"I first heard this song sung by a red-headed woman at Chicago’s Gate of Horn," says Roger McGuinn in The Folk Den. (listen)

"That's what I love about this country, that the underdogs have a legitimate place in the culture," says Israeli balladeer David Broza in a Wall Street Journal piece by John Jurgensen (2/19/10). David's actually "a major star abroad" even though he's pretty much unknown to Americans. But he may be about to claim some fame, thanks to another legendary underdog -- the late, great Townes Van Zandt. The story goes that Townes and David met back in 1994, at a concert where the two men challenged each other in a "songwriters-in-the round" duel, of sorts.

The experience lingered with Townes, who, years later, reminisced about it in a phone conversation with Linda Lowe, another songwriter who had participated in the show. Townes died of a heart attack soon after (he was an alcoholic), leaving behind some unpublished writings. With Linda's encouragement, David asked Townes's ex-wife, Jeanne, if he could set the material to music. She wasn't sure that David was the right guy for the job. "You never know when a Bob Dylan or somebody comes along," she said.

Eight years later, Big Bob hadn't come knock, knock, knockin' on her door, so Jeanne emailed the poems to David, who "carried the stanzas and prose scraps for four years as he conjured melodies for them." He's now recorded a CD, "Night Dawn: The Unpublished Poetry of Townes Van Zandt," produced by G.E. Smith of Saturday Night Live fame. He's also preparing for a U.S. tour, and the possibility of "finding a broader audience," which of course had also eluded Townes Van Zandt. "I feel like a knight in armor," says David, "and that armor is his poetry." Sounds darn good, too.

Last Friday at Madison Square Garden it was Eric Clapton's show, but Jeff Beck stole it. This was quite a feat considering that the overwhelming majority of the audience was there to see Mr. Clapton's part of the double bill. Relatively few were likely familiar with any of the songs on Beck's set list -- except his jaw-dropping cover of the Beatles' "Day in the Life." For some reason he didn't play Beck's Bolero, which many people do know. He never got around to Hi Ho Silver Lining, either, which was a little disappointing.

But he certainly ended his opening, hour-long set with many more Madison Square Garden fans than he had when he started. I'm among them. At first, the sold-out crowd offered polite response, and few were exactly riveted. Lots of opening-act milling about. But by the end of his set, much of the audience was on its feet, in back-to-back ovations. Anyone who has heard Jeff Beck play will know why this is, and everyone else should look him up, probably starting with his otherwordly Beatles cover (video).

Jeff Beck doesn't sing because he really can't (video). So, he makes his guitar sing instead and his sound is absolutely anthropomorphic. He manages this, in part, by playing with his thumb instead of a pick, never letting go of the whammy bar, and lavishing attention above the 14th fret. His band, a power trio, thunders behind him while a small orchestra furiously adds flourishes. Stunning. Eric Clapton, with nothing to prove, did a nice job, too, with a laid-back set of hits and blues standards. But if you didn't know who was the famous, successful one, the one people call "God," you'd have been sure it was Jeff Beck, not Eric Clapton.

John Paul Jones, of Led Zeppelin fame, is complaining that all the good band names are now taken, reports John Jurgensen in the Wall Street Journal (2/17/10). When he formed his latest combo, with ex-Nirvanian Dave Grohl, the guys thought Caligula would be a cool name. But when they Googled it, they found "at least seven acts" with that name. What a surprise. So, they settled on Them Crooked Vultures instead, which incredibly was still available. "Every other name is taken," says John Paul (not to be confused with the naval fighter, the Pope, or the Beatles).

The problem is largely internet-related: "The last decade's digital revolution not only transformed the way people listen to music, it changed the way bands establish identities." Thanks to MySpace, et cetera, it's no longer so easy to claim a name on a regional basis. "If 37 people in California logged on to your MySpace page last month, you can argue that you provide goods or services in California," says Joel R. Feldman, an attorney. Odds are pretty good that someone is already using your name, too. This is especially true if your name is John Williams (28 other artists are using your name).

There's a total of 1.4 million artist names in a database compiled by Rovi Corp., which adds 6,521 names each month. The most common name, with 18 entries, is Bliss. Close behind are Mirage, One, Gemini, Legacy, Paradox and Rain. Sometimes the conflict comes from corporations -- a duo calling itself Jane Deere was stopped by John Deere. And changing your name can be fatal -- as discovered by Captain America, when stopped by Marvel Comics. The group quickly changed its name to Eugenius, and flopped. Founder Eugene Kelly, apparently a glutton for lawsuits, now has a new band called the Vaselines.

This recording of "Take This Hammer" is the winner of a Kompoz.com contest, "a gospel version with wonderful piano and vocal backing," says Roger McGuinn in The Folk Den. (listen)

"The purest black-metal artist is one who's unknown and inaccessible," says Nicola Masciandaro in a New York Times piece by Ben Ratliff (12/15/09). So, it was perhaps with a healthy dose of irony Nicola organized a symposium to examine black-metal music -- not to be confused with death-metal music. As a concept, black refers to "a bleak outlook on life" and "represents decay, radical individualism, misanthropy, negativity about all systems, and awe of the natural world. (Death-metal, on the other hand, is more proactive, body-centered and psyched about gore.)"

Now that we've got that straight, you might also need to know that, musically speaking, black-metal is all "scoured howls, nonsyncopated blast-beat drums and cold, trebly guitars. It sounds like it's rotting, and that's the point ..." If you need to know what that sounds like exactly, you can find some samples via black-metal bands such as Nachtmystium, Xasthur and Krallice, for example. But while these acts are happy to record, some will not perform and others won't talk about their music.

