Category: Hard Rock
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An Analysis of The Lyrics to ZZ Top’s Ten Foot Pole
“I bet you can’t work out these lyrics” said a friend in 1986, holding a copy of ZZ Top‘s El Loco album with an evil glint in his eye. I guessed it couldn’t be too tricky. Child’s play. The sort of thing that I could probably sort out whilst a) assembling some flat pack furniture…
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Masters of Reality – Live at O2 Islington Academy – Review
Masters of Reality played the O2 Islington Academy last night and gave the performance I had been waiting twenty five years to see, with a powerful, career spanning set. I have seen Masters of Reality twice before. The first time was in 2001. Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri were in the band, but the only…
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Rock’s Greatest “Lost” Records of the Eighties: #1 – Masters of Reality – Blue Garden
Masters of Reality – Blue Garden There’s only one thing better than discovering new music and new bands: and that’s discovering old music and old bands that you have not heard before. (NB. There are of course many things that are more fun than both, but this is a family website, and I will…
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Queens of the Stone Age – …Like Clockwork Review
June 2003. As I was carried above the heads and outstretched hands of an ecstatic Brixton Academy audience, (hoping no-one would a) grab me in a delicate place b) drop me or c) pick my pocket) crowd-surfing for the first (and last) time in a defiant protest against being thirty three years old, I realised…
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A Look At The Haunting And Sensitive Poetry of… Whitesnake
Whitesnake. Fronted by David Coverdale, and best known for their eighties videos featuring Coverdale’s then-girlfriend, the actress Tawny Kitaen who fetchingly writhed on Coverdale’s car whilst risking catching her death of cold by not wearing very much. All shaggy flowing perms and pouting lips – and that was just the band. And yet… before all…
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Kings X – This Band Was Once The Future Of Rock
Twenty five years ago – on March 28 1988, Kings X released their debut album Out Of The Silent Planet out into a very noisy world. The majority of the planet was busy making lots of noise, and has still yet to notice. However, for some, Kings X were spoken about as The Future of…
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Steven Tyler: “Like An Au Pair Girl Doing The Hoovering”
When Aerosmith had toured the UK in 1976 they hadn’t gone down well. The gigs were promoted with the slogan “Hey Britain, wake up! This is America’s greatest rock n roll band!” Britain, of course loves to be told that it has arrived late to something by Americans. Cough*WW2*Cough. Lemmy remembers, “I went to the…
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Aerosmith: That “Difficult Eighth Album”
The re-birth of Aerosmith in the late eighties appeared to happen overnight. However, Done With Mirrors was the comeback album that didn’t quite get them where they wanted to be. It took a couple of attempts before the nation was singing Love In An Elevator… Back in 1985 there didn’t seem to be many bands…
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When Rock Star Wives Fight: How Aerosmith Broke Up Over Spilled Milk And Room Service Bills
Aerosmith‘s 2012 “comeback” album Music From Another Dimension! received very mixed reviews. (When I say “mixed”, that’s a euphemism for “it was widely dismissed by the critics”). Perry and Tyler appeared on the Jonathan Ross chat show in the UK to promote it and resembled a couple of sulky teenagers after an argument over a…
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An Alternative Best of Aerosmith Playlist
With 2013 now a month old, it feels were are overdue a new Aerosmith Best Of / Compilation album. Aerosmith Greatest Hits CDs are almost as numerous as Iron Maiden live albums, Mariah Carey tantrums or former members of The Sugababes. Sadly Aerosmith’s Greatest Hits, Oh Yeah, Big Ones, Essential Aerosmith and all the other…
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Sorry, Frampton Comes Alive, But The Best Album of 1976 Was Aerosmith’s Rocks
As expected, Aerosmith‘s ‘Rocks’ did not feature heavily in the BBC’s The Great Album Showdown – a show that sought to identify the Finest Rock Album of All Time. Yet in my estimation it was certainly worthy of a second look… The rise of Aerosmith in the USA in 1975 was stratospheric. Sales of ‘Toys…
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Band Origins Told In Song: Aerosmith’s No Surprize
One of Aerosmith‘s most under-rated songs is No Surprize, from the 1979 Night In The Ruts album. It brilliantly tells the story of how the band got together and became successful. For that reason – and given this blog is called Every Record Tells A Story, it seems appropriate to examine this much overlooked song…
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David Lee Roth’s Just Like Paradise is 25 Years Old Today. How Old Does That Make You Feel?
The 21st January 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Skyscraper – David Lee Roth‘s second solo album following his acrimonious split from Van Halen. I mention this just in case you weren’t feeling old enough already. Given that a quarter of a century is the average age of some of Roth’s more…
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Was This The Most Disastrous Magazine Photo Shoot Ever?
Seattle… What a scene that was. Those bands. Brings back memories of wall-of sound guitars played by long haired sensitive rockers who wore embarrassing make up in photos. Eh? Did I lose you on the make up thing? Sorry. Nirvana? Pearl Jam? No – I was talking about Queensryche. By the time of my sixteenth…
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Are Blue Öyster Cult Rock’s Most Barking Mad Band (Or Just The Shortest?)
In my last article, I introduced you to some of Rock’s Greatest Song Titles – all by Blue Oyster Cult. 1988’s Imaginos was my first full BÖC album – an entirely bonkers concept album about… I have no idea – twenty five years later. It’s proper barking. We’re talking Katie Price levels of madness here.…
Every record tells a story 