Kafe Society

Fantastic

Revisado: 04-13-25

Kudos to our man Warren Zanes, great job from a top cat that knows the score.

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A Strange Collection

Revisado: 03-15-25

Wait, did you get the pizza boy to do the narration? LOL Fascinating listening to all the warring factions…

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Learn How Formal Names are Promounced

Revisado: 03-11-25

For the narrator, repeat after me: Maceo Parker is pronounced MAY-see-oh Parker. NOT Muh-SEE-o. Don’t you have fact checkers?? Come ON.

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Great Story Terrible Read

Revisado: 02-23-25

Narrator mispronounces formal names, song titles, regions and lyrics. I wonder if American English is his first language or not. Come on, do your due diligence next time!

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Let Your Guests Talk

Revisado: 01-31-25

Fascinating guests but the hosts jabber too much. STFU and let your guests do the talking, no one is interested in your dopey observations. Seriously.

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Please Get Better Voice Actors

Revisado: 08-25-24

I feel like I should start a drinking game for every time the V/O actor mispronounces a common name, place or person.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Unbelievable

Revisado: 07-07-24

I made it as far as far as the end of chapter two before getting chased off by the flat, emotionless narrator — but boy does he massacre Russian names (“Yeff-Jenny-Eye”??? My god…) — and a storyline that goes absolutely nowhere. Don’t waste your time on this absolute tripe.

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Well Worth Your Time

Revisado: 11-21-23

Probably one of the last honest, compassionate conservatives. Read this before they all become extinct.

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More Sad Than Anything Else

Revisado: 11-06-23

The reviews that have been coming in for this book so far on Audible perfectly encapsulate the problem with Sly…he is given a free pass by all the sycophants surrounding him, no matter what he does, “…because he’s Sly Stone.”
And ultimately that has not served him very well, has it?
I was hoping to find out more about how the MUSIC was created. Instead, what this book really chronicles is a long, slow, sad and very depressing slide from the once brilliant, multi-talented/multi-instrumentalist inventor of “Psychedelic Soul” into a pathetic, shambolic drug casualty/has been — and perhaps saddest of all: reduced to a punch line.
What you only get short, grudging glimpses of in this book is the complete havoc he left in his wake — the broken promises, the missed deadlines, the no-shows, the poor performances, the slipping ability, and let’s not forget the destruction wrought upon people’s lives and careers (and those of a few unfortunate pets). That’s what entitlement and narcissism will get you.
For a more honest window into that side of things, read Sly & the Family Stone: An Oral History by Joel Selvin, which collects first-hand stories from band members, crew and industry contacts for a true perspective of the madness, ego, rampant substance abuse and violence the Family Stone descended into, all thanks to Sly and his voracious appetites.
I’m glad he’s finally clean, if that is in fact the case. Unfortunately he’s a completely spent and broken man with crippling arthritis and COPD. He cannot create or play music any longer, and is unable to do much more than vegetate in front of the TV and knock his back-scratcher on the table when he wants someone to fetch him something. The included demos, which sound like they were recorded on a cheap cassette PortaStudio in one of his legendary disintegrating motor homes/drug dens, show just how much of a toll substance abuse took on his creativity.
All in all a sad testimony to addiction, arrogance and wasted potential.
All that said, Dion Graham’s narration is outstanding. Questlove’s intro…not so much.

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More History, Less Whinging!

Revisado: 04-15-22

The research is simply amazing, and I appreciate having the actual music clips as samples — although they are too quiet in relation to the narration.

However Hickey’s incessant, annoying and conspicuous virtue signalling is utterly exhausting and a major time suck. Please STOP IT.

By all means, issue trigger warnings, avoid *non-contextualised* use of outdated and/or insulting ethnic terms, nor should bad behaviour be excused or normalised. But mind, humans behaving badly — men and women, of all colours and walks of life — are a major part OF the story of Popular music. Tell the story minus all the whinging and self-flagellation over nonsense like “cultural appropriation,” a misnomer if ever there was one. Was it also “appropriation” when Chuck Berry rewrote the old fiddle tune “Ida Red” into “Maybelline”? Or when Henry Sloan first played blues using Hawaiian slide technique on Dockery plantation at the turn of the century?

Of course not. Music is a huge melting pot. Everybody who wants to dip in can, and will.

In fact, there's an excellent argument to be made that “trigger warnings” themselves are really more about white entitlement, condescendingly “protecting” people YOU deem too weak or fragile from bad words or concepts. Please. Life doesn’t come with trigger warnings, certainly not in the so-called “third world” or for the working poor. Grow up.

It’s easy to dismiss such criticism, as Hickey has given the majority of positive reviews, as being from “old white Boomers” (we won’t even go into the inherent ageism involved) calling him a “woke snowflake” (though if the brothel creeper fits...).

But the salient point being missed is that Hickey is actually drawing undue attention to HIMSELF and making the podcast all about HIS discomfort with the events, names, motivations, etc. he’s reporting on. Witness the ridiculous contortions he goes through to avoid just saying “gypsy,” which appears in the title and/or lyrics of at least a dozen really important songs in the genre (and which most Romany people have no issue with), which would be utterly hysterical if it weren’t so bloody pathetic.

Not to mention the inevitable hypocrisy that arises from such vain attempts at purity, and as such the series is shot through with those inconsistencies. One that immediately comes to mind is Hickey’s not wanting to use the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn’s “dead name” (WTAF?) — BTW, some of his old friends still call him “Jim” to this day — yet apparently having no problem with using drummer Michael Clarke’s real name (Michael Dick), and even almost making a dry, somewhat adolescent joke about it. Come on, mate.

Hickey makes such inconvenient truths a MUCH bigger deal than needs be, and in the process he inserts himself into the story — something all too common with millennial podcasters, I’m afraid. Sorry mate, you are NOT the story. You are a chronicler. Full stop.

Please spend more time on equalising the relative volumes between voice and music, and stop being so bloody unctuous, because otherwise it’s a brilliant podcast.

PS - Appalachia is pronounced “Apple-AT-chia” NOT “Apple-AY-shah.”

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas