It’s safe to say that Bill Kirchen is not a household name, nor even one that’s well known in most bars, even those with a good jukebox. But Kirchen has a terrific musical pedigree and his new album, Word to the Wise, features a supporting cast of musicians that certainly ARE known to most music [...]
After observing the misguided and destructive antics of both the Red Shirt and Yellow Shirt political groups here in Thailand for the past two years, I often tell people that I think “no shirts” is a far better option. Apparently some revelers during the recent Songkran water festival put that idea to practice, touching off [...]
It was only a few days before the start of the annual Songkran festival was set to start here in Thailand: a three-day holiday marked by joyous celebrations and goofy water play, or stupid driving behavior and idiotic acts of water assault — depending of course, on your perspective, as well as your tolerance for [...]
Prior to writing his first novel, Misfortune (published in 2006), Wesley Stace was no stranger to the entertainment world. The native of England had been a popular recording artist for the better part of two decades, releasing critically acclaimed albums as John Wesley Harding. Nowadays, he is living in the US where he juggles his [...]
If you peruse the music-themed posts on this blog, it’s obvious that I listen to a lot of oldies, as music that is more than a decade old is frequently labeled. I guess what’s considered “oldies” is all relative, but when I see bands like the Wallflowers categorized as Classic Rock, all I can do [...]
I had just devoured the latest Robert Crais novel — another excellent Elvis Cole and Joe Pike adventure called The Sentry — and was looking for a new book to read, preferably something in the crime/mystery vein. I’ve actually been reading a lot more non-fiction lately — all the Malcolm Gladwell books, the most recent [...]
It happened, as these things often do, while riding my bike. I was in Mandalay, exploring the south side of town, when I left a busy main street and turned into a narrow dirt lane. It was a lively neighborhood; children running around, dogs running around, chickens running around, people laughing (hopefully not at me, [...]
Gil Scott-Heron is one of those artists who is extremely difficult to classify. Is he blues or jazz or soul or just what exactly? To further confuse the issue, there are all the spoken word pieces that populate his albums. Clearly, he has a poet’s soul, a man with profound things to say about politics [...]
Jim Boylston is a travelling man, but nowadays the veteran musician and songwriter is leaving his guitar at home. The Central Florida native is now working as an audio engineer, work that takes him to locales such as South Florida, California, Brazil, and Copenhagen — and that’s just the next two months! But when I [...]
Feeling a bit physically and emotionally drained after work last Sunday night, rather than walking most of the way home as I have been doing lately, I opted for the comfort of a taxi ride. Once I was seated inside, I told the driver where I wanted to go, speaking in Thai. I couldn’t help [...]
