Gene Sculatti
Gene wrote the first article in a national magazine on the San Francisco scene (Crawdaddy, 1966). He has subsequently written for Creem, Mojo, the Los Angeles Times and numerous other publications. He served as Editor of Radio & Records (1974) and Editorial Director for Warner Bros. Records, where he oversaw the label’s ad copywriting and the publications Circular and Waxpaper (1975-81). Between 1991 and 2003, he was Director of Special Issues at Billboard and, from 2005 to 2006, Managing Editor of Ice magazine. Gene is the author of The Catalog of Cool, Too Cool, San Franciscan Nights: The Psychedelic Music Trip and The 100 Best-Selling Albums of the ’60s . From 1982 to 1987, he co-hosted "The Cool & the Crazy" radio program on KCRW-FM. He has written liner notes for more than 100 albums, is a frequent contributor to the site www.SonicBoomers.com, and, as DJ "Vic Tripp," he hosts the weekly radio show Atomic Cocktail at www.Luxuriamusic.com.
List of articles in the library by artist
5th Dimension, The: The 5th Dimension: Up, Up and Away/Magic Garden
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Records, 2006
IT'S NO SECRET that time has a way of erasing details and leaving our memories with only the broadest contours of our shared experience. Most ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, September 1974
MOST EUROPEANS would, quite rightly, give their balls to suck Slurpees at a 7-11 or grow up absurd on Yankee turf, but they don't get ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, February 1973
Come on. You didn't think ‘Horse With No Name’ and ‘Ventura Highway’ would get these guys voted into the pantheon of CSN&Y Springalopoco second-liners where ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino Records, 1986
No 'bout a doubt it, Mr. A has shaken a lot of action. He cut his first hit, a nifty nine-million seller, at fifteen, wrote ...
Bay City Rollers, The: The Bay City Rollers: Bay City Rollers
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, December 1975
THE ARCHIES WERE the most radical rock 'n' roll group of the last seven years. And it's about time everybody owned up to their considerable ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Smiley Smile and Friends
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Reprise Records, 1974
Oddly enough, while thumbing through my record collection for these two albums, so that I might fashion a more perfect set of introductory notes, I ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Wild Honey and 20/20
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Reprise Records, 1974
Somewhere right now someone is listening to the Beach Boys for the very first time. And somewhere else, someone is playing a Beach Boys record ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: A California Saga
Essay by Gene Sculatti, Greg Shaw, Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, May 1973
The Revival of Coastal Consciousness featuring The Beach Boys, Dean Torrance, California, American Spring ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: At The Anaheim Convention Center, California
Live Review by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, January 1974
WHERE ELSE could the Beach Boys preface a performance of 'Surfer Girl' with, "on our way down here tonight, we passed within two blocks of ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, Orange County
Live Review by Gene Sculatti, Rock's Backpages, June 2012
"THERE'S SOMETHING RIDICULOUS about a 70-year-old man going out there and singing 'Fun, Fun, Fun.'" So said my wife last week when I told her ...
Beach Boys, The: Villains and Heroes: In Defense of the Beach Boys
Essay by Gene Sculatti, Jazz & Pop, September 1968
BRIAN WILSON AND COMPANY are currently at the center of an intense contemporary rock controversy, involving the academic "rock as art" critic-intellectuals, the AM-tuned teenies, ...
Beach Boys, The, Jan & Dean: Surfin' USA
Retrospective by Gene Sculatti, Let It Rock, August 1973
THOUGH it’s hard to believe, there actually was a time when youth simply signified non-adult status. Adults and youth each held to their own preferences, ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, June 1973
YEARS AGO, Mad ran a feature on "What Kind of Parents Will Today's Teenagers Make?" It depicted a pair of graying, pot-bellied rockers in leathers, ...
Blue Oyster Cult: Agents Of Fortune (Island)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, September 1976
It’s back-to-the-roots for the Oysters this time; the roots being the band’s late-’60s incarnation as the Stalk-Forrest Group. Which is to say, Agents Of Fortune ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, October 1973
I DON'T KNOW if there's any correlation between Brownsville Station's oddly misplaced power chords on parts of their new album and the band's misreading of ...
