Born in East L.A

Step biggest selection aside, Seth Rogen and James Franco, theMark Ruffalo
original stoner-comedy duo, cheech and Chong,squashed their long-running feud to re-unite for the Light Up America and  Riffs, Arpeggios & Speed RunsCanada Tour – their first in 27 years. “We went from Nixon to Bush, and that’s about all that’s changed,” says Tommy Chong. TheBlack Sabbath shows, which run through January, mix new and classic comedy bits with tunes like “Born in East L.A.” and “Up in Smoke.” And, yes, the dudes still get baked on the road – but they don’t need to tote their own stash any¬more.

Beatles’Apple Records

“I should’ve died Affiliatesabout five times. So I’ve used up all of my chances.”Support Tickets away from the traditional record industry. For the first time since he signed his first deal with the Beatles’Apple Records, back in 1968, he has no record contract -and no plans DNS Hostingto get one, instead striking album-by-album distri¬bution agreements.

Not Fade Away

I didn’t ViewPointend up with any of the diseases thatDownload Joomla my behavior should’ve given me. Or any of the other pitfalls – I should’ve died about five times. I was dead five times. So I’ve used up all of my chances. I have to take it easySocial Community now and keep fit, keep healthy.”

National Public Radio

OR SOME REASON,Name Brands James Taylor is stand¬ing on his head. On a snow-dusted sounded differentJanu¬ary afternoon in Massachu¬setts’ Berkshires, Taylor and his n-member band are taking a brief break from recording a new album of cover songs – they’reOther Product gathered in a barn-turned-studio on his hilltop property, at the end of an icy, mile-long drive¬way.

The Covers sessions

The Covers sessionsGreat MP3 stretched to include “Oh What a Beauti¬ful Morning,” from the musical Oklahoma – a song Double musicthat goes back to Taylor’s early childhood. “The first music I grew up with was show tunes and folk music,” says Taylor. “My folks played Lead Belly, the Weavers, and a lot of Rodgers and Hammer-stein and tracks Cole Porter.” When Taylor was seven years old, his grandmother caught him sing¬ing “Morning” over and over at the top of his lungs. “I thought I was by myself and no one could hear me, and I was really dig¬ging myself,” he says, laughing. “That was the first time I let it run away with me.”
Taylor admires unconventional sing¬ers like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Lead Belly and Kurt Cobain, but he always knew his own strengths were elsewhere. “I am a musical singer – that’s my paradigm,” he says. “I want to be in tune. I want to sing pretty. I want to sing sweet. It’s only a relatively recent development that it was
“I want to be in tune, to sing pretty. It’s a recent development that it was appealing to sound bad.”
appealing to sound bad, you know.” And his folk-music background pushed him in a certain direction: “When a solo person sits down and plays and sings, the chances are it’s gonna have that kind of mellow feel,” he says. “It’s not gonna come out like Tenacious D each time. Or like Huddie Ledbetter – although he was probably try¬ing to sound as sweet as he could.”
Wrapping their latest “Road Runner,” Taylor summons the band members – or all of them who can fit – into the control room to check out a playback. “Let’s take a listen and see if it’s alive on arrival,” he says. The track blasts over the speak¬ers, and Taylor closes his eyes, fingering chords on an imaginary guitar. His now-bald head suits his patrician features – in profile, it’s a face that should be on U.S. currency. As the song ends with Gadd’s big cymbal crashes, Taylor opens his eyes and nods. “It sounds good,” he says. “Which is important in our line of work.”