

ORANGE PARK, Fla. (AP) — A keyboardist for the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd has died at his northeast Florida home.

Orange Park Police Lt. Mark Cornett says 56-year-old keyboard player Billy Powell called 911 about 12:55 a.m. Wednesday saying he was having trouble breathing. Rescue crews performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead at 1:52 a.m.

Cornett says no foul play is suspected and an autopsy will not be performed.

He says Powell missed a Tuesday appointment with his doctor for a cardiac evaluation. A heart attack is suspected.

Powell was one of two surviving band members who were with the group before a 1977 plane crash that killed three of its members.

I’m surprised someone didn’t beat me to this, given this is such a nerdy group.

Ricardo Montalban died.

This out to stir things up. “Why Music” from

the “Economist”, Dec. 20

2008 – Jan 2, 2009.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795510

Stooges Guitarist Found Dead

Stooges Ron AshetonOriginal member of seminal rock band the Stooges Ron Asheton was reportedly found dead in his Ann Arbor, Michigan home this morning. He was 60 years old. While cause of death has not been determined, Rolling Stone reports that officials do not suspect foul play, and that “initial indications suggest Asheton had a heart attack.” Asheton’s personal assistant had not been able to reach him for days and contacted police, who found his body.

Asheton formed the Stooges in Ann Arbor in 1967 along with brother Scott, bassist Dave Alexander and legendary frontman Iggy Pop. The Stooges released only three albums between 1969 and 1973— The Stooges, Fun House and Raw Power— but despite their limited output, the band had an incalculable influence on modern music. Their edgy live shows set the bar for future performance artists and rock spectacles, while their raw, fuzzy sound can be heard in everything from punk to French techno. The Detroit Free Press put it this way:

The Stooges’ raw guttural sound helped create the template for punk rock, and later became hugely influential in the alternative-rock revolution of the late 1980s and early ‘90s. Asheton was not an incredibly gifted player technically, but the dirgy, guttural sounds he created on early Stooges classics like “I Wanna Be Your Dog” were cited by guitarists as varied as Kurt Cobain, Thurston Moore and Jack White — who once called the Stooges’ 1969 effort “Fun House” the greatest rock album of all time.

In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Asheton at #29 on its “Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list, and in September of this year, the Stooges were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

29 November 2008 was the last time we heard from our fearless (HA) Leader. I have scoured every noodling hole, Music Shop, and VFW post in the immediate area but alas, no luck. Now I did have dinner with a lookalike on new years day. But I cannot either confirm nor deny that it was the real MR. Now anybody with information to his whereabouts please contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Musicians. (You don’t suppose that he has been secretly drafted into the Obama Adminstration?)

I was reading in the BIG BOOK and reached “r” and then “re” and then “red”. I was surprised at how many phrases or words start with “red”. So, how many words or phrases start with “red”. The winner gets bragging rights once again. I invested everything with Madoff.

Here’s one “I BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW”.

“Discovering in his mouth a tongue
He must

his palaver balk;
So keeps it running all day long,
And fancies his red rag can talk.”

Red Rag (The). The tongue. In French, Le chiffon rouge; and balancer le chiffon means to prate.

Check out this site. Co Sponsored by our old friend Neil Young.

Well The Boys are coming back in 2009. Thanks to Dave TV in the UK.
Check out these links

Hopefully, this will be the last one this year. James Brown, last Christmas, Eartha Kitt this Christmas.

Rock songwriter Delaney Bramlett dies in L.A. at 69
Dec. 28, 2008, 3:45 PM EST

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Singer-songwriter -producer Delaney Bramlett, who penned such classic rock songs as “Let it Rain” and worked with musicians George Harrison and Eric Clapton, has died. He was 69.

Bramlett died Saturday shortly before 5 a.m. at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles as a result of complications from gallbladder surgery, his wife Susan Lanier-Bramlett said.

Jerry Garcia, left, with Delaney Bramlett in 1970 (©AP)

Born in Mississippi, Bramlett enjoyed a career in the music business that spanned 50 years. With his then-wife Bonnie Lynn, he created the Southern blues-rock band Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. The group opened for Blind Faith, which featured British guitarist Clapton, in 1969.

He is perhaps best known for standards such as “Superstar,” co-written with Leon Russell, which was recorded by Usher, Luther Vandross, Bette Midler, The Carpenters and most recently, Sonic Youth, in a version featured on the Grammy-nominated soundtrack of the movie “Juno.”

He co-wrote “Let it Rain” with Clapton, who also recorded it, and “Never Ending Song of Love,” which was recorded by more than 100 artists including Ray Charles, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Patty Loveless and Dwight Yoakam.