Tony Bruno: Beguiled By Bruno – My Great-Lost-Album Trip
Retrospective and Interview by Gene Sculatti, Scram, 1998
IT'S LONELY out here.Apart from the people who recorded it, I've never met anyone who's ever really known about this unusual album, first released 30 ...
Lindsey Buckingham: Law And Order (Elektra)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, February 1982
ONE WAY TO assess the relative merits of any time frame is the measurable presence of oddballs. And, hey, it's no secret that oddball content ...
Burt Bacharach: At This Time: Burt Bacharach
Report and Interview by Gene Sculatti, ICE, November 2005
AFTER 40-PLUS YEARS, one of America's greatest songwriters finally has something to say. Which is not to suggest that songs like 'Close to You' or ...
Jerry Butler: The Ice Man Cometh/Ice On Ice
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collectors Choice Music, November 2006
As well as being two classic albums of '60s pop-soul, The Ice Man Cometh and Ice on Ice comprise a tale of two cities – ...
Byrds, The, Beach Boys, The: Gary Usher
Interview by Gene Sculatti, Scram, 2002
Gary Usher In Conversation With Gene Sculatti January 1971 ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Records, 2010
AS A SONGWRITER, singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Jorge Calderon has amassed a list of credits that would easily qualify him for a master's degree in ...
Captain Beefheart: The Dust Blows Forward, 'N The Dust Blows Back: Remembering Beefheart
Memoir by Gene Sculatti, recordmecca.com, December 2010
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE for me to think what the world would be without Captain Beefheart's music in it. Amidst the bad news, the good is that ...
Carpenters, The: The Carpenters: Now And Then
Review by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, July 1973
YOU CAN'T DEPEND on anybody these days. Once you make your mind up about some group or other, they change their act or audience response ...
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Mardi Gras (Fantasy)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, May 1972
CREEDENCE AGAIN. Their sixth or seventh LP, the first minus Tom Fogerty on rhythm, the first with Stu Cook and Doug Clifford contributing songs and ...
Damned, The: The Damned: The Damned
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, April 1981
THE GOOD NEWS is that England's surviving punk pioneers have released their most accessible album to date. Songs like ‘Dr. Jekyll’ and ‘Wait For The ...
Neil Diamond: Hot August Night (MCA)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, March 1973
YEAH, IT IS pretty dismal. Yeah, there's a dearth of R&R and a wealth of vacuous pap for the most part. Yep, old ND has ...
Dictators, The: The Dictators: Manifest Destiny
Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, August 1977
IT WOULDN'T BE hard. One could assemble a tidy list of contemporary Major Acts whose initial fate it was to be cast as "critics' favorites": ...
Dion: Bronx Blues — The Columbia Recordings (1962-1963)
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Sony/Columbia Records, 1991
"Rock 'n' roll started as rebellious music. It had an attitude, and in that attitude was a lot of stuff: anger, frustration, joy, and that ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, EMI/Right Stuff, 1993
"I've got my J-200 there with me. That's the big Gibson, like the kind the Everly Brothers had custom-made for them. So beautiful. The case ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, EMI/Right Stuff, 1993
One of the few good things left in the current morass of ‘oldies’ radio is the element of surprise. In a world where the same ...
Dion: The Wanderer Walks with the Blues
Interview by Gene Sculatti, ICE, Winter 2005
IT'S A SHAME that, these days, a singer this good needs a qualifier. Until the arrival of Celine, there was only one Dion — Dion ...
Drifters, The: The Drifters: I'll Take You Where The Music's Playing (Collectors' Choice Music)
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collectors' Choice Music, August 2007
IF THE MID-'60s "Brill Building era" – when teams like Goffin-King, Bacharach-David and Mann-Weil wrote like what seemed two-thirds of the hits in Top 40 ...
Overview by Gene Sculatti, Scram, 2000
The All-Time Top 10 'Next Dylans': Monkee, Punkers, Bubblegum King: They Wished That For Just One Time They Could Stand Inside His Shoes ...
