New Video: The Dead Deads: Lemonade

So, ask a question about what The Dead Deads superpowers would be and get a response in the form of a new video. In less than a week, that was impressive. Thanks ladies.

In all seriousness, the video was already in the can, just waiting for the release.

The new video for "Lemonade" from the album Rainbeau, directed by Seth Graves, is genius. It tells a story, that may or may not be related entirely to the song itself.

As far as the song is concerned, it's The Dead Deads at their "space grunge metal punk" best.

I won't tell you what you should take from this, just watch it.

New Music Found: Crystal Shawanda

Crystal Shawanda grew up in Ontario, Canada on a reservation. You can read her bio on her official webpage. What I want to focus on is her music and incredible voice.

Her 2014 album The Whole World's Got The Blues saw her turn away from the country music of her first record, and she truly found her place. Her voice, to me, sounds like a cross between Tanya Tucker and Bonnie Raitt with a touch of Aretha for power.

The  soul-inspired, country-tinged blues rock music is the perfect bed for her vocals to lie.

Here's a live version of the song "The Whole World's Got The Blues". Enjoy.

Q and A with Meta Dead of the Dead Deads

Photo by Gina Binkley

The Dead Deads are an all female "Space-grunge, metal-punk" band (according to their official Twitter) based in Nashville. Their debut album Rainbeau is available in all the usual places (links below). I had the opportunity to conduct a question and answer with guitarist/vocalist Meta Dead. Here are the results of that interview along with a previously unreleased photo.

Trixter and BulletBoys New Releases

Trixter and Bulletboys both came out in the tail end of the 80's hard rock scene, right before Nirvana blew it all up. They both had minor hits, Trixter with "Give It To Me Good" and BulletBoys with "Smooth Up In Ya".

Then, like any band that rose to prominence on the hard rock scene during the mid-to-late 80's/early 90's not named Bon Jovi or Motley Crue or Guns 'n Roses, were quickly forgotten.

Both bands had new records come out recently. And for the most part, nobody's going to hear them. Certainly not on radio.

Is either record a musical masterpiece that will go down in the annals of history as a great record? Nope. But if you're a fan of that era of music, it's better than a lot of stuff that came out at the end. The songs are good. The playing is excellent (guitar solos anyone?). The vocals hold up.

With so many artists of that era hanging it up, fighting amongst themselves or just giving up on releasing new music, this is worth checking out.

Here is Trixter with "Rockin' To The Edge of the Night" from their new record Human Era:




And "Rollover" from Bulletboys new record Elefante':

Album Spotlight: Chris Hennessee: Greetings From Hennessee

If you like any combination of country, Southern Rock, blues,Texas country, gospel, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Allmans, Alabama, Jerry Reed, the Eagles, Marshall Tucker, the Bellamy Brothers, etc., you might just find something you like in Chris Hennessee's latest record Greetings From Hennessee.

Classify it how you want. As regular readers of my blog know, I've given up. Just say it's good music.

Here is "Long Way Gone" from the new record.

Album Spotlight: Koritni: Night Goes On For Days

Koritni's latest record Night Goes On For Days could have come straight out of the 80's. And that's a good thing. This Australian band with a French guitarist sounds like they grew up on the Sunset Strip, or Indiana or Mississippi. Confused yet?

Koritni could have easily come out of the mid to late 80's LA sleaze rock scene. Or feel right at home with the Mississippi Delta blues inspired Southern Rock of the 70's. Even touches of American heartland sentiment a la John Mellencamp.

Whatever, they make it all work in a sound that I find refreshing. Mostly it's just good, fun, 80's style hard rock. If you're a fan of that era, these guys do it right.

And they self-aware of what they are doing. Enough to make fun of themselves as is evident in this track, "Rock'nRoll Ain't No Crime":

Album Spotlight: honeyhoney: 3

Although the album title lacks originality, honeyhoney's third album, 3, does not.

I'm so lost on what genres are right now, I won't even try. Or maybe honeyhoney could be labeled as post/neo/traditional/alt/country/indie/rock/punk/Americana/pop. That about covers it. If Houndmouth, Delta Rae or Ryan Adams appeal to you, this is right up your alley.

Produced by Dave Cobb*, this is just a good record. It traverses through land staked by country and Americana, indie rock and punk, traditional and current. 3 is a record for people who love music for the sake of good music, not anyone chasing trends.

*For some reason Dave Cobb seems to have his hand in all the best music being put out right now. The dude apparently knows what he's doing.

Here is "You and I" from the record. Enjoy.

Album Spotlight: A Thousand Horses: Southernality

I was a little leery of A Thousand Horses after hearing the two lead singles from their Southernality record. Whoever is choosing the singles for them is making a huge mistake, as "Smoke" and "(This Ain't No) Drunk Dial" may be the two worst songs on the album.

The entirety of Southernality is a lot closer to the Blackberry Smoke and Whiskey Myers brand of current Southern Rock than the bro-tinged pap of the lead singles.

The record starts out with the seriously Black Crowes influenced "First Time". Maybe a little too Black Crowes influenced, "Jealous Again" anyone? I can forgive them for that one because it's a good song and the rest of the album is not derivative.

Coming in with 13 songs, Southernality is about three songs too long. It's marketed as country, but nowadays what isn't? It's not country, it's Southern Rock. But where do you market that now?

