Yesterday I had the name of a band on the tip of my tongue, but couldn’t remember it. It drove me crazy. Eventually, I had to go Google it. 70’s rock, sounds like so and so. Nope, couldn’t find it. Then I went to Amazon and rode their recommendation engine for about ten minutes and …

Yesterday I had a speaking engagement for a leading Toronto based financial services company. The event was running a little behind schedule, normal for a conference. There was going to be a break at 11:00 and I would take the stage at 11:15 for 45 minutes. As the morning started to run behind, the decision …

Millions of adult Americans have different values today than they did ten or fifteen years ago. They have a new set of priorities for their life, both personal and professional. Their new way of thinking is not by accident. It is a product of the times. Consider the case of Darren Glover. He’s a forty …

This weekend’s music pick is in the dance-rock-punk-fun category. !!! (pronounced chik-chik-chik) is a six piece from Sacramento that offers you a reason to dance and rock at the same time. I picked up their debut CD, Myth Takes, at Virgin with a strong recommend from their night manager. “The band’s name is unpronouncable, their …

If you like Mazzy Star, Portishead, Spiritualized or Pink Floyd, you will LOVE Brightblack Morning Light. Jacqueline and I saw them on a club tour stop at the Troubador in Hollywood a few months back, on a lark, and they were mezmerizing. Three people create a wall of soft sheen with ghostly vocals popping through. …

I usually don’t like a band’s follow up record as much as their smash debut. They are often cobbled together too quickly and lack the life experience of their breakthrough record — which ususally came from years of thinking and writing. Every once in a while, a band achieves a great sophomore release. This week, …

Never post your email address online. Ever. If you have a blog, post to bulletin boards or write articles for online distribution you might be doing this right now. When you do, you open yourself up to mega spam. Why? Many spammers or list houses use webcrawling programs, spiders, to collect email addresses posted online. …

I just love it when a ten or twenty year old band releases a vital record that vibrates with energy. Mostly, you have to rely on fresh bands and their debut albums to experience the urgency that makes rock music great. Three elders of rock have moved me in the last year. Each record reconnects …

NBC did not do the socially responsible thing with their prize package (the video manifesto of the killer). One expert calls their decision a “social catastrophy” — read the article here. Now Cho Seung-Hui’s video is being played millions of times on TVs, laptops and PCs, some of them owned by future school shooters. He’s …

OK, usually I don’t comment on these things, but I can’t help here. Cho Seung-Hui’s face doesn’t deserve to be on the home page of Yahoo, the New York Times or next week’s Time magazine. To put his picture there guarantees the creation of new school shooters. When you can get this famous by killing …