Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1054 in the Series and #38) is The New Barbarians, Buried Alive: Live in Maryland The band The New Barbarians was formed in 1979 as a means to promote Ron Wood’s most recent album Gimme Some Neck. The album was a minor success peaking at number 45 on the billboard charts and was the first to feature Wood’s own artwork on the album cover including a self-portrait. The band and the subsequent eighteen gig U.S. tour may have gone largely unnoticed were it not for the exceptional musicians that accompanied Wood on the tour. The stellar line-up included Ron Wood and Keith Richards on guitar, Stanley Clarke on bass, former Faces keyboardist Ian...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1053 in the Series) is Roxy Music, Manifesto The conventional wisdom surrounding Roxy Music seems to suggest that there are two distinct “periods” of the band’s initial existence.  The first phase, from the band’s inception through 1976’s Siren, was characterized by dual predilections for high-brow artiness and otherworldly glamour; and the second phase, from 1979’s Manifesto through 1982’s Avalon, signaled the band’s transition into a brooding, stylish, and literate pop hit machine, helmed by Bryan Ferry’s inimitable voice and buoyed up by a small army of studio technicians. However, while there are undeniably two sonic phases to Roxy’s chronology, Manifesto, often hailed as the first album of Roxy’s later period, really finds...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#960) is Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Live Rust If I read it one more time I’m going to hurl.  Now what would that be? Well that would be that Live Rust was recorded on Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s tour supporting Rust Never Sleeps. No, No a million times no! Most of Live Rust was recorded at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on October 22, 1978.  Rust Never Sleeps was released,  June, July  1979. Live Rust was released on Nov., 1979.  How wrong is the statement that Live Rust was recorded to support Rust Never Sleeps? Well, some of Rust Never Sleeps was recorded during the Live Rust tour. Live Rust was...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Black Slacks” by Robert Gordon Robert Gordon was born at the wrong time. Right from the beginning, all Robert Gordon ever wanted was to be a 1950s rock ‘n’ roll star like his idols Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and Carl Perkins. The only problem was that by the time he rose to prominence, the 1950s were nearly thirty years gone. Growing up in Washington DC during the 1960s, Gordon became enamored of ‘50s Rockabilly music which was totally out of step with the British Invasion and later, the psychedelic rock his peers were into. His performance career began in high school where he played the lead role of Tony in the...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Here Comes My Girl” by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Perfection…this song is absolute utter perfection…and it’s funny how some of the greatest songs we know and love emanate from situations full of misery and sheer heartbreak. The Beach Boys’ “Help Me Rhonda” is a song like that. To listen to it, you’d never know the pain and misery that took place during the recording session. An infamous 40 minute bootleg tape of the session has revealed that Brian Wilson and his brothers were relentlessly badgered by their domineering manager/father during the recording of the vocal track. Murray Wilson purported to know what was best for the song and proceeded to...

  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 (#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 (#627 in the Series) is The Undertones. This is an album that claimed a place in my heart 30 years ago and retains it to this day. And that’s not just because of its musical merits, of which there are indeed many. It’s also due to the time, the place and the circumstances during which I first really got into it, and the company I was keeping at the time, all of which invoke nothing but good, happy memories. I’d like to take you back now, way way back to the long, hot, glorious (in my recall at least!) summer of 1982. Back when I still had my youth, my good looks...

Today’s Cool Album of The Day (#582 in the Series) is Brand X, Product. Brand X was a band that wasn’t a band, well not at first were they a band, but then became a band. You Got it? Here’s the idea. Genesis drummer and new lead vocalist Phil Collins along with Atomic Rooster guitarist John Goodsall were looking for something to do as a side project.  How long was it supposed to go on? Well not long really.  Just do some jamming and maybe record a platter or two if the sound came together.  This was in 1976. They added bassist Percy Jones and keyboard Robin Lumley to complete the band. They decided to release an album here and there....

  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...