Where A Thousand Horses goes from here will be interesting. The best thing that could happen would be for the ill chosen singles to flop so they will concentrate on the music they are good at.

Here's a live acoustic version of "Sunday Morning":

June 9, 2015 Was A Good Day For Music

New music drops in the United States mostly on Tuesdays (for the time being) and Tuesday, June 9, 2015 was good day for people who like good music.

I write this only because I haven't had time time to fully digest everything. There were new albums by honeyhoney, Bulletboys, Courtney Patton, Chris Hennessee, A Thousand Horses, Sam Outlaw, Mark Tremonti and Uncle Lucius. Just to name the one's I know.

There will be more in depth album spotlight posts for most of those, unless next week brings a new wave of incredible music. Then I'll just be incredibly behind.

Stay tuned. More to come.

In the meantime, enjoy some pirate metal courtesy of Alestorm, because why not?:

Hard Rock Playlist 1

This is by no means an original idea, but I thought I'd make a hard rock playlist. Not the ultimate hard rock playlist, just a hard rock playlist. That is why I called it "Hard Rock Playlist 1". This is my first and maybe last or maybe the first of many.

Spotify, for me, is the easiest way to make a playlist (and yes, I pay for premium) so I am limited to what is available on that service.

Now let me take you through the process.

1. I wanted it to come in between and hour and an hour and half. 16 songs seems to be a pretty good number, but between 14 and 18 would have worked.
2. I tried to make it semi-cohesive from one song to the next, like listening to an album.
3. I wanted to hit as many decades as possible from the '70's until now (think I did that, although I'm not sure about 2000-2009).
4. I wanted to run the gamut on the fringes of what I consider hard rock (subjective, I know).
5. I wanted it to be something you could put on in your car and drive for an hour and not want to skip anything (again success will be subjective).
6. I didn't want the songs to be obvious.

So here is the playlist with comments. The Spotify link is at the bottom.

1) "Overture/The Temples of Syrinx"  - Rush
I went with this because it is one of the best opening salvos of any record I know. "Overture" sets the mood and then "The Temples of Syrinx" just smashes the listener in the face.

2) "Queen of the Reich" - Queensryche
This continues the full frontal assault from Queensryche's debut EP. Most may know them from "Silent Lucidity" or the Operation:Mindcrime stuff, but before that Queensryche sounded much more like Iron Maiden.

3) "Legend of the Spaceborne Killer" - Crobot
This is the first song from a newer/current band in my attempt to dispel the myth that rock is dead. It's got a vibe that could have fit in '70's but doesn't sound dated. Just a good hard rock song.

4) "Rocket Queen" - Guns N' Roses
From Appetite For Destruction, one of the best hard rock albums ever, this is not an obvious choice. The hits have been overplayed, so I went with an album cut which is one of the best on the record.

5) "Gypsy Road" - Cinderella
Cinderella is one of the best bluesy hard rock bands to come out of the '80's and it's kind of a shame that they got lumped in with the "hair metal" moniker. While I think some of their slower blusier stuff better exemplifies them as a band, this song fits the vibe of this playlist.

6) "Wicked" - Million Dollar Reload
Hailing from Ireland, Million Dollar Reload is another current band with a new record due out in 2015. They would feel right at home among the '80's L.A. sleaze rock scene. Good song with a good hook.

7) "Apocalyptic" - Halestorm
More ammunition to dispel the rock is dead myth, this from the 2015 record Into the Wild Life. If you read this blog regularly, you know my affinity for Lzzy Hale and Halestorm.

8) "Two Minutes to Midnight" - Iron Maiden
Because it's Iron Maiden and you can never go wrong with Iron Maiden when talking about hard rock.

9) "Highway Star" - Deep Purple
The second of three songs from the '70's. Deep Purple was so influential on hard rock artists from the '80's up until today, I had to include them. "Highway Star" keeps the motor running on this playlist.

10) "Slide It In" - Whitesnake
While, again, this is not an obvious choice, this is from the album that preceded Whitesnake's 1987 record that catapulted them (and Tawny Kitaen) to the top of American consciousness.

11) "Rusty Cage" - Soundgarden
I never considered Soundgarden to be a grunge band. To me they were always more hard rock, as this song proves. There has never been any "yarling" in Chris Cornell's vocals and the instrumentation on this track is almost, almost thrash.

12) "Fire Woman" - The Cult
I don't know where The Cult falls in the grand scheme of genres, but "Fire Woman" is an excellent hard rock song.

13) "Heartless" - Heart
Again, if you read this blog at all, you know I love chicks that rock. And nobody did more to break ground for future generations of chick rockers than Ann and Nancy Wilson (apologies to Pat Benatar, but Ann & Nancy were first). While there are more obvious choices, this song fits the playlist.

14) "Rock Me Like The Devil" - Crucified Barbara
This, my first hard rock playlist, may be a little heavy on the female rockers, I think they get overlooked a lot of the time. Crucified Barbara is an all female current Swedish quartet who rock.

15) "I Hate Myself For Loving You" - Joan Jett
Because Joan Jett. That is all. Carry on.

16) "You Can't Stop Rock 'N" Roll" - Twisted Sister
What better song to end on. Rock is not dead.

Check out the Spotify playlist if you're at all intrigued.