{"id":26575,"date":"2023-12-31T05:30:48","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T10:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=26575"},"modified":"2023-12-31T10:30:49","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T15:30:49","slug":"musoscribes-most-popular","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/31\/musoscribes-most-popular\/","title":{"rendered":"Musoscribe’s Most Popular"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Perhaps remarkably, a look at the stats for blog.musoscribe.com shows that the most popular (as in, most-read) stories this past year are things I wrote years \u2013 sometimes many years \u2013 ago. With some 4725 entries (nearly all of which are at least 500 words in length) it stands to reason that things that have been online the longest would rank among the most popular. Of course I\u2019m gratified when anyone reads anything I\u2019ve written, be it something here, on my non-music site<\/a> or in print-only, or perhaps in the form of some 30-plus liner note essays.<\/p>\n

In any event, on this last day of the calendar year, I thought it might be interesting to list the top stories along with a brief comment about each.<\/p>\n

Question Mark & the Mysterians: Is This Guy for Real?<\/b><\/i><\/a> I wrote this feature \u2013 based on an in-person interview\/encounter \u2013 in 2009, and it first appeared in the pages of Shindig!<\/i> Magazine. All these years later, Question Mark remains at the top of my list of, er, most unique<\/em> interview subjects. The piece’s online numbers are undoubtedly helped by the fact that for many years the homepage of Q\u2019s website linked to the story (perhaps it still does).<\/p>\n

A Conversation with The Tubes\u2019 Founder Bill Spooner<\/b><\/a> Back in the days before transcription software (or a budget that allowed me to hire human transcriptionists), it often took a very long time before transcripts of my lengthiest interviews were posted online. This conversation from 2012 is one such example. Spooner left The Tubes in the \u201880s, but for me he has always been the group\u2019s creative center of gravity. Some of the funniest anecdotes I\u2019ve ever heard came from him during our chat. (You\u2019ll find the best \u2013 about \u201cBaby, Your Face is Mutated\u201d \u2013 in a later section of the multi-part interview.)<\/p>\n

Album Review: Brian Jonestown Massacre \u2013 <\/b>F<\/b><\/i>ire Doesn\u2019t Grow on Trees<\/b><\/i><\/a> I first interviewed BJM\u2019s Anton Newcombe in 2012, and found him quite unlike his notorious public image. But in early 2022 I was invited to attend a Brian Jonestown Massacre concert, and that performance was an unmitigated disaster. So bad, in fact, that I told the publicist that I wouldn\u2019t write the planned concert review. Instead, I reviewed the then-new album \u2013 a quite good<\/em> album, as it happens \u2013 but I couldn\u2019t resist including some references to the show I had seen. Lots of people read it.<\/p>\n

Yes\u2019 <\/b>Drama<\/b><\/i> at 40: A Critical Look Back at the Band\u2019s Most Controversial LP<\/b><\/a> The title says it all, really. I love Drama<\/i>, and as a serious Yes fan \u2013 one who has interviewed something like nine current or former members of the group \u2013 I believe the album deserves more respect than it receives. This 2020 piece generated a lot of interest.<\/p>\n

Straight No Chaser: All Vocals, Hold the Instruments<\/b><\/a> This one remains something of a puzzlement. The group is doubtless interesting, but the number of readers of this 2018 piece is well out of proportion with the group\u2019s popularity. Still, I\u2019m glad people read it, and I hope doing so sent them to explore the a cappella<\/em> music of Straight No Chaser.<\/p>\n

Liliac: C\u2019mon Get Metal<\/b><\/a> This family band of young metallers is talented and hard-working, and it was a fun interview. I assume their demographic skews younger than do most of my interview subjects. No word if anyone picked up on the Partridge Family reference I worked into the 2022 story\u2019s title.<\/p>\n

Climbing That Tree: The Story of She Trinity<\/b><\/a> A personal favorite, this feature was a labor of love. I had the honor of chronicling the largely untold story of one of England\u2019s few all-female rock bands, based on interviews with every available former member. That roster included bassist Pauline Moran, best known as Miss Lemon in Agatha Christie\u2019s Poirot<\/i>. Earlier this year my wife and I had the pleasure of sharing tea with Ms. Moran during a visit to London. This 2021 piece first appeared (in shorter form) a year earlier in Record Collector<\/i> Magazine.<\/p>\n

Happy New Year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps remarkably, a look at the stats for blog.musoscribe.com shows that the most popular (as in, most-read) stories this past year are things I wrote years \u2013 sometimes many years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[213,317,5296,4887,1551,5297,4638,3552,2188,2413],"class_list":["post-26575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-anton-newcombe","tag-bill-spooner","tag-brina-jonestown-massacre","tag-liliac","tag-mysterians","tag-quesiton-mark","tag-she-trinity","tag-straight-no-chaser","tag-the-tubes","tag-yes","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26575"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26645,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26575\/revisions\/26645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}