I've got a bit of a special place in my heart for movies by the late director Ted Demme. His 1996 film Beautiful Girls was already one of my all-time rewatchables by the spring of 2001 when I was invited to attend a college press junket in New York City for his new movie Blow.... Continue Reading →
Roundtable: The Last Great, Last Good and First Bad Iron Maiden Album
Iron Maiden are one of the most consistent bands when it comes to putting out solid albums, but they've had some that weren't quite top shelf and others one could consider straight up clunkers. Earlier this week, over at Ultimate Classic Rock, a group of us got together to put forth our thoughts on the... Continue Reading →
Master of ‘Is This Reality?’ Interviewing Tony Iommi
It's not every day you get to interview a veritable music legend, but that's what happened this week when I got the chance to sit down with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi. One of the things I've not been doing lately is taking on that many feature assignments due to the tight deadline of my... Continue Reading →
Girl Smashes Guitar on Live Television and the Internet Loses Its Mind
Making her debut as the musical act on Saturday Night Live last weekend, Phoebe Bridgers has spent recent days since facing a public skewering that would be laughable if it weren’t so misplaced and wildly off base. The Grammy nominated singer-songwriter raised the ire of many for committing what they saw as a cardinal sin... Continue Reading →
What Exactly Were Def Leppard Going on About in the Song ‘Rocket’ Anyway?
Whether you love or hate Def Leppard, there's no denying how huge they were for a stretch beginning in the mid-80s through the early 90s. And never were they more popular than with the release of the 1987 album Hysteria, which spawned an impressively ridiculous seven singles. The final one, "Rocket," came out in January... Continue Reading →
Grammys Reschedule Likely a Sign of Things to Come
It was announced this week the 63rd annual Grammy Awards would be shifting its ceremony scheduled for later this month to the middle of March. While the move isn’t completely unexpected, given the ramped up spread of Covid-19 in Los Angeles where the event is set to take place, it may very well be a... Continue Reading →
Class of 1981: 81 Albums Turning 40 in 2021
Anniversaries are nothing new when it comes to music writing. It helps quite a bit during dry times when there isn't much else happening in the industry. That's been the case over the past several months due to the pandemic, and it will be for many more to come unfortunately. The silver lining is there's... Continue Reading →
New Year’s Resolutions 2021: Some Recommendations for Your Favorite Artists
Just like you and I, there are rockers, rollers and other assorted musical miscreants out there who need help keeping their declared promises to make the next 12 months better than the dozen prior. It shouldn’t be that hard to improve upon the raging dumpster fire of 2020, but – hey – people thought the... Continue Reading →
Read an Exclusive Excerpt from My Upcoming Book on Depeche Mode
The fine folks over at Ultimate Classic Rock have run an exclusive excerpt from my book Depeche Mode: All That's Left to Know About the World's Finest Synth-Pop Band, which lands on shelves December 28 and is available for pre-order here. The passage details the time around the release of the group's 1990 mainstream breakthrough... Continue Reading →
‘Van Halen: The Eruption and The Aftershock’ Coming Fall 2021
I'm incredibly excited to announce my second book is slated for release in fall 2021! Titled, Van Halen: The Eruption and the Aftershock, it's something I've been working on for some time and have wanted to do forever. It will be published via Backbeat Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, the same publishers who... Continue Reading →