Jeff Clutterbuck – The Daily Vault

13 Apr

Jeff Clutterbuck’s 101 Favorite Songs

Jeff ClutterbuckFeature

When Duke originally pitched this concept to the Vault Staff, there were so many ideas that were floating around in my head in terms of the best way to approach it.... as an official ranking? Could I have multiple songs from the same artist? Are we talking guilty pleasures, the “best 100,” my personal favorite....IT WAS TOO MUCH!So after consulting the oracles, reading the auspices, visiting multiple fortune tellers, and shaking the Magic 8 Ball, I chose a path. This list is my personal favorite songs for a particular artist.... but I did ramp up the difficulty level and only…

01 Oct

The Establishment: Justin Timberlake Live

Jeff ClutterbuckFeature

It’s an exciting time to be a concert-goer in the Milwaukee area these days! With the recent completion of a brand new arena (Fiserv Forum), for the first time in decades there is a legitimate reason for big name artists to pencil in southeastern Wisconsin on their tour schedules. The Forum has seen some famous bands open the place up: Maroon 5 and The Killers kicked things off earlier this month. But truly it was last Friday’s performer who was attracting all the attention, and his concert marked the beginning of Milwaukee’s “Big City” renaissance. That man was Justin Timberlake.…

28 Jan

Grammys 2014: The Live Blog

Jeff ClutterbuckFeature

7:00: And we’re back for Year 2 of the Clutterbuck Grammy Live Blog! 7:01: Beyonce mixing two great films to start the evening off; a 1-2 punch of The Exorcist and FlashDance 7:03: I do realize that these kind of performances are performance-intensive, but doesn’t it sound like Beyonce is lip-syncing? 7:05: Annnnnnd there’s Jay-Z. Vegas had the odds on him appearing during this number at 2:1 7:06: If there’s an awards show, you can be damn well sure there will be live shots of Taylor Swift jamming to every song. 7:07: LL Cool J was brought back for his…

21 May

iTunes And The iPod: Ten Years Later

Jeff ClutterbuckEssay

It was about eight years ago that I penned an essay for the Vault entitled “What Was An Album?” It was 2005, and the digital music revolution has just become to realize its potential. It made us as consumers consider the question of just how much things were going to change for the industry, and even the art form itself. You can point to a variety of reasons that there was such a radical transformation, but at the core, there is iTunes and the iPod. At the end of April, iTunes celebrated its 10th anniversary and that occasion prompted some…

11 Feb

Grammys 2013: The Live Blog

Jeff ClutterbuckFeature

7:00: And off we go, the list of musicians and CBS stars goes on and on. Who would have thought Neil Patrick Harris and Wiz Khalifa would ever be on the same bill? And a promise of a performance from LL Cool J? I cannot wait! 7:01: A terrifying clown with a bicycle and flame torch delivers the intro for Taylor Swift and the rest of Cirque Du Soleil... if this is how all of her breakups go it’s no wonder they lead to memorable songs. 7:05: After not understanding what was going on for a couple minutes, making his…

01 Jun

Beach Boys Retrospective

Jeff ClutterbuckAnnouncement

In the age when The Beatles reigned supreme, and the British Invasion was at its peak, few bands legitimately represented the American side of the equation. And just a few years before that, hardly anyone would have guessed that five young men from Hawthorne, California, who spent their formative years gathered around the family piano attempting to mimic The Four Seasons, would rise to challenge The Beatles and leave a legacy nearly as influential. Led by the reclusive, but brilliant Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys would burst onto the scene in 1961 with “Surfin’.” The next few years saw the…

03 Feb

Milwaukee Magnetic: Metallica Live

Jeff ClutterbuckFeature

Stubbornness is a quality that runs throughout my family, which has on occasion caused a few arguments that result in an armistice more than a long-lasting peace. Neither side wishes to admit a wrongdoing, demanding instead that the other see their view and submit to it. Over the years, this can result in tension so great that it threatens to tear apart what were once incredibly strong bonds. Despite any amount of success, that stubbornness can rear its head at any given moment. Metallica faced such problems during the recording of the infamous St. Anger and the ensuring documentary Some…

19 Dec

2008: The Year In Review

Jeff ClutterbuckBest Of

When I first joined the Daily Vault staff many moons ago, I was charged with the creation of my first “Best Of” list when December rolled around. After one attempt at it, I came to find the idea of ranking my top ten albums to be terribly unappealing. Since that point, I have taken a much more general approach to these yearly retrospectives, making up categories as I go along. Yet even that has grown stale. This year, I offer up a pseudo-commentary on the music of 2008. These albums may have been personal favorites, works that I felt were…

09 Jan

Clapton: The Autobiography

Jeff ClutterbuckFeature

Too often, we see music superstars who pass away long before their time. The list of the all time great rock musicians is littered with the names of those who died young: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Stevie Ray Vaughan, etc. Today, it is not a stretch to imagine waking up, turning on the television, and seeing that Amy Winehouse has OD’ed. Thankfully there are still those who, against the odds, continue to play music and contribute in some manner despite having faced major problems and addictions. Eric Clapton is one of those people. Clapton…

24 Dec

Jeff’s Best of 2007

Jeff ClutterbuckBest Of

2007 will most likely be remembered, at least in terms of music history, as the year that DRM began to crumble and vanish. The technology and policies of the record labels have been the biggest stories of all; luckily there was some good music along the way. Most Disappointing AlbumRadiohead -- In Rainbows God help me, I have tried to love Radiohead. I own the majority of their albums, and when In Rainbows was announced in a downloadable, choose your own price, form, I had to support the band regardless of what I felt about their music. In Rainbows had…