Eggs Over Easy: Good 'N' Cheap (A & M)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, January 1973
SOMETIMES IT GETS downright hard to remain cynical. Witness this latest destined-for-obscurity near-masterpiece (produced by Link Wray) from three former Berkeley folkies who pulled out ...
Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids: Flash Cadillac: Sons of the Beaches
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, January 1976
What lame-o group is finally going to win the distinction of recording The Last ‘Fifties’ Song of the Seventies? Just when I thought the sub-genre ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, December 1975
IT'S BEEN TEN or twelve years since the East Bay Golliwogs traipsed onto some crepe-strewn highschool gym floor and set up, almost a decade since ...
John Fogerty, Creedence Clearwater Revival: John Fogerty: The Long Road Home
Interview by Gene Sculatti, ICE, October 2005
IT'S NOT HARD TO UNDERSTAND how a popular artist might tire of singing the words to his biggest hits after decades of doing so. Year ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, October 1981
This is what? These guys’ second or third LP since Mick Jones publicly declared F’gner ain’t dinosaurs and that they were really starting to get, ...
Frijid Pink: All Pink Inside (Fantasy)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, November 1974
WHAT DO you do if you're a certified and stamped One Hit Wonder? It depends. You can only play out your hit for so long; ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, March 1975
IF THERE'S A SINGLE behavioral pattern which has emerged over the last four years of pop music, it's the reinstatement of the song, not the ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino Records, 1986
Hey, come on in. Glad you could make it. Gonna be a great party (take your coat?) Lesley'll be here in a minute. She's over ...
Profile and Interview by Gene Sculatti, Creem, February 1975
"I'll kill your kid sister,I'll murder your dadI'll rip the lashes off your eyes,I'll slaughter all your cattle,And I'll burn your cropsIf you're dancin' with ...
Guess Who, The: The Guess Who: Power in the Music
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, October 1975
RIGHT OFF THE BAT, the one thing you can say for Power in the Music is that it is everything last year's predecessor Flavours wasn't, ...
Guess Who, The: The Guess Who: The Best of The Guess Who, Vol. II
Review by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, March 1974
HE PLAYS PIANO as well as Nicky Hopkins Jerry Lee, When he sang 'Running Bear' he sounded like a cross between the late great Jimboy ...
Harper's Bizarre: Harpers Bizarre: Feelin’ Groovy
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Warner Bros. Records, 1997
"The object of A&R is to give people what they want to have, not what you think they might like to hear." Thus spoke a ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Sony/Epic Records, 1991
As with most successful artists, Screamin' Jay Hawkins career hung on lots of ifs... It might not have happened at all if his first manager ...
Deon Jackson: Love Makes the World Go Round
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice, 2006
IF YOU HAVE TO BE remembered as a one-hit wonder, it helps if the hit was a wonderful one, a unique-sounding record from what was ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, February 1981
IS JOE JACKSON as tired of goofing on wacky 50's graphics as I am? Apparently not, because Beat Crazy sports the squarest, most cliched cover ...
Report by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, September 1974
"You know they're either out surfin' or they've got a party goin'..." ...
Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead: San Francisco Bay Rock
Guide by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, 1966
The San Francisco rock scene is a complex one. It is a plentiful jumble of hard rock, folk-rock, blues-rock, bubble-gum, and adult bands that have ...
Retrospective by Gene Sculatti, Rock's Backpages, September 2010
LAST SATURDAY, paging through an article on Robert Plant in the September issue of MOJO, I learned that, upon their initial meeting in a Dublin ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, August 1982
REMEMBER THE 70's? Not much of a decade, you say. Yeah, well. Fella here used to be a mover and a shaker back in the ...
Ben E. King: Supernatural and Benny And Us
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Records, 2009
BY NOW IT'S A TRUISM that F. Scott Fitzgerald got it wrong when he said, "There are no second acts in American lives." Sure, lots ...
Profile and Interview by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, May 1975
EXTRAORDINARY OR just plain down to earth great, there's something about the name Ben E. King and his powerful voice that conjures up one hell ...
