The Sound Of 焼き芋

It is interesting that posts about roasted sweet potatoes, traditionally a cold-season food, should be popping up everywhere now that winter is officially over. I’m a great fan of sweet potatoes, and not just because of their high fiber content. I like their taste and texture. Too bad I don’t have hot stones over which to roast them and mostly use my microwave. In Japan, roasted...

A Long Time Ago…

I just decided to attend someone’s 50th wedding anniversary next month, and it got me thinking. The most indelible memory of the “Summer of ’61” is without question the building of the Berlin Wall. But some of the events 50 years ago were especially important to me. A lot of my free time (and school time) was spent in movie theaters. There was one theater in Saarbrücken that...

Electronica At The Bowl

Remember the late 70s? If you do, remember YMO, the abbreviated name for the Yellow Magic Orchestra, a Japanese band that built a lot of their music on the themes of early video games? Their enigmatic front man, Ryuichi Sakamoto (@ryuichisakamoto), who composed dozens of film scores, will stay in my mind foremost as the nemesis of David Bowie in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. Sakamoto...

Frank Zappa in Saarbrücken?

Wenn es zwei Begriffe gibt, von denen ich mir nie hätte träumen lassen, sie einmal zusammen auf einem Album-Cover zu sehen, sind das „Zappa“ und „Saarbrücken“. Doch ich wurde eines besseren belehrt – life is stranger than fiction. Wie ich bereits in diesem Blog erwähnt habe, war ich einmal ein Zappa-Fan. Genauer gesagt, ein Fan von Frank Zappa aus den Zeiten von...

Fujiyama Mama

One of my original LP covers It probably dates me that I was not there for Jack White. To quote frequent comments, “Wanda Jackson is the coolest 73-year old ever” (she’s unrelated to Michael and Janet). The 2009 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee gave a great show here in L.A at the El Rey Theatre. The L.A. Times captured it well by saying that “The septuagenarian singer...

Hey Jude

It may have been unseasonably cold, but the event made you forget the weather. As the Los AngelesTimes put it so much better than I could: It’s hard to think of much in the pop music world more impressive than a 67-year-old musician holding forth for nearly three hours, outdoors on a chilly March night, while delivering some three dozen songs, the least of which would be a career...