The Burk(e) Supremacy

You all should be catching VH1's "Heavy: The Story of Heavy Metal" because it features genius jazz/metal/noise scribe Greg Burk as one of its talking heads. Here's his latest on the festival of Ozzmociousness, and metal shows in general. Episode one has him detailing the elaborate home-brewed prosthetic that allowed Black Sabbath's Tommy Iommi to play guitar after a terrible industrial accident and change all of our lives. Don't know about the weird, possibly wrong, spelling of his name, tho.
I just hope they put on Lonn Friend, and maybe even do their homework and get the tireless Martin Popoff as well.

But I love that Greg Burk the best. There. I said it.

Grant McClennan, RIP

He passed away May 6 in his sleep.

Poptones' memorial.

Never the greatest singers, the Go-Betweens always had a way with a delicate, memorable melody and an awkward, evocative lyric. While their later stuff was hit and miss to me, the early 80s trio of "Send Me A Lullaby", "Before Hollywood" and "Spring Hill Fair" would be envied by many a lesser band. (Hell, most of them would have amputated limbs to write "Cattle and Cane".) McClennan's most interesting work to me after the Go-Betweens was his collaboration with the Church's Steve Kilby, the maddeningly uneven Jack Frost. At their worst, the duo magnified each others' flaws, but when they were on, there were stunning beautiful songs like "Running From The Body" and "Civil War Lament" that are worth scouring the bargain bins for. A veteran of that uncalculated era when art, punk and pop made gawky and yet lovely new hybrids; we'll miss him around there parts.