Browsing Tag

Jimi Hendrix

Shaq’s Rap Career: A Retrospective

Call it “The Day The ‘Music’ Died.” Tuesday brought sad news for the dozens of fans who loved Shaq as a rapper (more than few people bought his debut album, which went platinum and cracked the top 40 on the Billboard 200). TMZ reports that Shaq has called time on his rap career. “Would I ever go back [to rapping?]” asked O’Neal. “No man. I’m 45 years old.”

Looks like we’ll just have our memories of MC Shaq. He can rest assured that, compared to other NBA athletes that tried to rap (Allen Iverson, Gary Payton, Ron Artest, Chris Webber, and yes, Kobe Bryant), he has had the most success.

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Presence of the Lords – A Concert Review of Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood at MSG

Concert Review:

Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood

February 25, 2008

Madison Square Garden

The knock on Eric Clapton is that he plays to the level of the musicians around him. His best days were in bands, surrounded by the likes of John Mayall and John McVie in the Bluesbreakers, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in Cream, Baker and Steve Winwood in Blind Faith, and Duane Allman, Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon and Carl Radle in Derek and the Dominos. As a solo artist, his albums and tours often turn into boring, uninspired affairs unless he’s collaborating with a talented musician that can push him, like a Mark Knopfler, a Stevie Ray Vaughan or a B.B. King.

Or a Steve Winwood. The two took part in the aforementioned Blind Faith, a supergroup whose hype far exceeded its actual output. The band, which began when Clapton and Winwood started hanging out after Cream and Traffic, their respective bands, broke up, was never intended to be anything more than an informal side project between two friends. Then Baker showed up and it turned into a “thing,” a “thing” that touched off a bidding war between record companies, a “thing” that caused riots to break out at their shows, and a “thing” that pushed Clapton away, causing said “thing” to die a premature death.

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Back to the Future – A Concert Review of U2 at MSG.

Concert Review:

U2

October 14, 2005

Madison Square Garden

It’s hard being serious all the time.

U2 realized that in 1988 after critics savaged their concert film “Rattle & Hum,” accusing the band of being pretentious and over-indulgent. It wasn’t their outspoken political views that got them in trouble. In fact one of the high points of the film was the band’s emotional performance of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” that took place hours after the Remembrance Day Bombing that killed 11 in Northern Ireland on November 8, 1987. Bono launched into an emotional rant during the middle of the song condemning the bombing and yelling “F— the revolution!”

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