Rock Town Hall • Rock Music Discussion

For Old-times’ Sake

Oct 182013

[The following piece is copied from Financial Times, where “High quality global journalism requires investment,” and where our encouragement to “share this article with others using the link below” only leads to a page requiring readers to subscribe, that is, invest in FT. At the risk of bringing their legal team down on little old us, here’s what Links Linkerson wanted to share with us. – Mr Moderator.]

UK vinyl sales at highest level in a decade

By Robert Cookson, Digital Media Correspondent

UK vinyl sales have doubled this year to hit their highest level in a decade, thanks to surging demand from music lovers for LPs by artists such as Daft Punk and the Arctic Monkeys.

Some 550,000 LPs have already been sold this year – more than in each full year since 2003 – according to data published by the BPI, which represents British recorded music businesses.

Continue reading »

Liverpool C.S.I.

Posted by k.

Oct 182013

I recently read a review for the following book, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16293348-bang-bang, so I can’t claim to have thought of this idea but In the book, above (keeping in mind I haven’t read it), it sounds like Maxwell, the killer, brings his silver hammer down upon the head of his victims.

Here’s a part of the book’s description:

Youthimax is a cure-all miracle drug from Johnson and Johnson which has all but eliminated death in modern society. Which is great news. Unless you work at a funeral home. The O’Rourke Funeral Home in West Philadelphia has fallen into obscurity, along with it’s two sole employees. Max and Bligh waste the days away sleeping in coffins and counting shovels until that fateful day that they decide to become serial killers. The drunken Bligh finds serendipitous instructions in the Beatles tune “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and convinces his partner that it’s only right that Maxwell kill with a silver hammer. With little business and less regret, Maxwell and his alcoholic train wreck of a partner become the most infamous serial killers in Philadelphia history…

This sounds like a job that the minds of RTH can take off and run with. So, give us your best elevator pitch.

Hope or Hopelssness?

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 172013

Does this this performance by Eric Charden suggest feelings of hope or hopelessness? I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that this performance is lacking something, but with a little guidance from the taste-makers at Rock Town Hall, can it be worked into something worthwhile?

I look forward to your thoughts.

This Is Your Rock Town Hall

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 162013

This is your Rock Town Hall!

If you’ve already got Back Office privileges and can initiate threads, by all means use your privileges! If you’d like to acquire such privileges, let us know. If you’ve got a comment that needs to be made, what are you waiting for? If you’re just dropping in and find yourself feeling the need to scat, don’t hesitate to register and post your thoughts. The world of intelligent rock discussion benefits from your participation. If nothing else, your own Mr. Moderator gets a day off from himself. It’s a good thing for you as well as me!

It’s That Time of Year Again…

Posted by cdm

Oct 162013

Please list this year’s nominees for inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the order in which you think they should be included. If you don’t have the patience or interest in listing them all, please just list the top 5.

And the nominees are…

Nirvana, Kiss, the Replacements, Hall and Oates, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Chic, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel, LL Cool J, N.W.A., Link Wray, the Meters, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens, Yes, and the Zombies.

Mystery Date

Posted by ladymisskirroyale

Oct 152013

Let’s review the ground rules here. The Mystery Date song is not necessarily something I believe to be good. So feel free to rip it or praise it. Rather the song is something of interest due to the artist, influences, time period… Your job is to decipher as much as you can about the artist without research. Who do you think it is? Or, Who do you think it sounds like? When do you think it was recorded? Etc…

If you know who it is, don’t spoil it for the rest. Anyone who knows it can play the “mockcarr option.” (And I’ve got a hunch at least one of you know this one.) This option is for those of you who just can’t hold your tongue and must let everyone know just how in-the-know you are by calling it. So if you know who it is and want everyone else to know that you know, email Mr. Moderator at mrmoderator [at] rocktownhall [dot] com. If correct we will post how brilliant you are in the Comments section.

The real test of strength though is to guess as close as possible without knowing. Ready, steady, go!

Mystery Date 101513

Rock Town Hall’s Saturday Night Shut-In: Nobody Told Me…

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 122013

Sounds of the hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!

What a week it’s been! And I don’t mean that in a good way, but I am here, and that’s fine by me. Some of the things I’ve shared with you over the past week include the death of a friend and bandmate and a Twitter post by XTC’s Andy Partridge, in which he calls our upstanding community a nasty name. If that wasn’t enough, little Fred Savage gave us the finger. That’s just the half of it, just the pain I find fit for public consumption. Nobody told me there’d be weeks like this. Well, they didn’t have to tell me, because they happen frequently enough to stay fresh in mind the next time a wave of bad mojo hits.

Following tonight’s show I am meeting up with my bandmates, walking a few blocks down the road from my house, and playing a mini-set with the band, between sets at a private party by our friends The Donuts (featuring the Hall’s very own cdm and at least one other occasional participant in our weekly chatter). I am really looking forward to this, even though I’m a bit terrified at being, for tonight, the lone guitarist in our band. We rehearsed our mini-set on Thursday night, then pulled a bunch of ancient songs out of the hat, just to see if we could still remember the chords and get through them in more or less one piece. Man, that was fun. Man, that was the right way to celebrate the fact that we keep on rolling. May you roll on as well!

RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 116

[Note: You can add Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your iTunes by clicking here. The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player.]

RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 116 by Mr Moderator on Mixcloud

Older Entries Newer Entries