The label is not kidding when they call themselves the Reverberation Appreciation Society. Most tracks on the album are the Nigel Tufnel amp versions of reverb (“These go to 11.”). You’d probably be hard-pressed to find a mid-sixties pop song that didn’t work with a little more echo, so the results are mostly listenable. It’s when the bands go beyond… Read more »
About 25 years ago, the company I was working for turned me into a COBOL programmer. It involved about four months of full time training with a training contractor the company brought on site. The principal trainer owned the contracting company and was significantly more well off than any of us in the class, but he had middle class Baltimore… Read more »
The Dictators are notoriously ill-timed. Their debut came out a year before the Ramones. The year they were finishing up Manifest Destiny, their follow-up, the Ramones were working on album #3. The Dictators just missed that wave. They broke up too soon to remain in the popular mind as the music they helped spawn gained in popularity. Now, in the… Read more »
Full disclaimer: I was only able to get through about 2/3 of the 51 minutes of this album. Marty Friedman is the kind of guitar player I really hate. He can put his chops up against anyone, but it’s all wasted on flash rather than performances with substance. Tokyo Jukebox 3 is even more frustrating, because there are hints of… Read more »
There’s not usually a lot to say about “super deluxe” re-issues. Listener interest usually depends on how much the particular listener likes the artist and these releases where no stone is left unturned are full of what the super-fan might call essential and everyone else would call filler. And so it is with this “deluxe” version of my favorite Elvis… Read more »
There are more than a few instances of what is arguably a band’s best work being overshadowed by lesser later work that was hugely popular. ZZ Top is more associated with a ’33 Ford and long-legged women than they are with the fat guitar tones and loose Texas boogie of their 1970’s output. When most people think of Genesis, 80’s… Read more »
“Racing in the Street” is probably my favorite Springsteen song. I have never and likely will never race in the street. I’m not particularly interested in cars. I don’t even like driving. Yet somehow, that song resonates with me. Why? Well, I think racing is a metaphor for restlessness and that is something I understand. John Prine’s “Day Is Done”… Read more »
After a long stint of liking Kiss almost exclusively, I went through a rapid succession of favorite genres between about 12 and 14. First, it was Top 40, recording Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 on TDK D-120 tapes on Saturdays for a year or so. Hearing Def Leppard on the Top 40 started my shift toward harder rock and metal,… Read more »
I am a latecomer to Cheap Trick. I got into them on August 4, 2007. Why do I remember the exact date that I finally appreciated a band that I had heard on the radio for decades? Because that is the day that I first saw Cheap Trick live. All it took was an abbreviated set at Baltimore’s Virgin Fest… Read more »
The strange confluence of pandemic isolation and political divisiveness has people in general (and Americans in particular) in a strange place. As expected, the impact of these times is felt acutely in music. It seems like its effects are ubiquitous with everyone from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra who edited at home performances into incredibly creative presentations when they could not… Read more »