Larry Williams: That Larry Williams (Real Gone Music)
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Real Gone Music, 2013
IT'S NOT JUST because he has such a common name. A quick Google search turns up a Larry Williams who's "an American author and commodity ...
Little Feat: Feats Don't Fail Me Now (Warner Bros.)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, October 1974
HERE THEY come again, those six hazy L.A. razor boys with the penchant for wry lyrics and poppin' their thang in public. Still intact, still ...
Lonnie Mack: The Hills of Indiana
Review by Gene Sculatti, Fusion, December 1971
"FOR BEST results, this record should be played more than once." Maybe Elektra should've included that tip in the liner notes. ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Music, July 2008
"I WAS 12 years old when I first heard Frankie Lymon singing 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love' on my grandmother's radio," wrote Ronnie Spector ...
Madonna: The Immaculate Collection
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Sire Records, 1990
"The Coolest Queen of White Heat"... "An outrageous blend of Little Orphan Annie, Margaret Thatcher and Mae West"... "Narcissistic, brazen, comic... the Goddess of the ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Wailers, The: The Wailers: Catch A Fire
Review by Gene Sculatti, Fusion, May 1973
AFTER ALL THESE veers, a new Wailers' LP! But wait, Catch A Fire doesn't have anything to do with those soggy Seattle-ites who rocked hot ...
Marshall Tucker Band, The: Marshall Tucker Band: Where We All Belong (Capricorn)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, April 1975
DID RANDY NEWMAN have the mystic Tucks in mind when he went and dedicated that album to Good Old Boys? Maybe so. ...
Marshall Tucker Band, The: The Marshall Tucker Band: A New Life
Review by Gene Sculatti, Fusion, June 1974
I used to have a band like this one once. Yeah. Five guys trying to work into that storm 'n' lull Grateful Dead groove. Organ, ...
Mason Williams: The Mason Williams Phonograph Record
Review by Gene Sculatti, Rolling Stone, September 1968
THE RECORDING DEBUT of Mason Williams is an intriguing affair. The Mason Williams Phonograph Record was released many months ago but only recently has it ...
Clyde McPhatter, Drifters, The: Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Music, August 2007
"I fell in love with the man's voice. I toured with the group and watched Clyde and listened; finally I got a chance to join ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, April 1974
I SUPPOSE YOU could call Terry Melcher's long awaited solo debut an extension of California rock and the "West Coast Sound." After all, he was ...
John Mellencamp: John Cougar: No wonder he's feeling so up
Interview by Gene Sculatti, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, August 1982
Who is John Cougar and why are people saying these things about him? Critics are calling him a shameless Mick Jagger mimic and the Rich ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, August 1977
ALONG WITH THE New Wave, there seems to be a related roots discovery phenomenon taking place: the full scale re-examination of mid-'60s pop R&B that ...
Mink DeVille: Where Angels Fear to Tread
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Music, May 2008
PEOPLE TALK. When they talk about the music of Willy DeVille, they say things like "DeVille's talents transcend all trends. He fuses blues, rock and ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Sundazed Music Inc., July 2007
"There was a definite shock value in hearing the Grape open up with a sound that you did not so much hear as feel in ...
Mothers Of Invention, The, Frank Zappa: Frank Zappa: The Freak-Out List (Chrome Dreams)
Film/DVD Review by Gene Sculatti, Ugly Things, 2010
YOU GOTTA HAND it to the folks at Chrome Dreams. Recognizing a good thing, they've come up with yet another "unauthorized" Zappa title (their fifth, ...
The Orlons: Wah Watusi and South Street
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice, 2010
IF THEY'RE LUCKY, most decades get a handle–not right at birth, but usually by the time they grow up a little and let us know ...
Van Dyke Parks: Discover America
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, October 1972
WHATEVER BECAME of Ars Nova, the United States of America. Neon Philharmonic or the Fifty Foot Hose? Less than five years ago, "art-rock" projects like ...