During his career, he performed, co-wrote or recorded with stars such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Dave Mason, Billy Preston, the Everly Brothers and Mac Davis. He also produced artists including Etta James and Elvin Bishop.

He recently released an album, “A New Kind of Blues,” on independent label Magnolia Gold Records.

Ok this is #2 Whos next.
Reprinted From People.com

Groundbreaking actress and the sultry singer of the stylishly sexy Christmas standard “Santa Baby,” Eartha Kitt, died on Christmas Day in New York City, her publicist confirmed to CNN.

Kitt, 81, had been treated for colon cancer. Her daughter Kitt Shapiro was by her side at the time of her death.

Known primarily for singing in her distinctively raspy voice and purring like a cat as Catwoman on the ’60s TV series Batman, Kitt was a star of stage, the small and big screen and music. She was nominated for three Tony awards, two Grammy awards and two Emmys, according to her official Web site.

A performer to the very end, Kitt taped a PBS special in Chicago six weeks ago that is set to air in February, CNN reports.

Born Dirt Poor
Leaving the cotton fields of South Carolina at the age of 4 to go live with an aunt in New York City’s Harlem, Kitt began her career after she auditioned on a dare for the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe – and landed a spot as a featured dancer and vocalist.

Touring Europe, she built a name for herself, then became famous in America when she appeared in the Broadway revue New Faces of 1952 – where she introduced “Santa Baby,” as well as her other trademark songs, “C’est Si Bon” and “Monotonous.”

Honored with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 1960, Kitt became infamous for speaking out against American involvement in the Vietnam War while she was at a White House luncheon in 1968. It took a good 10 years for her career to recover, and she headlined on Broadway in the musical Timbuktu!

An Icon
She also became a staple on the cabaret circuit, and toured as the Wicked Witch in a national touring production of The Wizard of Oz, based on the classic 1939 movie.

Among her other accomplishments, she wrote three autobiographies. Only last week, “Santa Baby” was certified gold.

According to her bio, Kitt lived in Connecticut near her daughter and four grandchildren. They survive her – as does her reputation as an icon.

Reprinted from Entertainment Weekly.com

One of the things that struck me when seeing the trailer for J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie was that, for as much as he changed in his effort to revitalize the Trek universe, there were just enough things that he left unaltered—perhaps in an effort to tacitly state, “While this isn’t your father’s Star Trek, it still is Star Trek.” Like that classic “red alert” sound. And it was also reassuring to know that Majel Barrett-Roddenberry—who passed away December 18th from complications from pneumonia at the age of 76—was once again the “voice” of Starfleet computers, reprising the role she had played in every iteration of Star Trek since the very first episode back in 1966.

Even before she married Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1969, she was integral to Star Trek. She was the original first officer aboard the Enterprise—replaced after the pilot by Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock—and reappeared as the faithful Nurse Christine Chapel. When Star Trek: The Next Generation hit airwaves in the late-1980s, Barrett-Roddenberry took the recurring role of Lwaxana Troi—maternal gadfly to the Enterprise’s counselor, Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), and romantic thorn to Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). After Gene Roddenberry’s death in 1991, Barrett-Roddenberry would eventually shepherd some of his ideas to fruition; she served as the executive producer of Earth: Final Conflict (1997-2002) and Andromeda (2000-2005).

We are having quite the winter experience here in Seattle. Snow, ice, and cold, cold temps. It’s been particularly challenging to drive in certain areas. Personally I have not even cranked the engine in a week. I’ve been riding the bus and walking to get around when I need to. Others haven’t fared as well. Here’s a shot of a charter bus which tried out a slippery slope on Capitol Hill. Scary huh?

For the story of the bus, check out The Seattle Times.

Well we are 13.5 away from ’09. What a year huh? We have seen history made this year as well as seen the economy tank. So what are your hopes and dreams for the New Year? Also how are we going to make this year better than the last?. ( Hey it’s not easy coming up with new topics to keep this thing going) My hope is that the economy stabilizes soon so I can realize my dream of becoming a small businessman. I am also getting back into the land ownership game so I can finally have a place to call my own so I can get back to what I love Tinkering with old cars. I hope that I can finally find a job that fits what I want my lifestyle to be. and I hope that we can finally start making some music and play a few gigs.(Hint Hint OK Based Musicians) And I hope that I can finally Quit Smoking!, Not a resolution just a goal. So far I have kept my last New Years Resolution made in 1990, to not make any New Years Resolutions.