Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#705 in the Series) is Bob Dylan, Hard Rain I was more than a little late in becoming a Bob Dylan fan.  I don’t know why, maybe I was a little too young to understand the meaning and the impact of a good protest song.  That and I remember having to sing “Turn, Turn, Turn” at Church once. That wasn’t really a turn on for this kid. I still remember the first time that he made an impact on me. PBS was running a special on producer John Hammond Sr.  On this show (which included a very young Bruce Springsteen if I remember correctly) Bob introduced his new song “Hurricane.” No, I...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Soldier Of Love (Lay Down Your Arms)” by Arthur Alexander He’s the only artist to be covered by the holy trinity of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. Others who rushed to his deep well of first-rate copyrights included The Hollies, Ry Cooder, Pearl Jam, Ike & Tina Turner, Marshall Crenshaw, George Jones, Otis Redding, The Bee Gees, Humble Pie, and Dusty Springfield, and that’s only a small sampling of those who have recorded his tunes. Yet, Arthur Alexander, the man who wrote such classics as “Anna (Go To Him),” “You Better Move On,” “Sally Sue Brown,” “Detroit City,” “A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues” and...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#562 in the Series) is Dennis Wilson, Pacific Ocean Blue The only member of the Beach Boys who actually surfed, Dennis Wilson always had that little brother chip on his shoulder. Even though he was the middle brother, he had an undeserved reputation as the Fredo Corleone to Carl’s Sonny and Brian’s Michael, along with a somewhat deserved reputation as the “Bad Boy” of the group.  Showing up late for gigs and hanging out with Charles Manson did little to dissuade his detractors, and the almost “Ringo-esque” way he was spoon-fed songs to feature on Beach Boys albums did not help to spotlight his songwriting talent and his ability to stand alone...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#292 in the Series) is Black Sabbath, Paranoid. Black Sabbath, Paranoid……  I don’t think I need to say much about this one now do I?  This was one of the very first metal albums that I owned.  I have a feeling that many of us can say that.  Hey, and we turned out alright, didn’t we? I went to a rather conservative catholic high school in suburban Chicago.  We had a bus driver that had hooked up a pair of speakers about half way back towards the ceiling. He looked like George Carlin.  He used to blast the 8-track of this on the way to school about 8:00 in the morning.  How cool was...

  Well so far according to messages that I’ve been receiving , my male friends don’t have that much of a problem with it and think it’s pretty cool while my female friends are pretty much saying “Ick!” You can form your own judgment. If you haven’t heard, what I’m referring to is the recently announced nuptials of Bryan Ferry and 29-year-old Amanda Sheppard. They’ve actually been dating since September of 2009. It’s Bryan’s second marriage. He previously was married for 21 years to Lucy Helmore. They had four sons together, Merlin, Tara, Isaac and Otis. Bryan also had a long relationship with Jerry Hall but were never married, she of course famously ended up with Mick Jagger. I...

  Are you getting tired of all the political banter? Are you in a swing-state and every commercial break has candidates telling you how the other side is full of crap?  Do you feel disenfranchised and would like to be able to support a ticket that you believe in? Would you like to tell everyone you see about that ticket? If you said yes to two or more of those questions, then we have the T-Shirts or magnets for you. PleaseRock.com has announced that along with their usual array of cool shirts that they’ve added a couple of classic rock favorites as well. Available is a classic, Hall/Oates 2012 “I CAN Go For That” T-shirt and also some goodies...

    “First Man on the Harvest Moon!” – Stephen Dalrymple NBC News were the first to report the death of astronaut Neil Armstrong, which is obviously a huge story, but in the frenzy to get the first full story up on their website they made a mistake in their headline. They originally reported the death of ‘Astronaut Neil Young’. NBC News first reported Armstrong’s death in a tweet . That’s where most people first heard the news. Armstrong’s wife Carol told NBC’s Jay Barbree about her husband’s passing  and that’s how word got out. Barbree broke the story, and he’s getting praised  for it. In the minutes after, the NBC News website was frantically trying to get their story up. In their haste, a mistake was...

    “First Man on the Harvest Moon!” – Stephen Dalrymple NBC News were the first to report the death of astronaut Neil Armstrong, which is obviously a huge story, but in the frenzy to get the first full story up on their website they made a mistake in their headline. They originally reported the death of ‘Astronaut Neil Young’. NBC News first reported Armstrong’s death in a tweet . That’s where most people first heard the news. Armstrong’s wife Carol told NBC’s Jay Barbree about her husband’s passing  and that’s how word got out. Barbree broke the story, and he’s getting praised  for it. In the minutes after, the NBC News website was frantically trying to get their story up. In their haste, a mistake was...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#113 in the Series) is Little Feat, Waiting For Columbus. We usually only have studio albums in this blog. No Greatest Hits packages either. But today is going to be different. Today is Little Feat, Waiting For Columbus. It’s quite possibly the best live album ever. (Note: since this was originally published we have indeed begun covering live albums, but still no greatest hits packages.) I do so for sad reasons. Little Feat drummer Richie Hayward passed away yesterday from liver cancer. He will be missed by masses. He was a wonderful musician and according to those that knew him, a wonderful person. What always amazed me about Waiting For Columbus was Richie’s...

    Yes, Cheap Trick Fans, it has indeed been  35 years since the boys played and released the classic “Live in Budokan” album. To celebrate they will be performing the full concert set list in its entirety. The first show will be the John Varvatos Bowery boutique in New York City. The boutique where the performance will take place is in the storefront once occupied by CBGB. The band is close with Mr. Varcatos.  You can see the show via new.livestream.com/CheapTrick/Budokan. The April 28th date was the date of the original show in Japan. On April 30th they’ll move the show to El Rey in Los Angeles. There they will play the setlist from April 30th, 1978. It will be televised...