Author Archives: Brian Robbins

Freelance word 'rassler, sloppy cartoonist, and thumper of stringed instruments. Tales, 'toons, and tunes at www.brian-robbins.com

The Rolling Stones: Some Girls (Deluxe Edition) & Some Girls Live In Texas ’78 (Soundtrack)

The Rolling Stones’ 1978 release Some Girls was the band’s big middle-finger response to the notion that they were going to be run over by the younger lions of the burgeoning punk scene – that is, if Keith Richards’ heroin habit didn’t take care of things first. Richards was in that dark place where even […]

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One And Only: The Untold Story Of On The Road by Gerald Nicosia & Anne Marie Santos

She was Marylou in Jack Kerouac’s classic On The Road, the gal who drove Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) mad. He married her when she was 15; divorced her a year later; and then did what he had to do to keep her within his orbit for the rest of his life. She was either there […]

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Rearview Mirror: The New York Dolls

“Hullo.” That’s all it took to identify the speaker. That “hullo” on the other end of the phone — a mix of purr and growl with a wisp of cigarette smoke curled around it — could only be New York Dolls frontman David Johansen. Thirty-eight years later, this was the same voice that came barrel-assing […]

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LZ-’75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 American Tour – by Stephen Davis

The thing that made Larry “Ratso” Sloman’s 1978 memoir On The Road With Bob Dylan an instant classic was that it was a not-quite-an-insider’s view of Dylan’s 1975 Rolling Thunder tour. Rather than an all-access, red-carpet-rolled-out stroll into Dylan’s inner sanctum, On The Road allowed us to share Sloman’s thrill of occasional victories and the […]

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Daniel Lanois – Mining The Soul With Black Dub

Never mind his landmark production work with Bob Dylan for right now. (Or with Brian Eno, U2, Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson, the Neville Brothers … look it up; the list goes on.) Forget about the Grammys, Junos, and all the awards he’s won. Even the couldn’t-escape-it-if-you-tried thunder of his trademark “sonics” as applied to Neil […]

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The Contribution – Relix Magazine Spotlight

Call it a supergroup or, better yet, a jamband supergroup. These five friends—The String Cheese Incident’s Jason Hann (percussion) and Keith Moseley (bass), New Monsoon’s Jeff Miller (guitar, vocals) and Phil Ferlino (keyboards, vocals) and Railroad Earth’s Tim Carbone (violin, guitar, vocals)—have just released the record Which Way World under the moniker The Contribution. While […]

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The Contribution – Which Way World

It’s not what you think. One look at the line-up of The Contribution – String Cheesers Jason Hann (drums) and Keith Mosely (bass); Jeff Miller (guitar/vocals) and Phil Ferlino (keys/vocals) of New Monsoon; Tim Carbone of Railroad Earth (guitar, vocals, and, of course, violin) – and one might be tempted to say, “Ah … another […]

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Taking Project Percolator’s Pulse with Jim Weider

(From Jambands.com 11/16/09) You know what would be interesting? I’ll tell you what would be interesting: First, take all the people who knew Jim Weider from back in the days when he was with The Band – or perhaps watched Jim’s instructional videos years ago in an attempt to emulate his mastery of the Telecaster […]

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