Quicksilver Messenger Service: Quicksilver
Profile by Gene Sculatti, Fusion, April 1972
The once-famous logo, "May the Baby Jesus Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Mind," has been supplanted by an outsized plastic marquee proclaiming ‘Summer of ...
Ramones, The: The Ramones: Ramones
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, August 1976
"I don't wanna walk around with youI don't wanna walk around with youI don't wanna walk around with youSo why you wanna walk around with ...
Rascals, The: The Rascals: The Definitive Rascals
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino, February 2007
"THE FIRST ALBUM wasn't us," Felix Cavaliere confided to Hit Parader magazine in 1968. "It was our interpretation of other people's music. 'Good Lovin'' was ...
Raspberries, The: The Raspberries: Starting Over (Capitol)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, September 1974
MAYBE YOU had 'em pegged wrong, in the matching mod suits, Eric Carmen mincing like the late Paul McC with an Ohio accent. But hey, ...
Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers: Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers
Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, October 1976
WHAT WE HAVE here, as every pop observer knows, is a four-piece band led by a highly eccentric singer-songwriter full of inspiration and highly visible ...
Righteous Brothers, The: The Righteous Brothers: Give It To The People (Haven)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, October 1974
THEY DID it in Las Vegas and they sure do it here. Recombine their talents, hop into the saddle with strong material and take hold ...
Johnny Rivers: Road (Atlantic)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, July 1974
THE PROBLEM with being an Interpretive talent (as opposed to a one-man writer-singer show) is that you're ultimately dependent on the material you select to ...
Johnny Rivers: The Folks Dancin' There Were All Shook Up
Profile by Gene Sculatti, Phonograph Record, October 1972
IF THE SEVENTIES are starting out, as they appear to be, making good on the debts incurred against all the various minorities over the years, ...
Ruben and the Jets: Ruben & The Jets: For Real! (Mercury)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Music World, June 1973
AS DEBUTS GO, this is a competently performed, surely inoffensive first try, but it's not the oldies revamp its title implies. The problem is, it's ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino Records Anthology, April 2006
Brooks & Dunn? Outkast? Big & Rich? Where are the duos of today? Sure, there are duet performances, and tons of hits by so-and-so ...
Sanford-Townsend Band: The Sanford-Townsend Band: Smoke From A Distant Fire
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Real Gone Records, 2012
IT'S A FUNNY THING about brass rings. Sometimes they come round and we pass on them, forever locked out of a future that might've been. ...
Profile and Interview by Gene Sculatti, USA Today, August 2006
"THE EASTERN WORLD, it is explodin'/ Violence flarin,' bullets loadin'." Some things never change. ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Fusion, November 1971
She's got long black hairAnd a big black carI know what you're thinkin'But you won't get far!She's gonna make you itch'Cause she's a witch! ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, November 1972
"Like Sonny Bono will never know what happened when it's all over. He'll never know why it happened, because he didn't know what happened to ...
Sopwith Camel: The Sopwith Camel
Retrospective by Gene Sculatti, Arkadia, November 2005
TIMING, AS THEY SAY, is everything. The adage is just as applicable to the realms of commerce and marketing as it is to creative inspiration. ...
Ringo Starr: Blast From Your Past (Capitol)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, March 1976
IT'S HARD TO figure our just what constitutes the biggest detriment to a healthy music scene these days; the dearth of flesh & blood artists ...
Swamp Dogg: Have You Heard This Story??
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, June 1975
IN ONE SENSE Jerry ‘Swamp Dogg’ Williams suffers from the same ailment which all but debilitated acts like Slade or Roxy or (until recently) Randy ...
Troggs, The: The Troggs: The Troggs
Review by Gene Sculatti, Creem, October 1975
I DON'T KNOW about anybody else, but this is one I've been waiting for ever since I caught Reg Presley, 20 pounds overweight and stuffed ...
Turtles, The: The Turtles: The Turtles (Happy Together Again) (Sire)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, December 1974
ITEM: THE Turtles' It Ain't Me Babe album cover was one of the first to recognize and promptly display rock 'n roll fatty tissue, at ...
