New Video: Heart: Beautiful Broken

The lead video for Heart's new album features Metallica's James Hetfield joining Ann and Nancy Wilson. It's good to see Classic Rock legends still putting out new music that won't get played on radio. And the Wilson sisters still have it. Here is "Beautiful Broken":

Album Spotlight: Lita Ford: Time Capsule

So Lita Ford dug up some old songs from the 80's  that featured Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Gene
Simmons, Dave Navarro, Billy Sheehan, Bruce Kulick and Jeff Scott Soto.

Then Lita went and put them all together and released an album.

The results are magical. At least for those of us that love 80's hard rock.

Time Capsule is raw. It's unadulterated. It rocks. And above all, it's good.

While Lita has never had the pipes to create awe-inspiring vocals like Ann Wilson or Lzzy Hale, or the shredding ability of Eddie Van Halen or Randy Rhoads, her combination as a singer/guitarist/songwriter puts her in the realm of hard rock royalty.

It's just a shame these songs never saw the light when it might have mattered.

Here are couple of tracks from Time Capsule.

What I'm Loving Wednesday

So Sunday was something called International Women's Day. Whatever that is. I just used it as an excuse to dig into some of favorite female artists. This is pretty much just chicks that rock. And by no means all inclusive. There are so many fantastic women in rock.

And after saying that, I'm going to start out with a country song. Of course it has Pat Benatar, so it counts. Here is Benatar along with country powerhouse Martina McBride doing McBride's "Independence Day" on CMT's show Crossroads.



I love Stevie Nicks. Her voice anyway. Always have. Instantly recognizable and unique. This is a live performance from 2011 of her song "Edge of Seventeen." Still sounds and looks great.



Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart were my first chicks that rock loves. So talented. Here they are playing Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" with the surviving members of Zep in the audience. Notice how happy Jimmy Page is with this rendition.



Original Runaway, the lovely Lita Ford, is still bringing it with new music. I'm partial to this cover of Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed" which brings a much needed female voice to the song.



I'm hanging onto the theory that rock is not dead. At least as long as there is still young talent making rock music like 16 year old Gabbie Rae.



Listen to good music. Enjoy the music you like.

Album Spotlight: Sunny Sweeney: Provoked

For my 2.5 readers, sorry I've been away for a while. But I'm back with a strong recommendation.

Sunny Sweeney's latest album Provoked is nothing short of brilliant. I tweeted earlier "Smart, witty, poignantly funny at times." That's the short version. And that could be the entire version and be accurate.

Let's get this out of the way early, Sunny Sweeney does not possess the soaring vocal capabilities of Carrie Underwood or Ann Wilson or Lzzy Hale. But she does have the ability to convey plenty of emotion in the songs that she wrote. And what a fantastic songwriter she is.

Heartache, heart break, the other woman, the flawed partner, the bad girl, the snark, sarcasm and playfulness. And a lot of real life. It all comes together seamlessly.

We are almost to September, and this is in my top two records this year.

I don't know if this is my favorite track on the record, or just my favorite lyrics. But either way, I like "Second Guessing".





This next song is on the record, but it's just more fun in any live setting. There are plenty of youtube videos of it as she has been doing it for over three years, that I know of, maybe longer. I like this one.




Sunny Sweeney on Amazon.

TheCheapSeats on Twitter.

Chicks that Rock

Everyday is a different hashtag on twitter and instagram. I get it, but I'm not cool like that. I'm also too old for that crap.

Wednesdays are #wcw. Woman crush Wednesday. (I'm hip enough to at least know what that means.)

Here, I'm going to do women that rock Wednesdays.

For the first one I debated. Would it be the Wilson sisters and Heart? How about Pat Benatar? Maybe Stevie Nicks? Can't go wrong with any of three. But for the inaugural post I'm going with Heart and the Wilson sisters, Ann and Nancy.

No doubt, not even a discussion, Heart, led by the sisters Wilson, were and are a great band. Ann's voice gets most of the attention, rightly so, but Nancy's guitar work is highly underrated. Nancy, in my opinion, is one of the original "Chicks that Rock".

Here's a little taste of Heart doing Crazy on You live:

Artist Spotlight: Orianthi

I'm not a critic. I will only post stuff about music that I enjoy. Is it critically celebrated, panned, indifferent? I don't know and more importantly, don't care.

Sometimes you just find something totally by accident and it strikes a chord within you. Such is my current obsession with Orianthi. My daughter is calling me a fangirl. I prefer fanboy. Semantics. But I get what she is saying.

When I find something new (to me) that I like, I need to immerse myself in it for a few days. Just to make sure it's not a fly-by-night infatuation but something that I really enjoy. So, Orianthi, I enjoy.

I don't know a whole lot about her, and I'm not an investigative reporter. But here's what I do know:

Her full name is Orianthi Pangaris and she can shred on the guitar. She's 28 years old and from Australia. She was pegged to play guitar on Michael Jackson's tour before his untimely death. She has played guitar with Alice Cooper's touring band. She has recorded a song with Steven Tyler.

That's enough right there to give her credibility. And all that means squat if the songs don't hold up, right?

Well, the songs hold up. But where they fit is up for debate.

Let me put it this way, Orianthi's solo work is part Taylor Swift, part Grace Potter, part Lzzy Hale, part Katy Perry*, part Eric Johnson, part Jimi Hendrix, part Journey, part Ann and Nancy Wilson (Heart), part Lita Ford.
*I picked Katy Perry because I'm not that familiar with current pop music and she was the first one that came to mind. Could be Demi Lovato. The "Call Me Maybe" chick. Whomever.

I have really enjoyed her latest album Heaven in this Hell. Save for a couple of ultra-poppy tracks, It is very good start to finish. Although, if you get the CD, get the one without the bonus tracks.

The 12 tracks on the non-bonus song CD are mostly quite good. The first three songs on the album all have a bluesy feel to them. As do several other tracks. The blues-based tracks are my favorites.

The song, "How Does That Feel?" could be at home on one of Foreigner's later albums. A couple of songs, if recorded by the right artist (Carrie Underwood? Taylor Swift?) would be a mainstay on current country music radio.

The song "Sex E Bizarre" featuring Steven Tyler would be right at home on any Aerosmith release post Done With Mirrors.

Here is some straight up pop:

Here's the title track from her latest album:

And here she is doing Voodoo Chile live: