John Schaefer

I loved the original Star Trek. But all the juvenile hero-worship in the world couldn’t save Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock from the guffaws that followed when they each released albums of “covers” (a charitable term, in this case) of popular songs in the late 60s. Universal derision hasn’t stopped ...

This week's Soundcheck Smackdown is a curious one, at least to me - because I can see how both sides of the argument could be correct. Maybe you believe in climate change, maybe you don't. (Watch out for the edge of our flat planet, though.) But it is certainly possible ...

I went to a college, Fordham, that didn’t have an a cappella group, at least not as far as I know. This was on the border of the South Bronx in the late 70s, and it wasn’t the sort of place you’d expect to find an a cappella group, unless ...

How did Blender do it? How did they start compiling a list of music’s creepiest, most repulsive, often genuinely criminal people – and stop at just 25? I don’t know what it is about the music biz, but it has long been a magnet for shady characters. I suppose ...

I’ve never understood the whole tribute band thing. I also never understood the people who reenact Civil War battles, so maybe this is a blind spot of some sort… But to do someone else’s songs night after night, aping the sound of the original band, and sometimes even trying to ...

Record stores are great. If you already know what you like and what you’re looking for. Otherwise, buying music online has a huge advantage. Old-timers talk about walking into their local record shop and being intrigued by an album cover and asking the guy behind the counter to play a ...

Usually you don’t realize you’re witnessing history until time has past and events have become historic. (There are obvious exceptions.) Suze Rotolo couldn’t have known she was witnessing history when her boyfriend, a young folksinger named Bob Dylan, got a good review in the New York Times. And she certainly ...

Film scores and classical music. The question is, can the former also be considered the latter. Sort of depends on your definition of “classical music,” doesn’t it? Fully notated music for an orchestra requires the composer ...

Where are the women in rock? I happen to know they’re still out there – I share an office with one, as you may have learned in our posting last Wednesday – but Women Who Rock just don’t seem to be as visible as ...

When the Soundcheck crew went to play the videogame Rock Band, I was struck by how truly sucky I was when, as a lifelong guitarist, I picked the Rock Band guitar controller. I quickly realized, there is no correlation between playing Rock Band ...

You know the song “Heart And Soul”? Sure you do – it’s the one every beginning pianist sits down and bangs out on the keyboard at school assemblies and the like. Or maybe you don’t… what everyone knows is the chorus of “Heart And Soul.” But there are verses, verses ...

Well, I certainly don’t want to get in trouble here, but I also don’t want to get anyone else in trouble either, so I’m going to leave my all-purpose assistant, Caryn Havlik, out of this. Let me just say that even with all the music that comes into my office ...

The LA Philharmonic replaces its 40-something conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, with a 27-year old phenom named Gustavo Dudamel. The Chicago Symphony then replaces its 65-year old leader, Daniel Barenboim, with the 66-year old Riccardo Muti, a veteran, universally-respected conductor. So, which one would YOU rather ...

In 1983, just a year after starting the “New Sounds” series here at WNYC, I started playing a couple of LPs by a composer named Arthur Russell. “Tower of Meaning” was a favorite – a series of majestic, slowly-unfolding, moody instrumentals by a guy ...

Yeah, yeah, Clear Channel is bad; live, local radio is good. The huge media conglomerate owns and operates a gazillion radio stations and makes them all sound alike. They are a behemoth that crushes the smaller, more interesting stations in each market. But you know what, that wouldn’t happen IF ...

I first picked up the guitar when I was 12. Unfortunately, I picked it up left-handed. Unable to figure out how to follow the guitar lessons on public tv (we couldn’t afford real lessons), I had to let the instrument go. But I always wanted to play, and when I ...

Music is such a powerful means of expression that it’s only natural that military leaders learned early on how to use it. Want an army to march in formation? A drum will work like magic – in fact, many ancient cultures though music WAS magical, precisely because it somehow seemed ...

Dawn Upshaw is a great singer. Wow, there’s a bold statement, huh? Everyone who knows her knows she’s a great soprano. Only I didn’t say 'soprano,' I said 'singer.' One of Upshaw’s strengths is how malleable her voice is, and how versatile the persona ...

When the first issue of SPIN came out in 1985, I was one of the magazine’s editors. The decision to put Madonna on the first cover was not mine, but I agreed with it – she was already a major player, and threatened to become “important.” Which she did. There’ve ...

When Greil Marcus first published his landmark book Mystery Train in 1975, American culture was something you could talk about as a single thing. We all watched the same menu of TV shows, and pop music was truly popular –- it seemed like everyone knew the words to “American Pie,” ...