Heavy metal has been the principal focus of my listening over the last few years. Naturally I was always aware of it, but it wasn’t until my late thirties that I actually started getting into it to any significant degree. Unusual, I know; it seems that almost everybody self-identifying as a metalhead has at least […]

Read more "AC/DC – Heavy Metal, Now or Ever?"

So, thoughts on last night’s AC/DC show at BC Place here in Vancouver. My seventh or eighth since way back in misty 1990 with the grammatically incorrect Razors Edge Tour. This is their first tour in over half a decade, and the fan appetite was clearly palpable. Particularly since the North American leg so far […]

Read more "AC/DC – Back (Yet Again) In Black"

Few bands generated a multi-album hot streak the way the Stones did. Six albums, from Beggars Banquet through to It’s Only Rock N’ Roll, 1968 to 1974, and they didn’t falter. Some critics omit the latter, but from my perspective, there was no drop in quality. They then promptly lost the script on Black and […]

Read more "The Stones, Part 2: A Product of the Time"

My latest band exploration is the Rolling Stones. I’ve been a “greatest hits” fan of the Stones for a long time.  That’s a pretty useful term, I think; it means a person who has known and liked the same songs by a given band as everybody else.  In my case, they were my second rock […]

Read more "The Stones, Part 1: The Death of Sixties Idealism"

Before I started this blog, I thought about devoting it to reviewing “famous albums that I wish I’d listened to before now”.  The obvious problem there is that people would probably be even less interested in reading my review of a 45-year-old album in the midst of so many other reviews by far more qualified […]

Read more "Through a Band’s Past, Darkly"