Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Kill Your Sons” by Lou Reed After the huge success of the Transformer album and its top-twenty single “Walk On The Wild Side,” Lou Reed delivered his most beautifully disturbing album as a follow up. The concept album, Berlin was considered at the time to be a depressing mess, and it was not exactly what fans expected or wanted from their newly minted glam rock star. Over time, Berlin’s stature has deservedly risen and is now not only considered a classic, but one of Reed’s greatest albums. In order to calm the nerves of his record company and his fans, Reed followed Berlin with the live Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal...

  Today’s Cool Album o the Day (#843 in the Series) is Montrose, Paper Money. I’m writing this on  March 3rd, a year to the day that Ronnie Montrose left us for what many believe is a better place. So for today’s Cool Album Of The Day we are honoring  Ronnie with a piece on Paper Money,  his second Montrose band album which was released in 1974. People ALWAYS mention the genius of the Montrose debut album which was released just a year earlier. That is completely legit however Paper Money certainly deserves its own accolades. Featuring the same lineup as the debut (with the exception of Alan Fitzgerald taking over bass duties for Bill Church) and the same...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day is (#803 in the Series) is Scorpions, Fly to the Rainbow. Fly to the Rainbow was the 1974 album from German metal band Scorpions. It was their second album following up, Lonesome Crow. This was not just a straight ahead metal album. It was far from it. It definitely had a good layer of prog-rock in its sound.  I usually don’t include track times to the listings. I did so here for a reason. Look at the lengths. 7:42, 9:40 etc.  Those lengthy times are a clear point to something different. Lonesome Crow was the only album that had Michael Schenker as full time lead guitarist.  He did appear here but in a...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#793 in the Series) is Badfinger, Wish You Were Here. Badfinger, the poster band for the “Behind the Music” type of Rock & Roll excess cautionary tale, could have been, and really should have been the next big thing in the post Beatles rock era. Starting with their first record, Magic Christian Record, released by Apple Records, and personally endorsed by Paul McCartney himself, who also wrote the band’s first hit “Come and Get It,” a song that was considered by many to be the next great pop song.  This musical blend of Hollies, Kinks, and Beach Boys, along with a pinch of psychedelic mojo seemed to be the perfect recipe to...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#774 in the Series) is Glen Campbell  & Jimmy Webb, Reunion: The Songs of Jimmy Webb. This album had its beginnings in those wonderful Glen Campbell hits of the late 60’s, five absolute gems released between 1967 and 1970 : “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” “Galveston’” “Where’s The Playground Susie ?”, “Honey Come Back” and, of course, the ever shining jewel that is “Wichita Lineman.”  All five were written by one of the very best up-and-coming songwriters of the era, Jimmy Webb. Before those recordings both men had careers which were very much on the ascent but when Glen decided to record the first of those songs (Phoenix) as the...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (# 553 in the Series) is UFO, The Chrysalis Years, (1973-1979). I am going to delay with the normal album review inroduction and substitute it with: IT’S ALL HERE! ALL YOU COULD WANT FROM THIS SEMINAL 1970’S HARD ROCK JUGGERNAUT. AND IT COSTS LESS THAN NINETEEN DOLLARS ON LINE! Now that I have that out of my system…… UFO was a great heavy rock band that my friends and I worshipped as teenagers in suburban Chicago. My first show was UFO at the Aragon Ballroom on October 10, 1975. This group had everything. UFO possessed the piledriving rhythm section of Peter Way (bass) and Andy Parker (drums). They featured serviceable short term...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#543 in the Series) is Corky Siegel’s self titled album, Corky Siegel. Corky was better known for his work with picker Jim Schwall in the Chicago based blues act, Siegel-Schwall Band but I was always partial to this solo release. Corky used to do tons of solo shows around Chicago in the late 70’s. That’s when I got to really know most of this material. I’d love to see him do this stuff at good ol’ “Connollys’ on Kedzie. The best known track here is “Half Asleep At The Wheel” other highlights included “Am I Wrong About You,” and “Mornin’ Corn.” Rollo Radford from Siegel-Schwall played on this solo disc as well. This...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#497 in the Series) is Rory Gallagher, Irish Tour ’74. On top of the list there’s Jimi Hendrix. Look up anything on the genre of blues-rock bands, blues-rock music etc. and that’s who’s always at the top. Cast your eyes down a notch. Just a bit, not far, not far at all and you’ll land on Irish guitarist extraordinaire, Rory Gallagher.  If for some reason, you landed on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s name first, well then cast your eyes upward. Why, because in every way, Rory Gallagher’s name is listed above. It’s not even close. SRV should not be even mentioned in the same breath with this man. When I’m trying to decide on...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#485 in the Series) is Gordon Lightfoot, Sundown It’s really interesting to see what people think causes an album to be on their personal, “best of” list. In all actuality, if one hears about 10 percent of what’s released then they’re way ahead of the game.  If one hears 10 percent from even just the bands they love then they’re still probably way ahead of the game.  So why do we love some so, so much, and then there are others by the same artist, that we never even look into? For me, I’ve said many many times before, that I have a strong tendency to lean towards an artist’s albums that I...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#461 in the Series is Wet Willie, Keep On Smilin.’ There’s often a common theme among many of the write-ups that I do. That theme is how an album stands up to time. Mind you, that usually has little to no effect on what I write because I try to write about how I felt about an album when it was released. How it fit into the times, what was on the radio, how it affected what was happening in my life etc. This is one that stands up to time much better than most. Often it’s not the band’s fault if something sucks now that was good once before, it’s more about how my...