Considering the size of his ego, I’m shocked that Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider was able to cram his life story into just a little over 400 pages. Let’s just tick through the list of things Snider wants credit for: founding the hair metal genre (not sure why he would take pride in that one, but check); coming up with the idea for MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball; creating the first proper…
Unless you’re a student of British hard rock, chances are you probably know little about UFO, but bands like Dokken, Tesla, Megadeth and yes, even Metallica, owe plenty to these heavy metal pioneers. Founded in 1969, London’s UFO started out as first generation headbangers and continued with that sound throughout most of the following decade, but by the time they hit the ‘80’s they had settled into a more mature,…
Vampires: check; Werewolves and Werepathers: check; Shape shifters and Fairies: Check. The only supernatural group really missing from True Blood was witches and season four trots them out en mass. Since 2008, Alan Ball and his team of writers have been upping the ante on what to expect from this Vampire soap opera. A slew of imitators have come and gone over the years, but True Blood continues to…
There is no getting around the fact that plot takes a back seat in Haywire, an action flick centered on MMA fighter Gina Carano. That’s not to say it’s a bad movie, not at all, but like many great action films, the fight scenes and are front and center and the plot is simply written around them. The fact that Stephen Soderbergh directed this one, you can be certain that…
For every Tina Fey and Will Ferrell there’s a Dan Vitale and a yes, sadly, a Rachel Dratch… Saturday Night Live has been a great springboard to countless of comedic actors, but has also been the last stop of relevancy for many more. It’s a little too early to tell if Rachel Dratch fits into that latter category, but if the last six years are any indication she…
It’s been awhile since Willie’s put out an album free of themes. His last few, his partnerships with Asleep At the Wheel and Wynton Marsalis (those are two separate pairing, by the way), while good, seemed to be more about changing things up after 60 or so studio albums (and that’s not a typo) than continuing his legacy as one of this country’s greatest musical treasures. Hyperbole aside, you could…
When bad songs happen to good people. The Scottish-born singer/songwriter Donovan has a slew of remarkable songs, inspired everyone from Jeff Beck to World Party (he even taught John Lennon how to finger pick on the guitar), and easily moved from folk, to pop, to jazz to psychedelic. But to many people, he is simply that guy who sang “Mello Yellow,” that acid-drenched, tie dyed novelty song that sounds exactly…
Thanks to the new Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movie, the late 60’s/early 70’s vampire soap Dark Shadows is finally getting some much needed mainstream pop culture love. Granted there have been some diehard fans over the past few decades, but the proto-goth TV series has never had the opportunity to reach such a wide audience before now (despite some unfortunate reboots of the series). So it makes perfect sense that the…
David Simon and Eric Overmyer – best known for HBO’s The Wire – were under tremendous pressure to follow up that critical darling with their second HBO outing: Treme. Despite the obvious moans about it being too different from The Wire, the Post-Katrina take on the locals trying to go about life in New Orleans was one of the best things on TV when it debuted two years ago. Proving…
With Tough Sh*t, his latest self-confessional memoir, director Kevin Smith proves that absolutely nothing is off limits when it comes to opening up about his personal life and experiences in Hollywood. From sex with his wife (including a hilariously uncomfortable essay about her backside) to working with Bruce Willis on Cop Out (another essay about an ass), Smith is refreshingly honest and quite possibly the author of the funniest memoir…
There is something satisfyingly appropriate about a bio that focuses on Pulitzer Prize winning novelist John Kennedy Toole that is actually unable to answer many of the questions about the mysteries in his life. That’s not to say Cory MacLauchlin’s take on the author’s life is not well-researched; it is and as a result is a compelling read. It’s just that Toole wasn’t successful until years after his suicide and…
Born out of friendship between Drivin’ N’ Cryin’s Kevn Kinney and The Golden Palomino’s drummer Anton Fier (also with the Feelies, Bob Mould Band, etc.), A Good Country Mile takes the best influences from both and a slew of 60’s and 70’s rockers resulting in an unforgettable slab of Blues-soaked Americana, punctuated beautifully with plenty of harmonica and Hammond organ. The record includes some new material, some inspired covers…
Tired of screaming your kid’s name at the playground and realizing that every other parent in the neighborhood also had the brilliant idea to name their offspring “Connor” or “Emma”? Then have I got the book for you. Rock and Roll Baby Names by freelance writer, former DJ and music obsessive Margaret Eby is the must-have for that expectant couple with just a slightly better taste in music than your…
For a whole legion of new fans, Johnny Cash is the bad ass guy in black who covered Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode; is on a poster in dorm room walls across the country giving a defiant middle finger to the camera; stood in front of prisoners in Folsom and San Quentin, doped out of his mind, and openly mocked the prison guards during live concerts. And yes,…
If there were ever a college course designed around the study of Grunge (and you know there likely is) Mark Yarm’s exhaustive study of the Seattle music scene Everybody Loves Our Town is the only text book you will ever need to buy. Just released in paperback, the book is the alpha and omega on the genre that killed hair metal. Told entirely in direct quotes, oral history style, the…
We’ve come to expect that books, even memoirs, by comedians will be… well, funny. That’s not the case with up-and-coming stand up Moshe Kasher’s autobiography of his childhood. Well, that’s not entirely true. There are some funny asides and anecdotes, but that’s a result of the author just being naturally humorous and self-deprecating. But on the whole, Kasher in the Rye is a dark look at a tragic childhood a…
You’d be forgiven for assuming Morgan Christopher Geer (aka Drunken Prayer) called Austin, hell even Nashville, home. But he’s actually from Portland, home to so many sound alike hipster bands. That alone should bring some added attention to his latest, Into the Missionfield, a nice blend of folk and alt country. With some dark themes, but surprisingly sweet melodies, he can sing about the devil taking your soul (“Always So…
It’s easy to compare Myth of the American Sleep Over, the debut film by David Robert Mitchell, to Rickard Linklater’s classic take on high school Dazed and Confused. It’s easy, yes, but also pretty damn accurate. Myth of the American Sleep Over focuses on a group of teens in the Detroit suburbs clinging to the last few days of summer, searching for romance. Comprised of unknown actors, and set in…
Meet contemporary fiction’s latest anti-hero, an out of shape 20-something suburban druggie, mooching off his divorced parents who has never worked a day in his life and really has no plans to as long as he can live in his mom’s basement and count on dad’s money to buy more pot. Flatscreen’s Eli Schwartz is the a latest character to take that well-trodden path in coming-of-age fiction, but thanks to…
There is something hilarious about a guy who gets paid to take the stage in front of hundreds night after night and sing “Fuck Authority” at the top of his lungs, reprimand his pre-teen daughter for using a naughty word at home. The Other F Word is the brilliant documentary by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins based partly on ex-Pennywise front man Jim Lindberg’s 2008 memoir Punk Rock Dad. The film features…