Latest Entries

Was Jimi the Best Guitarist Ever?

For a recent book reading, I was lucky enough to have Greg Kihn alongside, interviewing me. This was at Clayton Books, a small shop in Clayton, a small town in Contra Costa County. Turns out Kihn lives nearby. I’ve known Greg for years, back when his band was working local clubs before scoring with “The Breakup Song” and “Jeopardy” in the early ‘80s. He’s morphed into a mystery writer and morning DJ, hosting a rockin’ show, studded with music-insider stories, on KUFX (“The Fox”) in San Jose.

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Seven Score and Six Years Ago…

“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”

On this date in 1863, President Lincoln made his famous address at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg. To commemorate the occasion with a playlist, I started by considering battle hymns and marching tunes. But in searching for tracks associated with or inspired by the Civil War, I realized the best ones weren’t about marching, blaming, or defending one’s point of view. So here are my top 5 Civil War tracks, chosen because of the universality and understanding present in their messages:

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Jazz and Wolfgang’s Vault

Nearly a year ago Wolfgang’s Vault purchased the audio and audiovisual archives and all related intellectual property of Festival Network. Included in this remarkable archive are many years of Newport Jazz along with concert recordings from other Jazz Festivals throughout the United States. There were more than 2,000 tapes in this archive which represent more than 1,200 live performances. At this moment, we have inventoried about 50% of the Festival Network Archive.

Shortly after the acquisition we commenced the transfer of all these master tapes, a majority of which were 40 to 50 years old. We needed to repair many of these tapes and then carefully and painstakingly transfer them, uncompressed, into a digital format. We then hired Grammy award-winning sound engineers to mix and master these live recordings. Between nine and eleven Wolfgang’s Vault employees and outside consultants have been working on this project nearly full-time for ten months. Wolfgang’s Vault has invested millions of dollars in this effort and less than one-quarter of these performances are in a finished state. It will be at least five years before Wolfgang’s Vault breaks even on this investment.

Most of our very capable and professional staff is between the ages of 25 to 35 and I have had the privilege of watching these young people become thoroughly enamored with great Jazz. I am even more convinced than I was at the beginning of this project that Jazz has a bright future and legacy if we can but present these great, high-quality recordings to a new generation of fans in a manner that those many years younger than I demand. That is what Wolfgang’s Vault has done and is doing with other live music genres from rock to country to bluegrass and is what we intend to do with Jazz.

We will offer free low-bitrate streams and lossless paid downloads to listeners. We pay full mechanical rates to publishers and a royalty that is higher than the norm to performers for all downloads. I would note the royalty here but performer compensation is a confidential matter. We pay royalties every month and provide performers with online up-to-the-second reporting of download sales if they want it.

I am a Jazz fan, not a Jazz expert. I know what I like and I like Jazz broadly and improvisational, live Jazz best. I have been told by labels and performers that Jazz CD sales have been and continue to be weak and that the sales future is not bright. Wolfgang’s Vault has spent millions and will spend more to bring these great live Jazz recordings to old and new fans. We do it in the manner that the younger generation understands and requires — streaming and downloads — at a fair price to consumers, timely and frequent payment to performers and publishers and in a manner that values high quality above all else.

Bill Sagan

‘Tis Already the Season?

I have this theory that I use to rationalize why each year seems to go by more quickly than the previous one. Based 10% on Einstein’s idea of relativity, and 100% based on my ignorance of Einstein, it goes something like this: as you age, each day becomes a fraction less of your total time on earth. So your eighth birthday seems like it takes 1/2,922 of your life, an eternity compared to the 1/10,227 of your life your 28th birthday claims. Case in point, this morning I couldn’t believe it when I saw my Twitter friend and blues connoisseur, @FitzgeraldKC, asking for suggestions for a holiday playlist. But then I realized we’re already half-way through November…W(hen)TF did that happen?

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A Visit with a Mellow Lou Reed

Lou Reed in Wolfgang’s Vault? Certainly. NYC, Bottom Line, 1977, and it’s one of the most popular shows in the Concert Vault.

