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3 days ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
Remembering Tom Evans, born on this day in 1947. —Ed.Talk about your bad mojo. It would be hard to find a band with as tragic a backstory as Badfinger, not one of whom, but two, of its original members hanged themselves. And this despite a string of at least five timeless tunes, and plenty of other good songs to boot.
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6 days ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
Remembering Charlie Watts, born on this day in 1941. —Ed.Step back in time with me, won’t you, to the year 1965, when Dylan went electric, The Beatles went “Nowhere Man,” and a scruffy English R&B band called the The Rolling Stones released The Rolling Stones No. 2, which included a few tentative attempts at writing their own material.
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1 week ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
Remembering John Bonham in advance of his birthdate tomorrow. —Ed.Now listen here: Once upon a time there was a band called Led Zeppelin, and they laid down more barbaric heavy metal riffs than anybody, ever. They came from the land of ice and snow, and produced a Hun-like din, and if you heard them approaching your castle walls the wisest move was to flee via the back door.
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1 week ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
A few tips for Americans headed for the Great White North: Don’t fuck with moose. They’re majestic creatures and punch below the belt. Never order pizza in Thunder Bay, Ontario. I made this mistake once, and I swear what I got was a circle of thin cardboard slathered with Ragu tomato sauce. But most importantly, never, ever, say a contrary thing about The Tragically Hip. The locals will take you ice fishing in the summer, if you catch my drift.
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1 week ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
Remembering Gary Brooker, born on this date in 1945. —Ed.Yar! During my years as a pirate on the high seas, sailing beneath the Jolly Roger and switching my eye patch from one eye to another as the mood struck me, my mates and I had one album we listened to all the time.
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1 week ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
Remembering Rick Derringer. —Ed.I don’t know about you, but I spend plenty of time thinking about the words I want engraved on my headstone. They’re going to be there for eternity, after all, so you want your epitaph to be both eye-catching and memorable.
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2 weeks ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
Celebrating Bob Dylan in advance of his 84th birthday tomorrow. —Ed.Lots of supposedly sane folks shouted “Masterpiece!” when Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind came out in 1997; Elvis Costello, to pick a seemingly sober-minded celebrity name out of a hat, said, “I think it might be the best record he’s made.” Hoo ha, said I. Sure, Time Out of Mind was a marked–no, make that very marked–improvement on the rather desultory couple of albums he’d released before it.
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2 weeks ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; (I’m quoting Ishmael from Moby-Dick here) whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself pausing involuntarily before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it...
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2 weeks ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
Celebrating Pete Townshend on his 80th birthday. —Ed.Who loves The Who? Everybody loves The Who, that’s who. Six billion Chinese people love The Who. That Turkish family that walks on all fours loves The Who. Kim Jong-un loves The Who. The ape at the zoo loves The Who. Okay, I suppose there are lots of people who don’t love The Who, but I don’t understand them. Why, I would even go so far as to say there’s something terribly, terribly wrong with them. Then again, how much do I really love The Who?
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2 weeks ago | 
thevinyldistrict.com | Michael Little
It’s hard to believe that horn band Chicago, along with Grand Funk Railroad, were one of the most popular touring acts of the early Seventies. Why, I would go so far as to suggest the above proves that the young people of America had lost their collective fucking mind. Personally, I blame the Ohio National Guard.