Frankie Valli, Four Seasons, The: The Four Seasons: 25th Anniversary
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino Records, 1987
"... He turned on his record player, dressed up in his sharpest clothes, and practiced dancing as if as long as Kookie Byrnes or Cousin ...
Van Morrison: Magic Time: Van the Man's New Lucky 13
Review and Interview by Gene Sculatti, ICE, May 2005
THE ARTIST who famously proclaimed It's Too Late to Stop Now means what he says. In 1974, when Van Morrison used the phrase for the ...
Bobby Vee, Bobby Darin: Was 1960 Really The Worst Pop Year Ever?
Retrospective by Gene Sculatti, Rock's Backpages, March 2010
KIDS TODAY. And the music they listen to! As I write, Billboard's (U.S.) Top 10 features three songs with the F-word in their title, one ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: Velvet Underground Live With Lou Reed (Mercury)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, July 1974
THE GREATEST thing about Lou Reed is that, until recently, his lyrical vocabulary was the perfect compliment to his music. His capacity in both depts. ...
Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps: The Bop That Just Won't Stop
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, August 1974
FOR THE MOST PART, the continuing "rock 'n roll revival" phenomenon we've been witnessing these past 5 years is a pretty shabby affair. What with ...
Barry White: Can't Get Enough (20th Century)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, November 1974
YOU KNOW, I've heard people say that too much of anything isn't good for you. But I don't know about that, 'cause the fact is, ...
Brian Wilson: Gettin' in Over My Head
Report by Gene Sculatti, ICE, June 2004
WITH A RESILIENCE REMINISCENT of that battery-powered bunny or California's governor in his biggest pre-politics role, Brian Wilson is back – again. Fresh on the ...
List of genre pieces
MOR's Adventures in the Lands of Pop and Rock
Overview by Gene Sculatti, Scram, 2005
STAN CORNYN'S liner notes to Buddy's in a Brand New Bag, middle-of-the-road singer Buddy Greco's 1967 LP, tell it all: "Now the hip Mr. Greco ...
‘Home Runs, No Bunts’ — Solar Power On The Rise
Interview by Gene Sculatti, Los Angeles Times, December 1981
Does the Stones' latest album fail to start you up? Has your affair cooled with the New Romantics? You say you didn't grow up to ...
Fillmore: The Last Days (Rhino Entertainment)
Film/DVD Review by Gene Sculatti, SonicBoomers.com, April 2009
IT WENT OUT with a whimper, not a bang. Bill Graham's July 1971 decision to close Fillmore West surely didn't pass unnoticed, but the shuttering ...
Everybody Needs Somebody To Hate: A History Of L.A. Punk Rock
Overview by Gene Sculatti, Creem, October 1981
"For God's sake, is that all you people in L.A. want to hear: aggressive lyrics and a raging guitar?!"– Chris Stein ...
Mojo Navigator: Memories of Mojo
Retrospective by Gene Sculatti, Scram, 2000
SAN FRANCISCO, 1966. This was a long time ago. The Grateful Dead swung hard, fast and scary, and Peter Albin's demented LSD-preacher stalked stages as ...
Rockin' on the Outskirts: S.F. Rock Beyond the Ballrooms
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino, October 2006
Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets box (Rhino) ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Edsel Records, 1986
It was no Sun Records. It wasn't Philles or Dimension, or Cameo-Parkway or even Big Top. But Autumn Records surely qualifies as one of America's ...
Various Artists: THE T.A.M.I. Show (Shout Factory)
Film/DVD Review by Gene Sculatti, Ugly Things, 2009
FIRST OFF, any regular reader of this publication whose home doesn't house a copy of this DVD–man, where are you at? Filmed before a Santa ...
Comment by Gene Sculatti, LCD, November 1999
Who's the perp?Somebody must've done this. ...
Yesterday Once More: Digging the Fifties Revival in the 1970s
Retrospective by Gene Sculatti, Scram, 2006
ANY GOOD STUDENT of pop-music history knows what happened in the 1970s: The broken bricks from the aesthetic street-fights of the '60s were scooped up ...
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