If you can’t tell the difference between a Fender Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul, this is clearly not the book for you. However, if you know Hendrix was a Strat guy and underneath that black spray paint and all those stickers, Joe Strummer always rocked a Tele, then this is likely to be your new Bible.
To be honest there are a slew of Roy Orbison albums out there packed with “hits” and “best of” tracks, but this latest 26-track offering from Legacy is among the best to date, including his late career tracks and going all the way back to his legendary Sun Records period.
Mike Watt has always been a musician’s musician. The go-to-guy who’s always namechecked in discussions on old punk rock influences. Thanks to his groundbreaking work with the Minutemen, fIREHOSE and eventual his solo stuff, he managed to built up a strong cult following as well, but he never really got much attention in the mainstream until his first solo album, the stellar Ball Hog or Tugboat in 1995.
At this point, you pretty much know what you’re getting with a NOFX record. If not, happy belated birthday! I’m assuming you were just born.
Over 16 years and across more than half a dozen albums, the Dublin-based Bell X1 has seen their numbers swell and fall – they are now a tight trio; they’ve dabbled in folk pop and synth rock and have ended up somewhere in between; and with their latest, “Arms,” they have attempted to reset all expectations and in doing so have turned in one of their most consistently satisfying albums…
On “Above the Horizon,” Nashville’s Maradeen manages to deftly blend pop with classic Southern Rock and a little bit of the 1970s Laurel Canyon sound for a nostalgic album crammed with sweet harmonies.
If not for Big Star, the late great Memphis band that ran from ’72-to-’78 before finally calling it a day, we’d likely never have groups like Teenage Fanclub, R.E.M., The Replacements, The Posies… hell, Ryan Adams would probably be in a metal band now if it weren’t for Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel.
The 1983 TV special Motown 25 was a defining moment in TV for many. Michael Jackson was at one of the highest peaks in his career and he slayed the crowd with hit after hit. It was also the moment when the world first discovered what Moonwalking was, as Jackson demonstrated it for the first time publicly on “Billie Jean.” Despite that pop cultural moment, the show was crammed with…
![The Verve – A Northern Soul [Super Deluxe Edition]](data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZpZXdCb3g9IjAgMCAzNjggMzY4IiB3aWR0aD0iMzY4IiBoZWlnaHQ9IjM2OCIgZGF0YS11PSJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRm5ldWZ1dHVyLmNvbSUyRndwLWNvbnRlbnQlMkZ1cGxvYWRzJTJGMjAxNiUyRjEwJTJGMjAxNVRoZVZlcnZlX0FOb3J0aGVyblNvdWxfMDEwNzE1LmpwZyIgZGF0YS13PSIzNjgiIGRhdGEtaD0iMzY4IiBkYXRhLWJpcD0iIj48L3N2Zz4=)
Though the UK-based Brit Pop/Shoegaze band The Verve will likely always be best remembered in the U.S. as those lads that got busted borrowing a little too freely from The Rolling Stones on their massive hit “Bittersweet Symphony,” they were (up until their last spit in 2009) a massively talented band that could combine loud abrasive guitars with sweet melodies and strong pop hooks.
Get Dead’s second album, Honesty Lives Elsewhere, is gritty, a little sloppy and the veneer has been completely stripped down to the primer – which is everything a punk rock album should be. Recorded in their San Francisco hometown between responsibilities to their day jobs and families, there is an urgency here not found in many of the poppier punk bands that have flooded the market over the years.
The short-lived Scottish jangle pop band Close Lobsters never really got the recognition of some of their peers like Aztec Camera or R.E.M., but damn did they deserve it. Around just long enough to put out two proper albums in the late ‘80s, the band disappeared soon after. They reformed in 2012 to play a handful of festivals and again in 2014 to play another festival and release the two-song…
Yes, there are already a slew of books about Bruce Springsteen out there. Add to that, the fact that he’ll finally be putting out his autobiography this fall, but Boss proves there was room for one more book about one of the best rock starts to ever come out of the U.S.
The third studio record from Sacramento-based Tesla, may not have offered a chart-topping ballad like 1989s “Great Radio Controversy” (“Love Song” was a staple of just about every high school mix tape for years on) or gotten the MTV love that Five Man Acoustical Jam warranted a year later, but song for song, “Psychotic Supper” is the band’s best record. Packaged by their label at the time as yet another…
Sara Watkins has called “Young in All the Wrong Ways” a break up album with herself. “I looked around and realized that in many ways I wasn’t who or where I wanted to be. It’s been a process of letting go and leaving behind patterns and relationships and in some cases how I’ve considered myself.”
Frank Rizzo may not be as infamous nationally as Huey Long or Rod Blagojevich, but in Philly, depending on what neighborhood you visit, he was either the city’s savior or the most corrupt politician ever to serve as mayor of Philadelphia. Amateur Night At City Hall, originally released in 1978 does a decent job of trying to remain objective while still managing to accurately cover the rise of Rizzo from…
The British export Traders is as fun as it is dark. The movie focuses on two friends who recently lost their jobs and are struggling to stay afloat in an increasingly dire economy.
Legendary Reggae/Dub pioneer Lee “Scratch” Perry has always been an odd cat, so it’s appropriate that any documentary about him be just as quirky. Lee Scratch Perry’s Vision of Paradise is far from ordinary, but a fun, peculiar look at the godfather’s of Jamaican music.
Over eight tracks, Young Mister – under the guidance of Steven Fiore – creates a stirring mix of Americana, contemporary folk and pop making for a remarkable debut.
It’s been 36 years since the release of “Kings of the Wild Frontier,” Adam Ant’s comeback album after Malcolm McLaren lured away his entire backing band for his latest project Bow Wow Wow, and the sound is still revolutionary. It was the album that introduced the drum-heavy Brundi Beat to pop music listeners in the US, Europe and beyond and would come to best define Ant’s sound for the next…
Yes, that’s the band name and no, I have no idea about the meaning or origin of the quirky moniker. But 2/3 Goat does play an impressive mix of folk and Americana on Let it Rise (the New York-based band has dubbed their sound metrobilly).