Music Reviews: Rock

The scope of modern music is so vast that almost everything and anything is dubbed under a specific subgenre. In the case of Blackwater Holylight, the all-female trio are the queens of ‘doomgaze.’ Their sound is rooted in doom metal, drawing obvious influence from Monolord and Weedwater, yet interjects shoegaze overtones, akin to My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins, providing many textural layers. Coupled with introspective lyrics about vulnerability and... Read More

"This looks like a fire drill at an assisted living center" I quipped to my wife as we exited the Mayo Performing Arts Center theater and into the lobby March 13th, 2024 following Peter Frampton's energized and most enjoyable "feel good, rock hard" performance. Sorry, but that's what the audience looked like half a century later. At least we still are alive. I could give you a long list of who's not as I'm sure can many reading... Read More

If you're old enough to have bought Axis: Bold As Love when it was first released in January of 1968, and you were a stoner, you'll not likely ever forget your first spin, especially in stereo, wearing Koss Pro 4A headphones. Eddie Kramer was never shy about using the pan pots and things flew around your head and shifted left to right to left, sometimes without purpose. But it was fun, it was a free-wheeling time and Jimi had as deft a sense of humor as he... Read More

Mick and Keith went shopping for a new guitarist after Mick Taylor exited the band. Why not conduct live auditions in the studio while tape rolled and let's produce an album out of that? The original Black and Blue release Spring 1976 was in many ways an anti-climactic affair. An unfocused set of tunes, some great, some less so. A middling quality gatefold jacket, no annotation of any kind, just an inner sleeve showing the "Glimmer Twins" as producers... Read More

Following the commercial flop of Astral Weeks, his moody, mystical, musically eclectic masterpiece, that years later found its commercial footing, to detach themselves from New York City chaos, Van Morrison and wife Janet (Rigsbee) Planet moved to the Catskill Mountains near the town of Woodstock, New York.Earlier, following the break up of his group Them, he'd signed a contract with Bert Berns's Bang Records and in March of 1967 entered famed A&R... Read More

David Bowie’s artistry and career are pinpointed by not just what genre he was exploring at a given point in time, but by the cities of the world in which he found himself. Glamorous London was the hub for Ziggy Stardust, Philadelphia’s soulful streets influenced Young Americans, debaucherous Los Angeles in 1976 gave birth to Station to Station and the Thin White Duke.The Thin White Duke was an extension of Thomas Newton, an extraterrestrial character that David Bowie... Read More

In 2000, Warning’s prominent acoustic guitars and more nuanced lyrical approach might’ve alienated Green Day's core fanbase, as it sold significantly less than their previous major label LPs and seems comparatively forgotten in the popular memory. Now, however, a lavish 25th anniversary 5LP or 4CD super deluxe box set presents Warning as the excellent power pop record it’s always been.

When people think of KISS without context, Gene Simmons, the fire-breathing, blood-spitting demon who convinced shocked parents that the group’s name was an acronym for ‘Knights in Satan’s Service’, first comes to mind. Nonetheless, the group’s biggest hit was sung not by Simmons, but by the group's drummer, Peter Criss. Criss played in numerous Brooklyn area bands before becoming the Catman in the world's hottest band. His jazz-rooted drumming (he was a... Read More

Over the last 50 years, enough has been written about Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here that I have nothing to add about the original album other than that it’s easily my favorite Pink Floyd album and was the first vinyl LP I ever bought. It’s carefully textured but not too indulgent and meandering, and the lyrics hit the sweet spot between universality and specificity. Never before or after would the band so perfectly achieve this balance, as the earlier stuff can be... Read More

Despite the dozen years between 2002's break-up masterpiece Sea Change and 2014's Morning Phase, the musical gap between the two albums seemed in many ways minimal. Beck seemed to be revisiting his past. On the opener "Morning" he sings "Can we start it all over again?" On "Say Goodbye" he sings "cause these are the words we use to say goodbye". No wonder the album disappointed many fans expecting something new since... Read More

Circumstances surrounding KISS and Casablanca Records in mid-1975 were dire. The group’s first three albums (KISS, Hotter Than Hell, Dressed to Kill) sold in horrific quantities and didn’t contain a hit single to break the group into the mainstream buying public. Having lost distribution from Warner Brothers, president Neil Bogart resorted to borrowing money from, as described by Gene Simmons, ‘people with vowels at the end of their last name,’ to keep the label... Read More

King Crimson formed, played to an estimated crowd of 500,000 at Hyde Park, birthed progressive rock on In The Court of the Crimson King, and disbanded by the end of 1969. Guitarist Robert Fripp took the reins as the group entered an interregnum. For the next two years, Crimson survived on session players and members who left almost as soon as they joined, lacking a definitive lineup to sustain the touring circuit. In The Wake of Poseidon, released in the spring of... Read More

Vincent Furnier, who took on the Alice Cooper moniker after the titular group had disbanded, triumphed by releasing his first and arguably best solo album, Welcome to My Nightmare. As if going solo was entering the big unknown enough, supporting the album on the road became a huge risk. Cooper and manager Shep Gordon invested over half a million dollars of their own money into the production, making it a win-big-or-lose-everything scenario. Welcome to My Nightmare... Read More

“Some get stoned,

Some get strange,

Sooner or later, it all gets real.”

Keen listeners will recognize these lyrics from “Walk On,” a sunny number Neil Young rambles through on the middle installment of the famed “ditch” trilogy, On The Beach. But as revealed by Neil’s latest release, those words actually speak to the dark and drunk final installment: Tonight’s The Night.

If you already own the earlier edition of Anthology 1, 2, and 3, this new box set containing those plus Anthology 4— 13 previously unreleased tracks and 17 songs selected from super deluxe versions of five classic albums plus 2025 Jeff Lynne mixes of "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love"— might not be enough to get you to buy it yet again but maybe the additional 26 never before released on vinyl tracks will entice you to buy the separately available... Read More

The Donnas were at a career crossroads in the mid-2000s. Atlantic Records’ revolving door of personnel left the group without the core team of people who helped market them via product placements, both benefiting album sales and landing them major tours. First-year sales of 2004’s Gold Medal were a mere 20% of what 2002’s Spend The Night achieved. Atlantic insisted that The Donnas’ follow-up effort be more rooted in pop and assisted by outside writers. Not aligning... Read More

No other group in the 1980s lived up to the hedonistic rock-and-roll lifestyle than did Mötley Crüe. Emerging from the sleazy Hollywood scene, they sought to craft an entity that was described by bassist Nikki Sixx as, ‘David Bowie and the Sex Pistols thrown in a blender with Black Sabbath.’ Their debaucherous history often eclipses the impact of their recorded output, immortalized in both the memoir and Netflix adaptation The Dirt. It goes without saying that their... Read More

Of course this wasn't Little Feat's "last album" any more than boomer rock band "final tours" are ever final. As Dennis McNally's well-illustrated excellent annotation points out without actually saying it, Lowell George was not exactly ebullient about things when this was recorded and the songs weren't either though there are a few classics like "All That You Dream" and "Long Distance Love". In fact all of... Read More