Author Archives: Tony Hicks
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Insert Foot: Musicians don’t catch viruses when cats wear pants
Insert Foot vs. the COVID test and conspiracy theories. Smell that? We have to get the cat fixed. I don’t get where an animal not smart enough to wear clothes in November gets such a sense of entitlement. The cat just peed in a no-urine zone again, my daughter says.…
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Insert Foot: Scandanavian metal, vintage soul and other 2020 surprises
Insert Foot vs. the Best of 2020. We’re starting the process of creating our year-end best-of lists at RIFF, which, for concerts at least, should be the easiest year-end list in human history. The process for this one goes something like this: Did you go to a concert in…
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Insert Foot: Math, meth, Megan, Machine Gun Kelly and more important questions
By the logic of Machine Gun Kelly, this column will be a hit. Welcome to another installment of … what should we call this? Things I write about when my attention span equals a housefly on really good meth? Strike that. There’s no such thing as good meth, kids.…
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ALBUM REVIEW: Just when we discounted AC/DC, they’re back to ‘Power Up’
For AC/DC to even put out a new record in 2020 is a serious accomplishment. Power Up AC/DC Columbia Records, Nov. 13 7/10 Just in the past few years, the band’s musical backbone, Malcom Young, died in 2017. Brian Johnson had hearing problems severe enough to send him to…
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Insert Foot: How music can heal moving forward
Insert Foot calling for healing after the presidential election. When I went from writing about news to music, I had no idea what I was about to experience. And that was strange. I understood how much music meant to me and my crowd. Almost every memory for us was…
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Insert Foot: What would Sean Connery do on Election Day?
Insert Foot ruminates on how Sean Connery’s James Bond would handle the 2020 election. You OK? I hope so. Halloween on a full moon was just the warm-up act, I’m afraid. That’s not just a cliché. I’m always afraid this time of year. But no one is saying I have…
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Insert Foot: Expect talk of reopening venues sooner rather than later
Insert Foot vs. resisting the urge, Bayshore Drive-in. INA Photo Agency/Getty Images. Burlingame’s Bayshore Drive-in is hosting drive-in concerts during these days of whine and COVID. Which is nice … they just had Major Lazer play, and even have some comedy acts coming up. But … One of the editors…
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REVIEW: ‘Love is the King’ is OK for Jeff Tweedy, a genius with time on his hands
Love is the King, the new record from Jeff Tweedy, is really lazy Saturday music, for when you have nowhere to be and the clocks might as well be busted. Love is the King Jeff Tweedy dBpm Records, Oct. 23 6/10 It’s not even lazy Sunday music, the sounds…
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REVIEW: Bruce Springsteen rocks while looking back on hopeful ‘Letter to You’
There’s typically an inner dialogue happening when serious Bruce Springsteen fans hear a new record the first time, especially one on which he unleashes the power of the E Street Band and its version of the wall of sound. Letter To You Bruce Springsteen Columbia, Oct. 23 8/10 It…
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Insert Foot: Stuck with ‘Halloween 2018’ in 2020 until the COVID coast is clear
Left: Tony Hicks in the ’80s. Right: Tony Hicks in “Halloween 2018.” I went to a movie for the first time in eight months on Friday night. It felt … weird. I think paying for a film with Michael Myers as the protagonist, when I had once been paid…
