posted by david on Tue 9 Apr 2002 @ 01:03 PM

One of my favourite gigs of 1999 was Steve Earle performing with the Del McCoury Band, complete with a surprise appearance from Emmylou Harris. Between that show and his recorded work, I'd call myself a fan of what he does. Unfortunately, I can't say I enjoyed this solo and acoustic show. It seemed rather dull. His presentation of his acoustic songs sounded much the same as the recorded versions. The rock songs sounded like rock songs in need of a rock band. He did little to engage his audience, giving us one amusing story after about five songs and then another in the encore, about an hour later. While his guitar playing is quite solid it wasn't enough to sustain my interest over the full show. His gruff vocal style doesn't allow a lot of room for fresh interpretations of songs. It all sounded perfectly respectable but if I'm going to fork out $45 for a performance, I'd like to think I'm going to be entertained. I don't know, maybe I need to be more of a fan to appreciate it properly but that's a lazy argument - I think a performer always needs to balance playing for the diehard fans and playing for newcomers, if only to ensure they keep challenging themselves. Considering his talents, this one never seemed like a challenge for Steve. Disappointing.

Photos: Cos's website
Review: The Age

posted by david on Mon 8 Apr 2002 @ 10:59 AM | read or post comments (3)

The ever-creative David Bowie will be releasing his new album "Heathen" which will hit stores June 11. According to this Billboard article, both Pete Townshend and Dave Grohl have contributed stuff to it. Bowie went pretty soggy through the 80s but from somewhere around the release of "Black Tie White Noise" he's been back in experimental mode. I even enjoyed the more lowkey "hours..." (did I put the dots in the right place there?).

Reviews: Rolling Stone - Billboard

posted by david on Sun 7 Apr 2002 @ 10:20 AM

You may not have noticed but gstring has just undergone a big behind-the-scenes change. After almost two years of manually maintaining all of the code for the site, I have finally made the plunge into using a software package known as Movable Type to manage it. What does this mean for you? The key thing is that you can now comment on anything that's posted here. If I say something particularly outrageous, you can now tell me where to go. The other thing is that I'll be allowing other people to post stories here so that the site isn't quite as Dave-centric as it has been up to now. I know my tastes aren't as adventurous as perhaps they should be so hopefully the addition of other posters will at least balance my rantings. As before, even if you're not one of the official posters you're still welcome to point out interesting stories you find around the net and if we use it, we'll make sure you're properly credited. If you notice anything amiss, just holler, teething problems aren't completely unexpected.