There have always been two Woodstocks – the event and the myth.

Woodstock the event consisted of lots of rain, little food, bad acid, and sometimes bad music.  Woodstock the myth, according to festival promoter Michael Lang, gave young Americans “a sense of possibility and hope” that “spread around the globe.”

Lang’s long-awaited memoir, The Road to Woodstock, sheds new light on the event even as it offers more undeserved hoke about the importance of those three days at Bethel, NY in August 1969. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Bill Bruford Autobiography, definitive reading for progressive music fans, jazz fans, music practitioners from the novice to the professional, this book is the 21st century musician's survival guide. (Photo permission courtesy of Bill Bruford)

A few posts ago, I wrote about Bill Bruford, announcing his retirement from public performance as of the first of this year.  I was angry, I was hurt, I felt abandoned, and most of all I was disappointed that one of the primary warriors of mundane music had laid down his small wooden swords for the last time.  I could not understand why the world’s greatest drummer would hang it up while he was still undeniably a force in the industry, the industry he labels as “the industry of human happiness”.

Sometimes you need a good autobiography to make things clear, to garner the inside perspective.  But be warned, and I was taken aback by what I encountered, the ending of this book is not what you would expect from a player of Bruford’s qualifications.

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