Lou Reed’s band, The Velvet Underground, as the basis for a new book? Sure: White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day by Day, by Richie Unterberger.

Lou Reed in GQ magazine? Uh…yes.

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My Life Is The Road: Clarence White and Jim Morrison Stretch on a 747

While most cross-country plane trips are about as fun as a root canal, Crawdaddy!’s resident soundman-cum-rock columnist Dinky Dawson tells us about a cross-country flight that most of us would jump at the chance to take. On a flight to Miami with the Byrds, Dawson and co. bumped into a certain Lizard King and hit the upstairs bar pretty hard.ClarenceWhite_homeage

In typical Dinky style, the story doesn’t stop with some drunken debauchery. Just when it looked like the plane’s co-pilot was going to put the kibosh on one of Mr. Morisson’s favorite games — one that, by today’s FAA standards, may be punishable by death (let’s just say it involves throwing Swiss Army knives) — the co-pilot pulled off a move that shocked them all. Read More »

Touring the Vault with Katherine Featuring Joe Sia and John Lennon

Welcome to my new video blog series I call Touring the Vault in which I’ll take you on brief tours through the archive of Wolfgang’s Vault and give you a glimpse into our processes of learning and discovery. We’ll dig deep into the vast array of poster art, both inventoried and the as-yet-unearthed and tell you stories of their creation. We’ll delve into the depths of a half a million photographic slides and negatives to discover the prizes of great never-before-seen shots. We’ll turn the pages of history within a library filled with rare concert programs, early rock magazines and even scroll early music contracts and priceless letters and telegrams between the folks who put on the shows and those who performed them. Take a walk through Wolfgang’s Vault with me as we unlock a treasure trove of all things related to the live concert experience.

Michael Jackson’s Last Dance

This, of course, is not it.

Michael Jackson dancingThis Is It, the documentary of rehearsals for Michael Jackson’s never-to-be “This Is It” concerts in London, is accompanied by a single of that same name and a soundtrack CD. Sony, which paid $60M for the film, will no doubt rush out a deluxe DVD set, and there’ll be more MJ footage (there, were, after all, some 120 hours available just from the rehearsals) for months, years and ages to come.

That’s showbiz reality, and so critics have greeted this film with ramped-up cynicism, charging exploitation, poor production values, overprotection of Jackson (too few close-ups of his oft-doctored facial features; too much holding back on singing full-out), no journalistic coverage of his death and the attendant questions about drug usage; and on and on.

But This Is It is not 60 Minutes. Read More »

Between a Heart and a Hard Place

RS317-RSHusky, dusky, powerful, great voice, great guitar playin’, great camaraderie and I don’t have my flip video camera cause at the last minute I wimped out.  Got scared at the very end like the first time I skipped school.  Didn’t even skip my first class until I was a sophomore in HS…  I didn’t even leave the class to drive off with my friends and our new driver’s licenses to hit the beach and share a beer and joint.  Instead I hid in a school bathroom, standing on a toilet seat, sneaking a cigarette drag every now and then.

Another example of time travel in the 21st Century… Here was Heart, “Oh my God, look at those two women – feel that energy… those sisters, performing their asses off thirty years after first hittin’ the stage with their hard rock sound!”

I wanted to bring my new Flip HD Video camera to the gig, I was all excited about it, conjuring up the recording I would make of the show; stuffed the petite device into the bottom of my purse to hide it from the security search …and then…took it out again and left it on my desk at the office.  What if it gets confiscated?  What if I get caught?  After all, working the concert production biz; I have spent many a night with an eagle eye toward illegal cameras and recordings.

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Back to the Garden…in Golden Gate Park

I wasn’t at Woodstock in 1969, so I was looking forward to West Fest, an all-day celebration, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, of the 40th anniversary of that now-mythical music festival in upstate New York.

Ben Fong-Torres' view of West Fest

Ben Fong-Torres' view of West Fest

And, now, I can say I wasn’t at West Fest either. I’d been asked to say a few words on stage and introduce an act: Terry Haggerty of the Sons of Champlin. And, I was told, I’d be sharing the mike with none other than Danny Glover. Read More »

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