Harp Blues

The quite excellent Harp music magazine has printed its last issue.
I once e-mailed them about a Pere Ubu review and I got a response in less than 30 minutes.
Little did I know they were gonna print it.
Thanks Harp
We'll miss ya.

Sugar Free

The only thing we like better than Joe Perry's Hot Sauce are his kids.
Secretary's Day - TAB The Band
CYT - TAB The Band

north street records
TAB the band

Criss Alive

Kiss Live '75 - The Year of The Cat

Pop Hall Of Fame

Yes it's true, Iggy and the Stooges finally made the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony. Not for their three trailblazing pre-punk classics however.
They were there to sing for Madonna, the Queen Of Rock and...um...well she played CBGB's once or something. Oh yeah and she sold a lot of records too. Maybe this was the MTV awards cause I saw John Cougar there too.

BURNING UP

I think I just saw the Stooges play Burning Up and Ray Of Light for Madonna at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony.
Could this be possible?

pale blue eyes by R.E.M.

Jagger-meister

Shattered and Little Big Wheel at The Lucky Dog
The last time I saw Little Big Wheel they opened for an amazing Frank Black at this same venue eight years ago. Since then the band has released the excellent Redwood CD, making it two of the best locally released albums to ever come out of the Worcester music scene.
When LBW hit the stage the first thing I noticed was only half the original members are still in the band. That only makes 'em a little Little Big Wheel doesn't it? What matters is singer-songwriter Jim Weeks is center stage. The band sounds fine, but I miss original guitarists Wes Burton's playing a bit. He was the Dan Murphy to Week's Pirner (a veiled Jagger -Richards reference). No offence to the other musicians, but maybe it's time to drop the Little Big Wheel moniker. We know who Weeks is by now and it's his songs we come to hear.

On with the show,
To celebrate the anniversary of the legendary Rolling Stones appearance at Sir Morgan's Cove (now Lucky Dog) tonight's main act is Shattered. The club originally booked legendary Rolling Stones clones The Blushing Brides but they had to cancel.
As the band took the stage I was trying to figure out who played who with no luck.
Then I saw the Jagger guy. Yes, he was definitely Jagger. Directly to his his left was a female singer (which Stone was she?).I figure her job is to make you not notice that the other guys don't look like Stones at all.

How you doing Wooster?

This guy had the accent and rooster dance down pretty well as they ripped into Monkey Man. The Keith guy had the right guitars and tunings all the way down, but he hardly looked the part with his leopard print shirt and his K-mart chain. That's okay cause the Jagger-esque voice and moves got all your attention. The between song patter made me wonder if he acted like this all the time. He'd be great at parties, for a while. They ran through all the hits (with a couple of surprises, like No Expectations) and the more you drank the more you thought they were the the real deal. Jagger-boy left the stage for a breather and the female singer took over for a capable version of Beast Of Burden (remember the Bette Midler video?), which looked better than it sounded, prompting one rowdy fella to holler "let the bitch sing!" upon the Mick's return. Encore time and Mick and K-mart Keith are playing the crowd with us regular folk and it's 1981 all over again, almost. Wonder what is was like to really be there.

Lights Out

Hear Rock City, one of the finest music blogs on the web, is going out of business.
Go check it out before it's gone.
HEAR ROCK CITY

James Gang In Concert

I never gave much thought to the James Gang because they pretty much happened before my time. My first band played the hits, Funk #49 and Walk Away, but I'd never even seen their their LP's. Then one day, twenty years on, I saw a clip of Walk Away on VH-1 Classic that blew me away. I was also surprised when I heard that they were doing a reunion tour. Why would Joe Walsh need to do this when he's in the fucking Eagles and can charge 300 dollars a seat? After listening to a bootleg copy of one of the 2002 shows I realized this band had a few more good songs and they could still cut it live(with a little keyboard help). Next day while browsing CD racks I couldn't find anything new so I headed for the James Gang bin. I should have bought the studio James Gang Rides Again but the $6 dollar price tag for Live In Concert suckered me in. Well it rocks, with sloppy sound and total stereo separation of the bass and guitar. It starts off with a few heavy bloozy rockers then Walsh switches from guitar to keyboard for Tend My Garden, the song on whihch Tom Scholz supposedly based his "Boston Sound" on. A quick acoustic track follows and then back with a blistering version of Walk Away. The album ends on a long note with a 17 minute jam complete with bass and drum solos which I could probably do without. A 7 minute Funk # 49 might have been better. But hey, 20 minutes of good music for 6 bucks, who could walk away from that.

buy it now

walk away (2002 version)