Album Review: Coverdale and Page (Eponymous)

I've decided to return to my series that I've unofficially been calling "Jimmy Page Through The Years," or "The Forgotten Years." I do still need to purchase at least one more album, and then I'll have all of the source material. I think in the end, I'm going to need to purchase two.

Continuing with my idea of revisiting much of the work that Jimmy Page has done between Led Zeppelin and "Celebration Day," we arrive at Coverdale and Page. I've never been much of a Whitesnake fan and I've always felt that there have been some similarities between David Coverdale and Robert Plant. I'm not going to say that he was ripping off Mr. Plant, but I think the similarities are too large to ignore. In fact there was a song that I heard over and over on rock radio that I thought was a Zeppelin tune, but it turned out to be a Whitesnake song.

We all know whom Jimmy Page is. I really think he is the most valuable rocker of all time: writer, producer, arranger, musician.  Before I gush too much, let's dig into this record, again with eyes unclouded.

Album Review: "Irish Tour '74" by Rory Gallagher

I like to pride myself on knowing a lot about music, and particularly of the great guitarists. In the past few months, I've learned that there's still a lot out there that I am not familiar with.

About a month and a half ago, I was told t hat I should get this album. I had never heard of Rory Gallagher and couldn't figure out why a tour of Ireland would be all that significant, but I put it on the Amazon wishlist and there is languished for awhile.

During the Holiday Amazon Giftcard Blowout, I picked it up. I should also mention that purchasing this CD is a violation of personal policy. I will not buy a live album as my introduction to an artist. It's always ended badly in the past.

I still had heard nothing else of the man, but I thought, I listened to half of a track and wasn't too impressed so I should get this. Right? After ordering it, I was told by a number of people that I was nuts for thinking that this album might not be amazing.

Album Review: "Metal EP" by Newsted

I am nothing if not loyal. Case in point, I love Metallica. Back in the 90's, I even bought the Flotsam & Jetsam album that Jason Newsted was on. Man, back in those days he was that band. He wrote it all, but it was terrible!

Flash forward to 2013! Speaking of, this is my first review from 2013. Let's move forward. After Jason left Metallica, he bounced around and was basically semi-retired. After the Metallica 30th Anniversary concerts, he decided it was time to get the ball rolling again and that brings us to the "Metal EP" by Newsted, exclusively on iTunes.

I suppose I should point out that this is literally the first time I've purchased an "album" on MP3..I don't like it. At least iTunes allows me to always have this in case my iPhone or PC blows up.

Album Review: "Walking Into Clarksdale" by Page and Plant

Celebration Day has worked me into a tizzy.

I knew that watching/listening to the concert would rekindle some fires that were long since extinguished. I even decided to get all the Led Zeppelin studio CDs, instead of my four disc boxed set.

I need it all.

As with most bands, my favorite member is the lead guitarist. Jimmy Page is just a phenomenal player, writer, and studio hand, but thinking back to his post Zeppelin work left me somewhat unfulfilled. Plant's stuff has gotten all kinds of attention, and the fact that he's been far busier and harder working is not lost on me.

So, I decided I was going to set the way-back machine to Jimmy Page. I'm going to take a look back at four, at least, of his post Zeppelin efforts. I will not be entertaining "No Quarter," "Live At the Greek," or anything else I'm unaware of that's primarily Led Zeppelin revisited. I want to see what the man has written since the day Zeppelin announced they were breaking up.  

Album Review: "Disraeli Gears" by Cream

I do  not consider myself to be a fan of Eric Clapton. I was familiar with  the song "Sunshine of Your Love," thanks to Goodfellas, but honestly I never associated with him. Over the years, I've heard people talking about Cream. I've heard artists I enjoy referencing Cream songs. For a group that seems to be so revered, how was I so blissfully ignorant of them? I would have guessed that classic rock radio would have been jamming them down my throat, especially with their love of Eric Clapton.

Well, I decided that it was certainly time to rid myself of this ignorance. I did some asking, and I was told that this was their quintessential album. It was also suggested that I get a live album, but I don't seem to enjoy a live record unless I know the songs first. It's a strange quirk of mine. From what I am given to understand, there is a Cream reunion live cd though...perhaps one day...

