by Dennis Rea | Jun 9, 2018 | Dennis Rea, Music
(*a nod to Talking Heads’ album of the same name) When chatting with a bandmate the other day, I rhetorically questioned why certain musicians end up becoming darlings of the hipsterverse and media while other musicians of equal or greater talent can’t get...
by Dennis Rea | Mar 24, 2018 | Dennis, Dennis Rea, Live at the Forbidden City, Music, Uncategorized
Recently I was subjected to one of those “icebreaker” exercises with coworkers at what I call my “day job” (that is, the one that provides most of my income). When asked to share something “interesting” about myself, I mentioned that for decades I’ve had a parallel...
by Dennis Rea | Sep 29, 2017 | Dennis Rea, Economy and business, Music, USA
My previous Blue Ear Books blog recounted my travails presenting a group of distinguished Mexican musicians at a very small music festival in Seattle during the reign of the rabidly xenophobic (particularly when it comes to Mexico) Donald Trump. Among the responses to...
by Dennis Rea | Aug 11, 2017 | Dennis Rea, Immigration, Live at the Forbidden City, Music, USA
My wife pointed out recently that, in practical terms, the blitzkrieg ascension of Donald Trump had yet to directly affect her daily life in any appreciable way. (Unsurprising disclosure: We both vehemently oppose Trump and his fellow travelers.) I stopped and thought...
by Dennis Rea | May 18, 2017 | China, Commentary, Dennis Rea, Live at the Forbidden City, Uncategorized
In the Epilogue to my Blue Ear Books title Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan, I reflected ruefully that the China I’d described in the narrative, which had still retained much of its aesthetically rich pre‒twentieth century...