Best Classic Bands | Jeff Tamarkin, Author at Best Classic Bands

New Book Celebrates Trouser Press Music Mag’s 50th Anniversary

“We called ourselves ‘the alternative to the alternative alternatives,'” says co-founder Ira Robbins.

Herb Alpert Interview: Still Trying to Reach the Promised Land

For a while, in the mid-’60s, he was outselling the Beatles with his group the Tijuana Brass. Now in his late 80s, he still goes to work every day.

The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

The Jaggerz’ ‘The Rapper’: You Know What He’s After

“The song was something that I wrote watching people in nightclubs. You’d see these dudes go over and start rapping to chicks,” said the band’s Donnie Iris.

FEATURES: Interviews

John Sebastian Interview: Recapturing the Lovin’ Spoonful ‘Magic’

After refusing to re-record his old hits with the Lovin’ Spoonful for decades, John Sebastian did just that with guitarist Arlen Roth. He tells us why.

The Scene: The Classic Rock Legacy

Mike Bloomfield & the Electric Flag: Long Time Comin’

He was an American guitar hero before there was such a thing. In 1967 he put together a new but short-lived band that combined blues, soul and rock.

The Scene: How the Song Came to Be

The Ides of March and the Story of ‘Vehicle’

They took their band name from a Shakespeare classic, their biggest hit from a real-life incident, and they drove their way up the charts in the year 1970.

REVIEWS: Films/DVDs

Beatles Documentary, ‘Eight Days a Week’: Review

The 2016 film is “a nonstop rush of adrenaline, a comfort-food feast of melodic guitars and impeccable harmonies, unbridled creativity and boundless artistic determination, cheeky wit and newness and wonder and youth. And screams—lots of screams.”