Actor Chris Sullivan cannot help but chuckle when asked about his first professional acting job in front of a camera. “I’m pretty sure the first on-camera thing I did of any note was a TV pilot that was never picked up called Pleading Guilty,” says Sullivan. “It starred Jason Isaacs [Malfoy’s father in the Harry Potter feature films] as one...
Bentley’s Bandstand: September 2014
Paul Butterfield’s Better Days, Live at Winterland Ballroom. “Without Paul I don’t know if a lot of us would be here tonight…” That’s the way Bill Graham introduced Butterfield and his then-new band Better Days at this 1973 concert in San Francisco. Truer words were never spoken. When the Paul Butterfield Blues Band first burst onto the scene in 1965,...
Life After American Idol: The Evolution of Sanjaya Malakar
Back in 2007, when American Idol was a more formidable force than it is these days, season six Idol finalist Sanjaya Malakar took the nation by storm. Then only 17 years of age, his Stevie Wonder-influenced vocals were sometimes upstaged by a series of outlandish hairdos and, in one memorable instance, an emotionally overwhelmed young girl (Ashley Ferl, who was...
Man of Destiny: Interview with Tyrant ‘s Ashraf Barhom
As children, most people have no idea what they want to be when they grow up. However, in some parts of the world, a child’s future is determined the moment he or she is born. With the powerful and privileged Al-Fayeed family in the FX TV drama Tyrant, Khaled Al-Fayeed, the long-serving dictator of the (fictional) Middle Eastern country of...
New Music for Old People: My Musical Foundations, Part 9 – Twenty Sweet Soul Singles That Changed My Music
This column is like the title says — its intention is to fill the gap for those of us who were satiated musically in the ’60s and then searched desperately as we aged for music we could relate to and get the same buzz from nowadaze. iTunes was the answer for me in 2003 and I have been following the...
New Music for Old People: NRBQ, Bill Champlin, Big Wreck, Andreas Varady and More
This column is like the title says – its intention is to fill the gap for those of us who were satiated musically in the ’60s and then searched desperately as we aged for music we could relate to and get the same buzz from nowadaze. iTunes was the answer for me in 2003 and I have been following the...
New Music for Old People: Braid, The Fray, Ruthie Foster, Owen Pallett and More
This column is like the title says – its intention is to fill the gap for those of us who were satiated musically in the ’60s and then searched desperately as we aged for music we could relate to and get the same buzz from nowadaze. iTunes was the answer for me in 2003 and I have been following the...
Bentley’s Bandstand: The First Half – Favorite Albums of 2014
Beck, Morning Phase. From the Silver Lake street boy wandering through Los Angeles on the city buses to worldwide conqueror of all things musical, Beck is one of the great enigmas of the past quarter century. At first he was like Woody Guthrie’s illegitimate son, except he specialized in a boom box instead of an acoustic guitar. Over the years...
Blu-ray Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season Six
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season Six debuts on Blu-ray, with all six discs neatly housed in a standard-width, slim case. The TNG upgrade process that began two years ago (and will conclude later this year with the series’ seventh and final season) is a seemingly well-oiled machine at this point. Technical specs for the 1992-93 season are rock...
Music Review: Billy Joel – A Matter of Trust: The Bridge to Russia (Deluxe Edition)
Greatly expanding the original 1987 live album Концерт, A Matter of Trust: The Bridge to Russia is now the definitive document of Billy Joel’s historic tour of the Soviet Union. The new two-disc version ups the track listing from 16 to 27, with spirited takes of “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” “Pressure,” and “The Ballad of Billy the Kid” among...