Music is like the shorthand of history. Listen to the opening chords of “Johnny B. Goode” and one is able to conjure images of fin-tails, greased hair, and sock-hops. Or take a song like “For What It's Worth” and it is hard not to imagine hippies, protests, and love-ins,… Read full post »

 I’ve been spending the past few hours working on the second post for my “Decade in Music” series: The Decade’s Biggest Moments in Music—the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (hint: “nipplegate” is there).

See the first post in the series, The 50 Best Songs o… Read full post »

I have a vivid memory of listening to Christmas songs while my Ma would make Christmas cookies. Her two favorite were Elvis Presley’s Elvis’ Christ… Read full post »

 Here’s the plot: a lower working-class Italian-American goes the distance and takes a shot at the championship. Along the way he learns about life and love, and what he is really made of.

In 1976 Sylvester Stallone and John Avildsen brought to film the great American underdog sto… Read full post »

In Theodore Sturgeon’s classic science fiction novel “More Than Human,” the misfit heroes, shunned and scorned by society, “bl… Read full post »

As we enter the last few months of the 00s (or the Aughts or whatever the hell we're going to call this decade), Crux of the Biscuit will explore the best and worst in the past decade of music.

To kick things off I offer 50 Songs of the… Read full post »

We here at Crimes Against Rock have enjoyed the various posts of people confessing to loving horrible songs.

We’ve also had some fun in the past pointing out various artists’ own transgressions against the good name of rock n roll.

Perhaps it is time we also admitted… Read full post »

I remember I kept stopping at the stop signs.

Driving through New Orleans a week after Hurricane Katrina was like driving through the ruins of civilization. Although there was no tra… Read full post »

To Vin Diesel Mr. Gary Cherone and Ms. Mr. Nuno Bettencourt

Dear sir and madam Dear sirs, many of the women who work here at Crimes Against Rock have long taken issue with your early 90's song More Than Words. Besides the utter vapidity of this faux-Everly Brothers song,… Read full post »

Remember when you were a teenager, listening to your favorite rock record, and your parents hollered at you to “turn down that infernal racket”? Well, fa… Read full post »

The problem with many officially released live rock albums is that they usually suck. Most bands are not particularly improvisational minded and their note for note recreation of album hits can be redundant. Listening at home they sound like strange off-centered simulations of the songs you enjoyed o… Read full post »

Over the years Woodstock has morphed into mythology. It has become a culture-bearing event, an event ascribed with all the hopes and dreams of that particular generation. It often seems as though every baby-boomer danced naked in the mud at Woodstock and that Woodstock saw the greatest three days of… Read full post »

Electric Dirt by Levon Helm (Dirt Farmer Music)

Levon Helm continues his remarkable comeback with a classic album that moves, grooves, and boogie-woogies through the soul of American mu… Read full post »

Portugal. The Man:  The Satanic Satanist (released July 21, 2009 on Equal Vision Records)

Smart, trippy, and lush indie-pop from Wasilla, Alaska’s other favorite natives… Read full post »

Upon awaking from a diabetic coma in 1986 Jerry Garcia’s first words were reportedly “I’m not Beethoven.”

This story still makes me smile.

                … Read full post »

A Crux of the Biscuit Exclusive!

Is the Free Credit Report.Com Band Breaking-Up? Crux of the Biscuit peers behind the sex, drugs, and "free" credit reports for the inside story!

Since… Read full post »

Monsters of Folk (from left to right): Mike Mogis, M.Ward, Jim James, and Connor Oberst.  Album due out on 9/22/09

 Monsters of Folk have released a free download of “Say Please,”a wonderful track off t… Read full post »

“The Wall of Sound had 641 speakers…which required 26,400 watts of power coming from 55 600 watt McIntosh 2300… Read full post »

Traditional ballads are a distant link to American popular music. Being folk songs they also reveal the attitudes, values, and mores of their era. These songs reveal a h… Read full post »

For many people the idea of a “Rock n Roll Hall of Fame” museum goes against the very idea of rock… Read full post »

View of the Delaware River and Rt. 80 winding through the Water Gap from Mount Tammany. That's Mount Minsi (on the PA side) on the right. 

Unlike the Governor of South Carolina, I really do hike the Appalachian Trail. It is a special place for… Read full post »

They were heroes to a generation of rock music fans. They were our most talented and visionary artists. But, according to a shocking Congressional report to be released this week, it appears that many of rock n roll’s greatest luminaries used performance enhancing drugs to blow our collective m… Read full post »

                                        &n… Read full post »

Last night I was listening to the terrific new Todd Snider album (The Excitement Plan), when I was sidetracked by his song “America&r… Read full post »

There will probably be a lot written over the next few days and weeks about the last 20 years of Jackson’s strange and sad life&mda… Read full post »