santana

Woodstock: The good, the bad, the ugly

I bought a ticket and was ready to go to Woodstock; however, my ride chickened out and I missed the seminal musical event of the 1960s.

The thing is, over the course of those three days in August 1969, I, even a 20-year-old, was glad I missed it.

Sure, three days of peace and music sounds nice, but Woodstock was an instant media legend. Granted, great bands were there by the helicopter load; but the sound, as best as I could tell, was awful for the crowd gathered. Unlike today's high-powered concert sound systems that can easily play sound loud enough to cause hearing loss, the Woodstock system was probably pretty low intensity volumewise. Then again, I'm sure most of the 500,000 Woodstock Nation attendees were grooving under their own power.

That, combined with the rain, mud, and less than stellar lavatories would have made me pretty miserable.

I bought the "Woodstock: Music from the original Soundtrack" LP when it came out, and I saw the film--in 70mm in Manhattan. For me, those were a lot better than being there. I listened to the best music of the three days and didn't have to endure the rest of ordeal.

Think about it: The edited, perfected versions of the event are the ways most folks have experienced Woodstock. Most people were either too young to go in the first place, and most boomers, like myself, didn't get there. For us, Woodstock is the movie or music.

I just wonder for those who were there, have the movie and soundtrack albums replaced their memories of the actual event? There seems to be an endless stream of Woodstock titles coming out. … Read more

Guitar Hero 5 gets ready to rock

SAN FRANCISCO--The first couple of weeks of September are going to be a banner time for music video games. On September 9 (09/09/09), the much-anticipated The Beatles: Rock Band will hit store shelves, just eight days after Guitar Hero 5 gets its chance to rock living rooms everywhere.

With the Beatles game, it's easy to imagine long lines and huge sales figures. After all, this will be the first time that any of the recent slew of music-oriented video games will feature any Beatles songs, let alone dozens of them.

But with Guitar Hero 5 (see video … Read more

Off camera: Carlos Santana, computer geek

When a lot of us hear the name Carlos Santana, we instinctively begin humming the bars to "Oye Como Va," or any one of a number of his well known songs. Associating the man with his music is natural, but as I've learned recently, he's involved in so many more projects that range from food to shoe design to international philanthropy. After my interview with him on Thursday, add one more interest to the long list: technology.

A longtime San Francisco Bay Area resident, Santana made a public appearance Thursday at a middle school in Marin … Read more

Salvador Santana Band, 'Summer's Day': Free MP3 of the Day

If Carlos Santana had come up in the hip-hop era instead of the blues-rock one, who's to say he wouldn't be making stuff just like his son Salvador? On "SSB," Carlos's kid grows up and steps out of pop's shadow with a driving mash of Latin and funk. The coup is some very familiar guitar work.

Download free MP3 now!

Waiting for Leopard

On Friday night, I was over at Santana Row in San Jose, just across the street from the Apple Store at the Westfield Valley Fair mall.

I could have gone over there and bought a copy of Leopard, Apple's new Mac OS X version 10.5, but I didn't, for two reasons. First, I didn't need to-- I'm a member of the Apple Developer Connection (ADC), so I'll get a copy anyway, eventually. Second, I don't intend to install Leopard right away.

This isn't like my decision not to buy an iPhone. I … Read more