Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1048 in the Series) is Jeff Beck, Rock N’ Roll Party (Honoring Les Paul) Every Monday night for 12 years up until his death at age 94, Les Paul would hold court with his Les Paul Trio with a show at The Iridium Jazz Club in New York City.  The shows more often than not included guest musicians that happened to be in town at the time.  The club after his death, in keeping with this tradition, has renamed the room he would play, The Les Paul Room, and invites special musical guests to play with The Les Paul Trio each Monday to keep this time honored tradition alive.  To give you an...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1031 in the Series ) is Uriah Heep, Live Back in the mid-seventies, one of my friends had a “neat” drum kit in his attic. He and and a few other  friends would pound away on it. At that point I had taken some lessons so I knew a little bit of what I was doing. We had a stereo up there as well.  If memory serves me correct, it was a two story unit apartment house type of thing with maybe one person living in-between. So we could make a ton of noise up there and no one cared, and we did. We’d get some of our favorite albums and try and...

Ah the Aragon Ballroom. This is a fun listing for the old Rock ‘n’ Rollers that visit the Cool Album of the Day site. Here’s a list of just about ever show that was held at the Aragon Ballroom in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago.  If you went there, have fun looking thru this list.  Look for the shows that you saw. Feel ‘bummed’ about the ones you missed. Be angry about the ones that you would have checked out but you didn’t know about, until now. I’ve combined different listings to form this list. I’ve even contacted band members and did poster research to find others. It’s the best list on the ‘net! If you were never at...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#977 in the Series ) is Nanci Griffith, One Fair Summer Evening. “Variety; Learning about different types of music; bringing different genres to different people.”   These were just some of the objectives that we publically discussed when we started this project just about a year ago. We’re most definitely going to continue in that direction tonight.  This is one of those albums that requires you to “be in the proper” mood. However, when you are, this album is about as good as it gets. “What mood is that?” you ask?  Mostly a mellow feeling I’d say, interested in hearing some wonderfully written songs being sung by a woman with a marvelous voice that...

Today’s Cool Album Of the Day (#976 in the Series) is Genesis, Seconds Out. How much do I like this album? Well, if I could only take ten albums to a desert island, I might have to take two copies of this and then eight others. This was the album that made me fall in love with Genesis.  I don’t know why I didn’t get into them earlier. After this was released I did go back and loved all the Gabriel era works. For some reason I missed it when it was happening.  I remember seeing all those ads about them playing the Auditorium for three nights. I can kick myself now for not going. I guess I did...

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...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#944 in the Series) is Tribute To Steve Goodman. 30years. It’s hard for me to believe that Steve Goodman has been gone for almost 30 years. It’s seems like yesterday that I was seeing him at Harry Hopes or Braden Auditorium in Bloomington, Illinois. Steve passed away in September of 1984.  Shortly after his passing, many of his friends gathered at the Arie Crown Theater in Chicago.  They told stories, played some of his music and some of theirs as well. I was lucky enough to be there. For those who weren’t, we’re treated to this recording. One of Steve’s closest friends was John Prine. We get lots of John here!  He opens...

  Recently Phoenix’ Crescent Ballroom played host to three talented acts that I had initially not heard of: The Chain Gang of 1974, Zak Waters and Empires. The impetus for thinking I had to catch this show was from coming across it in a Twitter feed and reading an interview with Kamtin Mohager (The Chain Gang of 1974).  Mohager disclosed that he was first moved to create music after he heard Tears for Fears’ classic “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” on the Real Genius soundtrack. Since I am a huge fan of Songs from the Big Chair (Real Genius not so much, other than Deborah Foreman) having written about it for this site, I decided that anyone so moved by Tears for Fears was a must see....

  In the words of great, noted philosopher, Joe Biden, “This was a big f-ing deal!” It was opening night of the North American tour of, arguably, one of the greatest rock groups of all time, now fronted by a singer young enough to be the grandson of its founding members. No pressure, right? Arriving early at Chicago’s United Center, we were dumbfounded to see a single line around the block. We overheard a guard mention an “issue,” but never heard any more. All the while, storm clouds were rolling in. An ominous start, perhaps? Maybe it was just me, but I felt a strong sense of electricity and anticipation, if not anxiousness, in the air. I hadn’t seen...

  Recently I was able to catch Eagulls’ show at the Crescent Ballroom which is rapidly becoming my all time favorite music venue. In the past year I have also seen Haim and The War on Drugs there and there is not a bad seat in the house.  It’s standing room only up front, but there are also bleachers in the back that are at most only 20 feet from the stage. Eagulls self titled debut album has been critically applauded, but at this point in their career, they are a band that is best appreciated live. That is why it was disappointing to see barely over a hundred people at the gig because this is a band that deserves...