It always felt a little disingenuous to label Great White as a hair metal band. Yes they were popular during glam metal’s late 80’s heyday and yes they were featured right alongside bands like Poison and Ratt in the pages of Hit Parader and Circus magazines. I’m sure their concert riders even called for cans of Aqua Net at the time, but if you listen to their music, it was…
Let’s get this out of the way up front: if goofy, often absurdist humor is not your thing, stay far away from Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! In fact, it’s probably best you stop reading this review and just move on to more productive things. Ok, now that those born without a sense of humor have moved on, can you believe these guys have found a channel brave…
Coming across as a modern day version of That’s Incredible! or Ripley’s Believe It or Not, at least once in every episode of Stan Lee’s Superhumans there’s an “is that real?” moment. Co-hosted by Stan Lee – creator of comic heroes like The Hulk, X-Men and Spiderman – the show centers on real people with real, if odd, physical abilities, like being able to withstand extreme heat or conduct electricity…
Five years seems like a long time to wait nowadays for a new record, when any laptop can convert into a portable recording studio, but Nicole Atkins gets a pass. On Mondo Amore, the first real follow up of new music to her 2006 debut (the EP released in 2009 was all covers), Atkins ratchets up everything from the writing to the music, turning in an effort that eclipses her…
Ever since Lester Bangs OD-ed in 1982, there’s been a massive void in the role of “well-known rock music journalist”. Neil Strauss, thankfully, has finally come along to fill that role well. If there were any doubt after reading his legendary Motley Crue book The Dirt (not to mention the other rock bios he’s helped pen for Marilyn Manson and Dave Navarro), Strauss’s latest Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead,…
Bands like Journey and Styx may have hijacked the 70’s nostalgia movement, but it’s musicians like Leon Russell that prove that decade was a lot more than tight jeans, poufy hair and neutered arena rock, dripping with saccharin. Lyrically Russell’s right up there with Bob Dylan and Neil Young with a voice just as distinctive as… well Bob Dylan and Neil Young. The 16 track Best of Leon Russell collection…
T.J. English has written, quite possibly, the most compelling historical fictional of the year. The only catch is that it all really happened. With the story telling-style that could rival any bestseller fiction author currently battling it out on the sales charts right now, English uses a reporter’s eye to pull in the most fantastical and interesting details of a racially-charged New York city in the 60’s and 70’s in…
Though technically not a documentary, No One Knows About Persian Cats might as well be. Using a cast of real Iranian underground musicians and filmed on the sly across the country, the director and actors clearly draw from their own experiences on how to get fake permits and passports to tour out of the country and how to hold shows/parties and rehearsals without getting arrested. The film, which won the…
The Low Anthem proves yet again why they’re critical favorites on their latest effort, Smart Flesh.
Billy Joel’s decades long career has mirrored other pop musicians, most notably Neil Diamond: starting out a thoughtful writer/performer churning out one great song after another, before sliding into the over-produced slickness of the late 80’s, early 90’s churning out basic, paint by number radio ready hits with little effort or thought (“The River of Dreams”), laying low for awhile and finally hitting legendary status embraced by everyone from the…