Foolishly, I took this album to be an Eric Clapton Enterprise. I really don't understand why I thought that. I have always known that they're a supergroup, so that's really a silly way of looking at things.

Album Review: "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd

With all of the new music I've been buying for the past year or two, I've been needing to pick up some older music. This is my second Pink Floyd album, you may recall "Momentary Lapse of Reason." And there is still quite a bit of older music coming. Soon enough we'll get back to newer stuff. Interest ebbs and flows.

When I was younger, I used to consider myself a Pink Floyd fan, but now as I'm older, I don't think that was accurate. I had Lapse and Relics on tape and I've had "The Wall," "Ummagumma," and "Dark Side of the Moon" on CD. At present, I only have Lapse, but I really don't think that even qualifies for being a fan. Everybody has had "The Wall" and Dark Side right? I mean, it's almost impossible not to have owned those albums. They were just a part of growing up in America. Wait, wait. I forgot about "The Division Bell," but as I never really owned it, I don't think I can count that monstrosity!

Album Review: "Celebration Day" by Led Zeppelin

Do you remember when you first started owning music? I do. In the span of four days I got my first two records. The first was "Live Evil" by Dio fronted Black Sabbath, but the second was "Led Zeppelin III." I wore that cassette out. That began my fandom of the greatest band in the history of the world, Led Zeppelin, not that Black Sabbath was shabby!

I've always had a spot for 70's classic rock really. I could talk about that for the next ten years, but that's not what today is about.

Today is about Led Zeppelin and I just finished watching the blu-ray of "Celebration Day." Page and the boys took a page from the Doors and didn't include what should have been the title track on the release, but I'm not going to judge.

I can remember 2007. Out of nowhere, it was announced that Led Zeppelin, with Jason Bonham on drums, would be reuniting for one night only. Over 20 million people put in for a lottery to get tickets to the show. I always said that I'd give up a kidney to see them play and this is coming from a person who saw Page and Plant and that was awesome, but sadly it was one of the many near Led Zeppelin moments. I remember watching the internets for weeks in the hopes of a tour that never came. Being in St. Louis, I didn't get to see or hear anything. I do realize now that I could've just popped onto YouTube and probably seen bits.

Album Review "Welcome To The Breakdown" by I Fight Dragons

Welcome To The Breakdown

I Fight Dragons came on my radar when they came to town on tour with MC Lars. Yes I know this is the third CD I'm reviewing from that show. Yes I know this another EP, but I bought four that night! All of them were only five bucks.

How could I not walk out with something by all of the acts?

This group is interesting. This is the first Chip Rock I've ever heard, but for categorizing purposes, I'm just going to call them modern rock. A large part of their sound comes from the use of sound chips from Nintendo and Super Nintendo cartridges. What makes that even more fun is that they don't sample them with just a touch of a button, but they use controllers from both systems, including the powerpad and a guitar hero guitar controller while on stage to click the samples.

What they end up with is a poppy, nerdy, and fun type of music that I really enjoyed.

Album Review: "Heartwork" by Carcass

It's about to get brutal up in here. Carcass are, well were, some pretty heavy boys. I had this album back when it was fairly new in the 90's and like many others, it slipped away from me. Even though I'm in my thirties now, I still like to blast some metal. A big part of that is because I love guitar. Many of the best guitarists play metal, so that's where I go to find it. Though I have to say that long gone are the days of my being in a mosh pit, stage diving, having long hair and piercings, etc. Sad isn't it? An aging metal guy.

Carcass has long since broken up and I have to say that this is pretty much a shame. Although this album is prototypical death metal, or grindcore, or whatever, it's more than just something like Cannibal Corpse and those kinds of guys. The first death band I got into was Morbid Angel. There's a group of guys that fall into every trap imaginable when it comes to death metal....

Album Review: "Twilight EP" by Skyfox

It seems like I'm doing a lot of reviews of EPs doesn't it? Well, normally I'm not really a purchaser of EPs, but I just seem to have found a few in my possession lately...and there will be at least one more EP reviewed in the near future....

