Rock Music

Look, I don't like it any more than you do. But it's time to face the music. Or at least its decline. If rock 'n' roll is not dead, its demise is rapidly being hastened by these 10 factors: 1. Rock 'n' roll halls of fame, museums and exhibits have turned a vital youth movement into an aged, tiring museum piece. 2. With both AM and FM rock stations dominated by oldies as a way to chase an aging population demographic, rock radio is going the way of big band music and "Music of Your Life."

Nineteen years ago Friday, the singer for the most important American rock band of the '90s died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Seattle home. Kurt Cobain was only 27, leaving behind his wife Courtney Love and daughter Frances Bean Cobain.  His legacy includes recording one of the most influential catalogs in rock music, upending the music business by proving an indie-inspired act could become a blockbuster, defining a generation's style and proving that the loudest, heaviest band in rock could also be one of its most feminist and introspective.

Nineteen years ago Friday, the singer for the most important American rock band of the '90s died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Seattle home. Kurt Cobain was only 27, leaving behind his wife Courtney Love and daughter Frances Bean Cobain.  His legacy includes recording one of the most influential catalogs in rock music, upending the music business by proving an indie-inspired act could become a blockbuster, defining a generation's style and proving that the loudest, heaviest band in rock could also be one of its most feminist and introspective.

Paul Williams was returning to his dorm room when a fellow student relayed a message that was radical even for the 1960s: "Hey, Williams! You got a phone call from Bob Dylan. " Not long before, it was Paul Simon who had rung Williams up on the hallway pay phone. He too wanted to let the Swarthmore College freshman know how much he enjoyed his writing. At 17, Williams was the founder and editor of Crawdaddy, a tiny journal of rock criticism whose first edition he mimeographed in a friend's Brooklyn basement and distributed to record stores, clubs and concert halls.

Despite its long-held reputation as the most aesthetically minded nation in the civilized West, Italy has never been able to produce a decent, well-known rock band. With (H)itweek L.A., Rome-based music promoter Francesco Del Maro is hoping to change that. "My main goal is to show the world we're not just about the mandolino," said Del Maro, 37, who is behind the Italian music and culture festival that comes to town this week and concludes Sunday. "We have very successful artists, from rock to heavy metal to reggae to world music.

“Rock of Ages,” the Broadway musical that's also been made into a movie starring Tom Cruise, has landed in Las Vegas as the latest in a line of productions to be formatted for the Sin City stage.  Its website says the two-hour performance celebrates the "great rock music of the '80s. " It's set along the Sunset Strip and tells the tale of two young people -- Drew (Justin Mortelliti) and Sherrie (Carrie St. Louis) -- who move to Los Angeles in 1987 to pursue their dreams.

Hopes that the three surviving Beatles would stage a mini-reunion at Wednesday night's third annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction dinner were dashed by Paul McCartney. And that led to some bad vibrations from the Beach Boys' Mike Love.

He walks with a slight limp. In a twisted way, that's refreshing: At 67, a man should show some wear and tear, and when you're dealing with Dick Clark, you take that wear and tear wherever you can find it. Even if it's nothing more than the lingering effects of a mishap when he stepped out of an RV. * At any rate, Clark limps slightly as he mounts the stairs to the stage of the Shrine Auditorium.

The singer's voice was deep, and the lyrics echoing Wednesday from a cliff in Malibu were haunting. "Wheels keep turning, and they're taking me far away," sang Chris Williams on a CD being played from a van with a bumper sticker reading "Backbone69." "Wheels keep turning, and they're taking me far away. . . ."

Now it's rock music as a weapon against Washington state sea lions (Part A, Jan. 29)! Where's the SPCA? AL HIX Hollywood

Want to learn something new about music mogul Clive Davis ? Well, as of Feb. 19, there's Davis' new book written with veteran Rolling Stone writer Anthony deCurtis, “The Soundtrack of My Life,” which offers 608 pages of reflections by the former head of Columbia, Arista and J Records, and now chief creative officer for Sony Music. That volume is already generating plenty of media interest, in no small part to Davis' revelation that he is bisexual -- a topic that doesn't crop up in another new tome released last month, “Clive: Working for the Man in the Age of Vinyl.” It's labeled “a memoir,” and rightfully so, because despite the placement of Davis' name so prominently in the title, it's really less any sort of analysis or expose about the record industry titan than a soul-searching reflection by author Don Silver, who spent two years in the late '70s and early  '80s working for Davis as he was building Arista into a pop and R&B powerhouse after being fired from Columbia.

