Music N' Other Drugs

According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), there have been 60 films made using Stephen King’s literary source material. What that means is that for every four-star masterpiece there exists a slew of projects whose straight-to-DVD quality doomed them from the start. While King has been the face of horror for decades, it’s actually his … Continue reading Some Birds Aren’t Meant to Be Caged: The Top 10 Stephen King Film Adaptations

When it comes to the ’70s progressive rock scene, Nektar was always a band that inexplicably flew under the radar in America despite a string of albums from 1971-1977 that deserve to be mentioned among the greats of the genre. The playing was fiery, the sound was ambitious, and Mick Brockett’s visual presentation deepened the … Continue reading Bassist Derek “Mo” Moore discusses Nektar’s upcoming return to the Hamburg Palace Theatre

Experiencing King Crimson live in 2021 is the musical equivalent of traveling to Mexico City to see the cloak enshrined in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Both are sights to behold and both appear to defy articulation regardless of how hard you try to make someone who wasn’t there feel exactly the way … Continue reading King Crimson and Artpark make for the perfect summer night

For as much as Puddle of Mudd (POM) leader and lone original member Wes Scantlin was dying to know how the crowd at Batavia Downs was doing last Friday night, he didn’t appear interested in going the extra mile to ensure that they were doing as splendidly as he wanted them to be. His stage … Continue reading Puddle of Mudd pulls a disappearing act after 65 minutes at Batavia Downs

As a founding member of ’80s hard rock outfit Alcatrazz, keyboardist Jimmy Waldo crossed paths with some of the most unique personalities in the genre. He played with Graham Bonnet and Yngwie Malmsteen, shared bills with Ted Nugent and Mercyful Fate, and later started a supergroup called Blackthorne with Bob Kulick and Frankie Banali. While … Continue reading Keyboardist Jimmy Waldo discusses the history of Blackthorne and Alcatrazz

“The music business is motivated by money. Music is motivated by energy and feelings.” – Erykah Badu When Kurt Cobain delivered the coup de grâce to an entire decade of hard rock and metal in 1991, Paramus-bred four-piece Trixter found itself in the precarious position of being all revved up with no place to go … Continue reading Guitarist Steve Brown talks Trixter, Def Leppard, and more ahead of Rochester date

The Eagles mean different things to different people. To some, they signify the cream of the Laurel Canyon crop with their dueling guitars and harmonized country rock sheen that served as a commercial extension of what Gram Parsons started doing with The Flying Burrito Brothers back in 1969. To others, they’ve come to represent a … Continue reading Don Felder delivers a splendid set of Eagles classics at Batavia Downs

As his 1971 hit, “Draggin’ the Line,” goes, Tommy James made his ‘livin’ the old hard way’ through relentless touring and studio sessions that afforded him little time to sit around basking in his success. His label wanted hits and wanted them yesterday, which, amazingly, he was able to deliver in rapid fire succession from … Continue reading The Man, The Mob, and The Music: A Conversation with Tommy James

Had “Stranger in Us All” not been released in 1995, the final album from Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow would be widely recognized as an inspired addition to the catalog. Instead, it arrived at the tail end of a summer that also saw Foo Fighters, Garbage, and Red Hot Chili Peppers release records that commandeered headlines, so … Continue reading Hard Rock/Metal vocalist extraordinaire Doogie White talks Rainbow, Yngwie, and solo career

When I interviewed Steven Wilson back in 2018, we spoke about Pink Floyd and the influence that their catalog has had on both of our lives. He said that he didn’t listen to them as frequently as he once did, because they were so ingrained in his musical DNA that he didn’t have to. That’s … Continue reading Welcome to the Machine: The Floyd Concept hits The Stage on June 27