Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

Rarebird’s Rock and Roll Rarity Reviews would like to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, or whatever you personally call this time of year. During the Christmas season in 2000, Weezer issued a two-song Christmas CD to members of their official fan club, and also sent the CD to radio stations as a promo item. It was simply titled Christmas CD , and its two tracks ran for a total of five-and-a-half minutes. The same two tracks were sold on iTunes beginning in 2005, under the title Winter Weezerland . The songs have not been offered on iTunes since 2008. (This EP should not be confused with the 2008 digital EP Christmas With Weezer , which does not contain either of these two tracks). Some time between 2000 and 2005, the tracks were available as free downloads on Weezer’s official web site. Some rabid fans were evidently unhappy that formerly free downloads were later being sold as commercial downloads, and expressed their supposed outrage on Weezer- and iTunes-rela...

Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, died on Friday, December 17, 2010, at the age of 69, from complications caused by multiple sclerosis. Beefheart recorded 11 studio albums between 1967 and 1982. On his 1967 debut album Safe As Milk , Beefheart came across as a blues-rocker in the Stones/Animals mold. But his sound became more avant garde on the albums that followed. He and his sometime collaborator Frank Zappa had been friends since boyhood; amazingly, Beefheart’s off-the-wall recordings tended to be more bizarre than Zappa’s. Beefheart has been cited as a major influence on many artists, especially from the alternative rock genre. In 1982, Beefheart quit the music business to focus full-time on painting, and never recorded another album for the remaining 28 years of his life. Some people interpreted his refusal to re-enter the music biz as a telling statement about that industry. Although it is easy to believe that Beefheart disliked the “business” side of the music b...

Jack White continues to amuse me with his creativity with vinyl records, among other things.

I just read an interview with Gene Simmons of Kiss at the MSN reality TV site: http://tv.msn.com/reality-tv/gene-simmons-interview/story/feature/?gt1=28103 I don't always agree with Gene, but it's almost always interesting to hear his insights. When it comes to expressing his opinions, Simmons certainly doesn't bite his famous tongue. There are two insights from the interview which I felt compelled to share on this blog. Here is the first one: Interviewer: What motivates you to work as hard as you still do after such a long career? Simmons: Every day you want to wake up and do something, otherwise what good are you? The simple idea is, if you have enough money for food and stuff, and then you quit working, you're just waiting to die. The hours go by and the years go by and what have you got to show for it? At the end of the day, you've got to be able to look in the mirror and say, "I used this day." When you work hard you get to sleep really hard and food ...