Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#549 in the Series) is Sugar, Copper Blue Bob Mould is getting a lot of press these days. His autobiography, See A Little Light: Tales of Rage and Melody is one of the best of its genre I’ve ever read, and I highly recommend it. Usually I start these books, get my interested piqued for a while, then the minutia of the “road stories” gets old and I’m fighting to keep plundering through. Not so much the case with this one, as it’s a story of a man with a remarkable life that centers around music but also openly and shamelessly describes the demons and drive that have made him successful.  The...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#522 in the Series) is Elliott Smith, Either/Or The one that almost got away. When I bought this album it was a new release and the critics were raving about it, the praise was effusive, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands (and ears!) on it. Turned out they were all wrong…………… This was the first I’d ever heard of Elliott Smith and he did absolutely nothing for me. After the first plays I just thought that it all sounded the same, nothing really stood out and it just sort of washed over me. I played it a few times but quickly lost interest. It slowly moved towards the back of the...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (# 487 in the Series) is Ride, Nowhere. There have been some ridiculous labels for rock music’s subgenres. Acid rock? Math rock? Proto-punk?  The most ridiculous of all is emo (isn’t almost all rock music “emo”tional?). The late 1980’s and early 1990’s gave us shoegazer rock. Shoegazing got its name from musicians who were not very mobile on stage staring at their instruments. It appeared that they were staring at their shoes. Some of the great bands hatched in this period were Lush, Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and Ride. Ride was formed in Oxford, England circa 1988. 1990 witnessed the band releasing 3 EP’s before dropping their debut album, Nowhere,...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#477 in the Series) is the first Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band. I’ve always been a huge fan of these Ringo Starr All-Starr tours. I think they are just a fantastic idea. Besides being a fantastic drummer, Ringo’s a smart man. He knows he doesn’t have the body of work, vocally, to front a tour that will allow him access to large venues.  So he fills out his band with well-known musicians and they take the lead also during the show. Great idea, but what makes it even better is the musicians that Mr. Starkey takes on the road with hi. He always picks some really interesting people.  I don’t think...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (# 450 in the Series) is The Wildhearts, Earth vs. the Wildhearts. A friend once questioned my musical tastes. “What do you do when you want to mellow out?” I believe that she was telling me that I should listen to her favorite band, the Eagles (something which I would never do). I replied “Watch television or take a nap. Rock and roll is supposed to be fast, loud, aggressive, and a bit obnoxious.” The Wildhearts debut “Earth vs. The Wildhearts” fits this philosophy perfectly. Visualize a blender with equal parts hard rock, glam, and punk in it and you would have England’s The Wildhearts. In 1993, The Wildhearts dropped their debut on...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#448 in the Series) is Peter Himmelman, From Strength to Strength   If there were a checklist of “Interesting Facts/Accomplishments of an Artist,” Minnesota native Peter Himmelman would have it nailed. Prolific songwriter? 20+ studio albums both with his former band Sussman Lawrence and solo, including 5 solo children’s albums. Award Nominations? Grammys, Emmys (for the “Judging Amy” TV series), and numerous awards for his children’s albums.  Famous Relatives? His father-in-law is Bob Dylan.  And he’s an Orthodox Jew who keeps close to his faith, saying “One of the secrets is to be able to lose yourself, your ego—in the music, in the Torah.” So either with him or not, his music is...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#434in the Series) is Carlene Carter, I Fell in Love Youngsters from musical families have a huge advantage over the majority of society.  Not only is music given to them via their genes, but having it in their ears from before birth is just a wonderful way to grow up. A dear friend of mine was from a musical family.  He’s a guitar player/singer/songwriter etc. etc. He married a singer/dancer and yes, their two children have grown up to be extremely musical in their own write.  In fact the daughter has been headlining places like the Rainbow Room and Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles all this summer. But what else makes...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#429 in the Series) is the debut from Texas Tornados If you don’t count Elvis, Sam Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash sitting around a piano at Sun Records, The Texas Tornados could be considered one the best Rock & Roll Super groups, sort of a Tex-Mex Travelling Wilburys. Formed in the 1990’s the group consisted of Freddie Fender, who already had released his monster hits “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” and “Before the Next Teardrop Falls”, Doug Sahm who is widely referred to as the father of the Tex-Mex music scene, Augie Meyers, a founding member of The Sir Douglas Quintet with Sahm, and Flaco Jiménez, a pioneer of the Mexican...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#394 in the Series) is Cheap Trick, at Budokan: The Complete Concert. Cheap Trick’s first album, which was simply self-titled, did OK here in the States. Their second release, In Color gave the band a whole new audience as it stepped them up a notch. Dream Police, the same deal, they went up another notch but not a real big deal. Then came Cheap Trick at Budokan, after this was released, they became stars. All that was referring to the United Stated, beginning in late ’77, they had become a huge act in Japan.  How did that happen? Mainly it was because they had done two big tours of the island. One as...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#392 in the Series) is Sinéad O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got When I started doing this write-up I noticed one thing that I had pretty much forgotten. I really could have saved this album for a ‘Whale Wednesday.’ You know, on Wednesday’s we featured the big, big whale sellers. This album was a number seller on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart and sold more than 7 million units worldwide. That sounds pretty ‘blubbery” to me! This album featured her huge selling single, the Prince penned, “Nothing Compares 2 U.”  It also had a lesser hit with “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” As every reader hear knows however, that’s not what...