Today’s ‘Cool Album of the Day’ (#1040 in the Series) is Rockpile Live at  Montreux 1980 – In 1980, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams, collectively known as Rockpile, released their only official album, Seconds of Pleasure.  On August 23rd, 2011, they released their second.  It’s called Live at Montreux 1980. Sure we know there were about four or five more albums that could have been called Rockpile, except Dave Edmunds was contracted to one label and Nick Lowe to another, so we never had a second Rockpile album. This one is a live album and features 16 tracks. You’ll find some goodies from all three “franchises, “there are some Rockpile tunes, some songs that were...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#980 in the Series) is Cheap Trick, In Color The mid to late 70s were really a fun time to be a music fan for me. Seeing bands in clubs around Chicago, and then seeing some of them release albums and becoming even more successful, some of those success stories would even reach world-wide. Cheap Trick was one of those bands. They would make the 90 minute or so trip from their Rockford, Illinois home to Chicago every so often. Once or twice they’d even play tiny “Luigi’s” in Chicago Heights.  We were underage but we’d get in. The first Cheap Trick album was released in early ’77.  To me it’s never been...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#970 in the Series) is Jellyfish, Bellybutton. My guess is that a good number of you don’t know this album or even this band. In one word, “you should!” They were one of the best power-pop bands of the early nineties, Jellyfish.  One of those bands that you ask yourself, Why wasn’t this all over radio, why were they not more popular? They definitely had some radio friendly songs, a good look a unique look and a major label.   So it’s hard to say what happened.  They should have had much more success. You can hear a little Squeeze in their sound, a little XTC and a little Beatles. The songs that did...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Whole Wide World” by Wreckless Eric “If it ain’t Stiff, it ain’t worth a f*ck.” “The world’s most flexible record label.” “Undertakers to the industry.” “We came. We Saw. We Left.” “In ’78 everyone born in ’45 will be 33-1/3.” “When you kill time, you murder success.” “If they’re dead, we’ll sign them.” The above non-sequitors were all slogans for one of the coolest record labels to be associated with the late 1970s punk rock movement. Stiff Records established itself by not only having a roster that included Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, The Damned, Wreckless Eric and Ian Dury, but by the hyperactive media antics they pulled off in the name...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#813 in the Series) is  Bram Tchaikovsky, Strange Man Changed Man The legend says: ¨A long time ago, a bunch of bored cavemen, hungry of fun and sex, invented Rock´n´Roll…¨ It must be true, and we must be grateful:  they invented something of the same transcendence as the Ferris wheel; one of the most proteiform and free examples of contemporary art. Did I say art? Yes, maybe the 8th form! Along there with Music, but with its own singular status. Joyously alive, always changing, the perfect constant motion machine. This album is one of the finest examples of the genre. Sadly overlooked, it condensed in itself all of the stamina and the joie...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#779 in the Series) is The Jupiter Affect, Instructions For the Two Ways of Becoming Alice Ask a handful of music lovers of a certain age about their favorite Michael Quercio moment, and you’ll be hard-pressed to come up with a consensus. Some will vote for “Jet Fighter,” the appropriately soaring opening track off Sixteen Tambourines, The Three O’ Clock’s 1983 debut album, Others prefer the punk-psych swirl of “She Turns To Flowers” by Quercio’s earlier trio The Salvation Army, the D.Boon-approved combo that played a major role in kick-starting LA’s “Paisley Underground” movement. Still others will tell you that he did his best work in the early 90s with Permanent Green Light....

    Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#634 in the Series) is Shoes, Present Tense. Today we’re looking at the band Shoes and their album Present Tense. Are you familiar with Shoes? If you’re from the Midwest area of the States that there is a very good chance you are. There is also a good chance that you’ve heard of them if you were anywhere near MTV in its very early days, you remember when they used to play music videos! It was quite fun and in those days because there was some intrigue and what they played because not everyone had videos so they had to play what they could get so you often saw some quite...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#319 in the Series) is Mimi Betinis, All That Glitters. Mimi Betinis, All That Glitters was released on Feb 11th, 2011. (If I ever use the term “dropped, “please shoot me!) I know we’re only in the 1st quarter of the year but as of today, this is my favorite album of the year. There’s a real good chance that it’s not going to be topped either. Mimi (short for Demetrios) is the former leader of the Chicago area band “Pezband.”  Pezband was called a power pop act. Here’s what you probably did not know. They were the first band to be referred to as being a power pop act.  It was a...

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(#385 in the Series) is The Replacements, Tim The barstool I happened to be sitting on was half a dozen steps inside Geno and Carlo’s, an “old school”, cash only bar in the heart of the Italian section of San Francisco known as North Beach, or as the locals prefer to call the area,” Naughty North Beach”. The drink of choice was a Makers Mark Manhattan straight up with two stemmed cherries. The clientele of this particular watering hole is a sublime mosh pit of professional types, Goth chicks, drunken homeless dudes, artists, and musicians. The atmosphere is more Woodstock than Altamont, with a definite “Star Wars bar scene” vibe to the entire proceedings....