The Clarissa Room's Mike Starr (son of the late John Starr) assures us the club's boarded-up appearance is temporary, as some legal wrangling takes place over his father's estate.

My heart sank last week at the prospect of this beautiful venue closing its doors. The Clarissa Room is a night club of beautiful blends: jazz and blues, old and young, black and white.

"We'll be back," Starr says. "Soon."

I dunno, maybe he's sick of the snow. Anyhow, RPO president and CEO Richard Nowlin has resigned and taken a post as executive director of the Wells Fargo Center For The Arts in Santa Rosa, California. Nowlin has been with the RPO since 1996.

Under Nowlin the RPO boasted a surplus of $18,000 this past year with increased ticket sales, concert attendance, contributed revenue, and endowment earnings.

Frank De Blase here, your rock 'n' roll barometer, divining rod, and all-around loudmouth, here to say that not since the Hoodoo Gurus have I been so jazzed about a band from Australia. I spent some time down under recently and I'm telling you, rock 'n' roll is alive and well and a viable influence in pop music on the radio there. Sure there's the bubblegum and the flufff and the glitz and the bullshit, but there are bands like Jet and  Airborne --- a Warranbool, Queensland, quartet that sounds a lot like another set of raunchy Aussies, AC/DC. America's gonna get a dose soon as the lads have just signed a $2 million deal with Capitol Records. Rock 'n' roll back on the radio....at last. It's funny how America, rock 'n' roll's fatherland, has to be continually reawakened by acts from around the globe. You haven't heard 'em yet, but you will. Airborne, Jet, Wolfmother, The Living End...this could be a trend.

Sunday afternoon and I wanted my baby to know exactly how i felt. I punched the digits into the phone and told the DJ to spin some Magic Sam. He spun "That's All I Need." It was perfect. Now kids call in all the time to the radio to hear their favorite tunes, but who makes dedications or requests based on love, the loss of love, or whatever? If enough of the the in-love and out-of-love get in the blower and apply music to the romance, it might help elevate pop music back to the visceral exeprience it once was. I know it made my girlfriend's day...