Musical ramblings from the manager
Rumor has it that Robert Downey, Jr. used Elon Musk as his template for the billionaire industrialist playboy Tony Stark (see Stan Lee’s Marvel Universe under ‘A’ for Avengers and ‘I’ for Iron Man). Certainly there are differences: Stark has Pepper Potts, amazing holographic computer technology, no children, and, of course, there is that […]
“About four hours before a launch, the Falcon 9 starts getting filled with an immense amount of liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene. Some of the liquid oxygen vents out of the rocket as it awaits launch and is kept so cold that it boils off on contact with the metal and air, forming white plumes […]
David Fitzpatrick’s new album Parachutes in Hurricanes is the latest disk to make its way north from Milwaukee via Gary Tanin’s Daystorm Records. I was only able to give it a quick run through when Gary first sent it our way to preview and that is a poor way to listen to a new […]
In Part 1, we examined several ways that opening the Great Lakes to an ecological invasion of species began with the earliest attempts to ease transport of goods from the Atlantic Coast inland. Using Dan Egan’s book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes as a guide, we looked at how opening the door, […]
Prior to 1900, the Chicago River flowed into Lake Michigan carrying with it a feted cargo of sewage from the growing metropolis of the same name. Lake Michigan also served as the Chicago’s source of drinking water. The movers and shakers in the city decided the best way to solve their sewage/fresh water problem […]
According to his friend John Byrne, Gerry Rafferty, “Went through hell and arrived at his final destination with a sense of peace and fulfilment, but what a journey.” Occasional singing partner Barbara Dickson said, “He liked having money and status, and why shouldn’t he have done it? He had a image of himself being […]
“The group weren’t waiting for long before Max Faget walked into the room. Carrying a garment bag, the impish chief engineer, five feet six inches in his bow tie, jumped up on a desk in front of them. They had seen this kind of thing before from their boss, Faget was prone to performing […]
Is there a pivotal year in one’s four years of high school? Freshman year is always a swirl of new activities and if one keeps their head down and eyes open, one can learn a lot from those mature upperclassmen. Sophomore year is less of a mystery because at least some of the school […]
For some strange reason, I can’t for the life of me pass up a book or an article about a fellow drummer. The music trade magazines specifically aimed at drummers (Drummers World, Modern Drummer) will occasionally catch my eye, but after beating the skins for more than a half century, a lot of their […]
Like many other publications, Classic Rock Magazine ends each year with an issue compiling the best and worst of the previous year. In the past, I purchased my monthly copy of CRM from a bookstore and avoided this issue assuming it would be a rehash of articles from issues I had already seen. With the […]