The structure is simple, the guitar riffs basic, the lyrics at best inane, but the Troggs' " Wild Thing" remains a garage-rock classic more than 45 years after its 1966 release made the British group and lead singer Reg Presley international stars. Presley, whose raunchy, suggestive voice powered the paean to teenage lust, died Monday at his Andover, England, home after a yearlong struggle with lung cancer, his agent, Keith Altham, announced. He was 71. Part of the British invasion spurred by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Troggs perfected a simple, hard-driving approach to the three-minute rock song that was miles away from the lyrical art-rock of the Beatles.

“Rock of Ages,” the Broadway musical that's also been made into a movie starring Tom Cruise, has landed in Las Vegas as the latest in a line of productions to be formatted for the Sin City stage.  Its website says the two-hour performance celebrates the "great rock music of the '80s. " It's set along the Sunset Strip and tells the tale of two young people -- Drew (Justin Mortelliti) and Sherrie (Carrie St. Louis) -- who move to Los Angeles in 1987 to pursue their dreams.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is getting a new chief executive, with its vice president of development Gregory S. Harris succeeding longtime President and CEO Terry Stewart at the helm when Stewart steps down at the end of this year. Board chair William W. Rowley, who headed a seven-member search committee that began in May after Stewart announced his decision to retire at the end of the year, said of Harris:  “His passion for music, his tremendous success as our head of development and his strong track record at the Baseball Hall of Fame provide an outstanding combination of skills that will help drive the continued success of the museum.” Before joining the rock hall in 2008, Harris spent 14 years at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Anyone curious about his rock music credentials need only look back to the 1980s, when he and a partner launched and operated the Philadelphia Record Exchange retail store, where he exploited a lifelong passion for rock, blues, soul, country, folk, punk and other branches of pop music.

John Cameron Mitchell's rock musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is making a comeback. An off-Broadway hit that debuted in 1998 and became a cult film starring Mitchell in 2001, the rock musical is scheduled to return for a weeklong run at the Roxy Theatre Nov. 1-7. The play previously appeared at the Roxy in 2006 for a run that starred Donovon Leitch, and Leitch will reprise his lead role as Hedwig. The story of a heartbroken, East German-born glam rocker and victim of a botched sex change that gives the play its name, "Hedwig" became the test case musical for rock fans who claimed to not like musicals thanks to its infectious songs.

San Francisco's Imperial Teen and funkmaster bassist Thundercat will be among the artists drawing porkpie-hatted connoisseurs of electronic music, indie rock and a grab-bag of other genres to the 14th annual Eagle Rock Music Festival, Saturday, Oct. 6 from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. More than 70 bands and DJs spread across 11 different themed stages and spaces will converge on Colorado Boulevard between Argus Drive and Eagle Rock Boulevard for the event,...

I've long considered Ellen Willis something of a hero. I hope I live longer than she did (Willis died in 2006, at 64), but otherwise, it's an exemplary life. She was the first pop music critic of the New Yorker, writing 56 pieces for the magazine from 1968 to 1975 that trace her relationship with "music that boldly and aggressively laid out what the singer wanted, loved, hated ... [and] challenged me to do the same. " In the mid-1970s, she began to focus less on music and more on feminism and her own stunning brand of liberation politics, becoming an editor and writer at the Village Voice and later founding the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at NYU. Her writing is rigorous, unrelenting, in your face: not in the sense of mindless provocation but because she was so smart.

A four-alarm fire roared through a building owned by rock music impresario Bill Graham today, destroying music memorabilia and causing $1 million in damage, authorities said. There were no injuries. Capt. Richard Crispen of the arson investigation team called the pre-dawn blaze "suspicious." Housed inside the building were gold records and psychedelic posters from concerts Graham promoted at the Fillmore auditorium in the 1960s, according to KCBS radio.

Given that many parts of Southern California truly experience summer heat for only a few scant weeks, it's unfortunate that two of the area's most prominent specialty music festivals, Rock the Bells and the Sunset Strip Music Festival, opted to book their big outdoor events smack in the middle of the season. But this weekend as the temperature peaks and the asphalt starts to burn, both will celebrate the past, present and future of music -- albeit with little artistic overlap. Rock the Bells has become the premier hip-hop festival for a reason: Its bookers understand that the music in 2012 is an umbrella term that encompasses many varieties and generations of fans, each of which may need a little schooling in the listening habits of the others.

Given that many parts of Southern California only truly experience summer heat for a few scant weeks, it's unfortunate that two of the area's most prominent specialty music festivals, Rock the Bells and the Sunset Strip Music Festival, opted to book their big outdoor events smack in the middle of season. But this weekend as the temperature peaks and the asphalt starts to burn, both will celebrate the past, present, and future of music - albeit with little artistic overlap. Rock the Bells has become the premier hip-hop festival for a reason: Its bookers understand that the music in 2012 is an umbrella term that encompasses many varieties and generations of fans, each of which may need a little schooling in the listening habits of the others.