Insert Foot and the COVID-EO. If I understand this right, live shots from a laptop pointed at your face is the new selfie, thanks to the Covid. That’s what I call it, and that’s what I’m going to call it. It’s not intended to be disrespectful. It’s just that…

Insert Foot and the hope for more great music. Last week I wrote about the Covid-19 pandemic creating opportunities for musicians to reconnect and remember why they became musicians in the first place. Remember? It’s so drummers and Billy Joel can attract women. No, I won’t get over it.…

Dear singer-songwriter stuck in Covid-19 lockdown: You can stop believing you’re going to make the defining piece of minimalist art while sitting at home avoiding showers and running lyrics by your cat. Sorry. Fiona Apple beat you to it, which isn’t surprising. It’s not the first time she’s made…

As far as we know, Tony Hicks is only having one kind of baby as he passes time at home during the COVID-19 quarantine. Some good really can come from this coronavirus mess. In the middle of boring COVID-19 isolation, I just spent more than an hour with 10…

From Candy Loving to the Queen, these are all the people Tony Hicks has wanted to be isolated with over the years. I once swiped one of my stepdad’s Playboy magazines. It probably happened (a lot) more than once … when I was a kid … not lately. I’m…

I didn’t know Bill Withers was black until I’d already come to know his music. As a kid, I constantly confused him with Van Morrison all the time. And I’d seen Morrison on television, so … That’s a huge compliment. To both of them. It was music sounding straight…

Insert Foot practices COVID-19 social distancing. During these strange COVID-19 times of lining up with hundreds of other breathing consumers so you and their germs can avoid grocery stores for a week, it’s fantastic to have an Internet for distraction and insight. For example, I discovered Pornhub is one…

By now, Pearl Jam has aged into many things. Perhaps the band is mere comfort food for middle-aged rock snobs. Maybe it represents one last steady, descending pulse from a generational sound and scene. Perhaps it’s remnants of an electrifying organism, still capable–like an aging athlete–of muscular bursts of…

Whitney Houston’s hologram has performed so flawlessly on its (her?) European tour that it’s getting its own Las Vegas residency. No, no … I’m very serious, and it’s no laughing matter. There hasn’t been anything remotely funny about Whitney Houston since she said Bobby Brown was the king of…

Bill Graham Civic Auditorium is shuttered on March 12, 2020. Photo: Another Planet Entertainment/Instagram. The life of a traveling musician sounds very romantic. Except when they’re stuck in Europe after the President launches a travel ban over a deadly virus spreading like a forest fire. That’s what coronavirus has…