Here's a band that under normal circumstances would have stayed far outside of my radar. I discovered Skyfox because of MC Lars who was coming to St. Louis on tour with I Fight Dragons. Upon learning of the line up of bands, I did some checking. Between my friends and I that were going, none of us had ever heard of Skyfox. So, I checked them out on Youtube and honestly, I wasn't overly excited.

Upon arriving at the venue, I went over to the merch tables, manned by the artists themselves, and picked up three EPs, but not Skyfox's. We then listened to the opening band and had a beer or two, but as soon as Skyfox kicked into their first song, and the singer was swinging a sweet Gibson Les Paul Supreme, I just got it and I went and picked up this CD.

Album Review: "Friends" by mc chris

One of the things I've been trying to do over the past few years was expand not just the size, but the scope of my music library. For a long time, I really didn't have much rap to speak of, save the Beastie Boys, and I still don't have a lot.

I'd have to say when I look at my music library by genre on my PC that it's third to last in front of Country (all Johnny Cash) and my newly added Blues category, but as long as mc chris and a host of other nerd rappers keep coming out of the woodwork, it'll keep growing.

What we have here is the latest release by mc chris. This is a four song EP, that was released on Black Friday 2012, which is all about Batman's friends. Normally, the content of mc's songs really speaks to me because I'm into those things, but I have to be honest here, I've not been a fan of comic books since I was little.

Classic Album Review: "Electric Ladyland" by Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix.

The godfather of it all. Call this a slight tribute to the man who changed everything, and who's got a new record coming out next year, his third posthumous release under the Experience Hendrix label.

I love Jimi Hendrix, but I never had much in the way of his studio albums. I mean, who doesn't have "Are You Experienced?," but I never had this one or "Axis: Bold As Love." This is something that I'm working on fixing as we speak. I've had several live albums, some greatest hits collections, but there's something special about hearing the music as the artist intended on the original albums and Jimi was definitely an artist. He was a true genius and a true believer in what he sang about. This album was the last of the Experience, and the last studio release of Hendrix's life. It was, in more ways than one, the beginning of the end and a perfect swansong.

Album Review: "The Edgar Allan Poe EP" by MC Lars

This one is another late arrival to the party I suppose. This disc has been out for months and months, but I just got it. I originally came across MC Lars when he was on the bill for the first mc chris show I attended. I ended up buying his latest album after that, and then became a fan. I was trolling his website awhile back and came across this EP, but forgot to buy it.

Oops.

A while back MC Lars tweeted me that he'd be here with I Fight Dragons at the Firebird. Well, as I hadn't had the chance to see a nerd rapper in St. Louis yet, I made sure to get down there with a couple friends of mine. Quick note before we stampede off here, I had the chance to meet with MC Lars at the merch table and during the headliners and I have never met a musician so gracious, so humble, and so willing to give his time to those who want it.

Album Review: "Living Like a Runaway" by Lita Ford

I read about this album in the where are they  now column of Guitar World. I confess that I was rather interested in this although I cannot honestly say why. I never really much enjoyed Lita Ford aside from the two really big tunes she had. I suppose the story of her husband turning her sons against her intrigued me.

Well, I didn't buy the album because of that article, but flash forward a few months and I was staring at Lita Ford and her band in the Chaiffetz Arena and they were just killing it, aside from the drums being too high up in the mix. The wife and I walked to the merch table right after her set was up and bought her CD. Now that I've gotten older and shirts more expensive, that's the kind of thing I want to take home with me. The album. So I did just that. I thought she had earned it.

Classic Album Review: "Real Illusions: Reflections"

Back to Steve Vai. I made mention in my previous post that I didn't have enough of his albums, well here is my latest purchase. Mr. Vai continues to amaze me on all of his records.

Whereas the previous post was about his current album, this is about its predecessor, and the first chapter (or third) of his rock fable that's told out of order, or maybe in order. He's not quite clear on that one.

Like the other album, it's a mixture between an instrumental record and vocal songs. I think over time Steve has learned to be satisfied with what his voice is and is now comfortable singing on a couple songs each album. It certainly does break up the monotony of the awesome guitar solos. I suppose this album tells the story of Captain Mason Drake as well, but like with what I learned from it's successor, I chose to simply ignore all of those details and just focus on the music.