The Fabled Automatic

Thrilled to have a guest writer contribute to this post.  Richard is my dear friend of almost 30 years and a musical 'soul mate'.  He was the first person I knew who had an apartment and our groups' frequent visits there were always centered around music.  Meeting Richard and being introduced to the music he loved was a natural extension of what I had experienced at home.  Still rooted in classic rock, Richard was a little more 'metal', a little more discerning and definitely the most opinionated person about music I had met to date.  My favorite music argument we ever has went something like this.  "The Beatles?  Forget the Beatles.  ELO actually did everything the Beatles were trying to do."  Could have been straight from the mouth of Lester Bangs.   Most importantly, Richard was the first Springsteen fanatic I had ever met.  He had stories about the Born in the USA tour, bootlegs, video tapes of performances by the band (hard to find in the empty E Stre

Guess it’s about time I wrote something before I get kicked off the staff! First, let me re-introduce myself. I just recently retired. I came of musical age in the sixties and seventies so I am pretty much steeped in genres that today are called Oldies and Classic Rock. In recent years I’ve expanded to listen to a lot more classic and contemporary jazz. I’m really glad that I have a son, and now a grandson, to nudge me into listening to music that isn’t pushing fifty years old. I recently watched the documentary “John and Yoko: Above US Only Sky” which was released in 2018. It’s a look into the lives of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during the writing and recording of John’s 1971 album Imagine. It uses both video shot at the time of the recording sessions and recent interviews with people involved in the album. (You can find it on Netflix…) Back in the day I never did jump on the “We hate Yoko because she broke up the Beatles” bandwagon. I think the musical and creative talent in the Beatle