"There's a lot of resentment toward a sensible discourse around black metal," says Nicola. "Its center of gravity is an essential negativity, an idea of some remainder, something that can't be reduced." Niall Scott, a speaker at the symposium, managed to shed a somewhat positive light on this, suggesting that black-metal is about "cleaning up the mess of others," comparing it to "the old English tradition of sin eating by means of burial cakes." He thinks black-metal is "engaged in transgressive behavior to be rid of it." Hm. The symposium was held at Public Assembly, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta -- that's Lady Gaga, to you -- was predicted by Andy Warhol, who died a year after she was born, reports Guy Trebay in the New York Times (12/27/09). What Andy predicted, in "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol," was "new categories of people" created from "parts" of other people. This would liberate fans from idolizing a "whole person," instead just picking and choosing the parts they like. That's what Lady Gaga does as she "subjects herself to a real-time version of Photoshop."

As Guy writes: "Lady Gaga is rigged for that stardom: her persona is an amalgam of surfaces, faceted, though not truly 3-D, addictive in the way videogames are ... Like an emissary from a parallel world familiar to Second Life types, she is a real-life avatar." She "makes no bones about assimilating the lessons of celebrities who built careers by tapping into the talents of other and even larger talents ... But her singular innovation on the sincerest form of flattery has been to barge right past imitation to outright larceny."

Her "inspirations" are said to include Leigh Bowery, Grace Jones and David Bowie, among others. "She imagines the clothes she will wear to perform her songs as she is writing them." The bottom line is, Billboard listed her as the number-three top artist of the year, and "her name is among those most often searched on the web. But the voice without the package would equal a novelty act in a Singapore hotel lounge ... and lest anyone fail to see that the package is the message, she makes it a point to go out now and then with her hair styled in a gigantic blonde bow (image)."

The best-selling record of all time is Bing Crosby singing White Christmas, reports Roy J. Harris Jr. in the Wall Street Journal (12/10/09). First performed at the "Kraft Music Hall" on December 24, 1941, and recorded the following September by Bing Crosby (link), White Christmas has since sold more than 100 million copies in one way, shape or form. The tune's initial success is often attributed to good timing -- just "as American recruits streamed overseas, many to snowless Pacific climes."

Sixty-seven years later, it remains popular largely because of the songwriting genius of Irving Berlin, who lacked formal musical training. As a result, he tended to write songs that "subtly depart from the most fundamental tenets of songwriting," according to Philip Furia, his biographer. He emphasized "I'm" and "white" with whole notes where most others probably would've emphasized "dreaming" and "Christmas." He also avoided writing a bridge, "the countervailing melody normally following a song's first 16 measures."

Some speculate that Berlin, who was Jewish, was inspired by the death of his infant son on Christmas Eve, 1928. The song originally was "a mournful satire for a Broadway review," and Berlin re-wrote it for a movie, "Holiday Inn," in which Crosby and Fred Astaire sang their way through the holiday calendar (video). As fate would have it, Pearl Harbor was attacked during the production. As Berlin himself said at the time, "Songs make history, and history makes songs." Merry Christmas to all!

Watching her two-year-old daughter draw a picture of a daisy gave Tish Ciravolo the idea to design electric guitars of a feminine sort, reports Matt Krantz in USA Today (12/15/09). Tish is a guitarist herself, and so "naturally she drew a neck" on the daisy. The light bulb went off: "There are a million, heavy, thick, black guitars out there," says Tish. "We're offering an alternative." But while Daisy Rock guitars "come in nail-polish colors" and "some are shaped like hearts, flowers and butterflies," the difference is not just cosmetic.

The guitars are also designed with a thinner neck, "making it easier for female guitarists to wrap their fingers around and hit the chords." Their contours are also "slightly curved so it can bend more comfortably around the curves of a woman." They're also lighter weight. "They're cut down in just the right places," says Wanda Jackson, the legendary singer. And yet Tish has met with some resistance in a male-dominated category -- indeed, it's estimated that 90 percent of electric guitarists are male.

For example, Andy Rossi of Fender guitars dismisses Daisy Rock guitars as "pandering, insulting and not what females want ... Women want real guitars, not toys," he says, adding: "There's no such thing as a girl's guitar." Vicki Peterson of the Bangles begs to differ, saying that the guitars are her favorites, and "not a toy." Nor is Daisy Rock just about selling guitars to particular market segment. It's also about "actively encouraging girls to pick up the instrument." As Tish puts it: "Any girl who wants to play the guitar should be able to do it ... We're here to help you."

When the Tower Records on Sunset Strip closed, Nic Adler feared that the Roxy Theater might be next, reports Tricia Romano in the New York Times (12/6/09). It had been 36 years since Nic's father, Lou, opened the Roxy in partnership with none other than David Geffen. So hot was the Roxy that they really had no competition. But the days when John Lennon was a regular and Guns N' Roses made its name there were long gone.

Lou blames Seattle grunge for ending his party: "It became uncool to wear latex," he says. "And instantly, we had lost a whole scene, just like that." The "scene" has since moved about six miles east of the Strip, to "the hipper Silver Lake and Echo Park" areas. Nic understood the magnitude of the challenge: "We had built such a perception on the Sunset Strip that we were so passé ... It wasn't going to be like, we're Twittering, so now we're cool."

Nic's first move was simply booking hipper, indie acts like D.J. Steve Aoki and Them Crooked Vultures. He softened the club's attitude, allowing customer to take pictures during performances, for instance. And, yes, he started using Twitter, @theroxy, both to announce shows as well as monitor customer complaints, "leaving free drinks for people under their Twitter handles." He even attends city council meetings and joined the local business association. "I was handed a legend," says Nic, "and I am expected to continue that legacy."