Rock

Quick Review: LEARNING TO FLY: LEARNING TO FLY (Orion)

Civilian Reader Music, Review , , , , , , , , ,

WallM-FooFightersA quick biography of Nirvana Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters…

The definitive, no-holds-barred biography of one of the biggest-selling rock bands in the world, the Foo Fighters.

Everyone from Sir Paul McCartney and Jimmy Page to Queens of the Stone Age now relishes the chance to share a stage with Dave Grohl and his legendary Foo Fighters. The question is: why? Musical depth? Not really. Major success? Well, yes. Despite no longer shifting albums in the same quantity as they did twenty years ago, this band can still fill stadiums the world over (when Dave’s not breaking his leg, of course).

Long before Kurt Cobain blew his brains out in 1994, Dave Grohl was planning for a life after Nirvana. The unflinching bright sunlight to Cobain’s permanent midnight darkness, Grohl had come from a similar broken home to his erstwhile band leader, but came out of the experience differently – brimming with positivity and a shrewd grasp of opportunities in the music industry.

Did Grohl merely take the sonic blueprint of Nirvana and embellish it with a more life-affirming pop sheen? Of course he did. Every band in America that sold over a million records in the post-grunge 90s did the same. The difference was that Grohl had real credibility. And he knew it.

With exclusive testimony from true insiders (including Krist Novoselic, Grohl’s bass-playing partner in Nirvana, ex-girlfirends, record company executives, tour photographers and confidantes), this book is an exploration of the real story behind Grohl and the Foo Fighters — the only serious literary biography of the group and its leader, one of the most famous and critically bulletproof rock figures of the 21st century.

I waited a long time to pick up this book. I sadly cannot say that it was worth the wait. This is, at best, a mediocre re-hash of information you’ll find elsewhere from more-informed and better writers. Yes, it covers everything important in Dave Grohl’s musical career. But it’s not particularly enlightening, nor is it gripping. It is not definitive. It is by no means “literary”, either — the interpretation and analysis is simplistic and not particularly deep. At least, not that provided by Wall. He does interview some people who know what they’re talking about. Continue reading →

Music Recommendation: HANDS LIKE HOUSES

Civilian Reader Music , , , , , ,

HandsLikeHouses-Dissonants2016

Another band I discovered through Outburn (same issue, in fact, as the one that led me to Polyphia), Hands Like Houses‘s new album — Dissonants — has also become a new, heavy-rotation favourite. The Australians’ third album has already spawned a handful of singles, with accompanying videos. Here are the best three:

“I Am” — this is also the first song on the album, and a good, strong intro to the band, with a hook/chorus that has embedded itself in my memory…

“Colourblind”…

“Glasshouse”…

Music Recommendation: POLYPHIA

Civilian Reader Music, Video , , , , , , , ,

Polyphia-Renaissance2016

I stumbled across a review of Polyphia‘s latest album, Renaissance (Equal Vision Records), in a recent issue of Outburn (they have a huge review section, including reviews of a broad range of albums). The reviewer wrote very highly of the group’s music, so off I went to YouTube to find a music video. The top search result was “Euphoria”, and I fell in love with it pretty much immediately:

Here, also from Renaissance, is the music video for “Nightmare”:

The band members are incredibly gifted. I highly recommend Renaissance to all fans of instrumental, rock and guitar-led music. Superb, and easily one of my favourites from the past 12 months.

Music Recommendation: A Couple of Recent BREAKING BENJAMIN Singles

Civilian Reader Music , , , ,

I’ve been a fan of Breaking Benjamin ever since I found their debut album (Saturate, 2002) in Tower Records in Kumamoto, Japan. I think it came out on the same day as Seether’s Disclaimer, which I also picked up (as a result, I’ve always connected the two bands). Anyway, after a long hiatus due to illness, the band returned last year with Dark Before Dawn, an incredibly strong album. They’ve released two singles to day: “Failure” and “Angels Fall”. Here are the music videos…

“Failure”

“Angels Fall”

BreakingBenjamin-DarkBeforeDawn

New Music: TRIVIUM and FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH

Civilian Reader Music, Video , , , , , , , , , ,

Here are a pair of new music videos for two of my favourite bands: TRIVIUM and FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH.

Trivium, “Silence in the Snow”

A great new song, this time with a power metal influence creeping in?

Silence in the Snow released by Roadrunner Records on October 2nd, 2015.

Trivium-SilenceInTheSnow

Five Finger Death Punch, “Jekyll and Hyde”

Amusing intro, followed by a now-typical 5FDP stomper. Reminiscent of “The Pride” from American Capitalist (2011).

Got Your Six is released by Eleven Seven Music on August 28th, 2015. The other song already circulating from the album, “Hell to Pay”, is also very good.

5FDP-GotYourSix

Review: ALICE IN CHAINS by David de Sola (Thomas Dunne)

Civilian Reader Review , , , , , , , ,

DeSolaD-AliceInChainsUntoldStoryThe tragic tale of one of America’s most influential bands of the 1990s

Alice in Chains were one of the loudest voices out of Seattle, iconic pioneers who mixed grunge and metal in ways that continue to influence today’s artists. Theirs is a story of hard work, self-destruction, rising from the ashes and carrying on a lasting legacy.

Four years after their first meeting at a warehouse under Seattle’s Ballard Bridge, Alice in Chains became the first of grunge’s big four — ahead of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden — to get a gold record and achieve national recognition. With the charismatic Layne Staley behind the microphone, they became one of the most influential and successful bands to come out of the Seattle music scene. But as the band got bigger, so did its problems. 

I am a big grunge fan. Ever since I took notice of music, and especially the guitar-driven genres, I have listened to Alice in Chains. Given my relative youth, though, I only discovered them shortly before Nothing Safe: Best of the Box came out (I picked it up in LA during my first visit to the city). This, naturally, led me to delve into their back catalogue of albums, and I quickly became hooked on Dirt and Facelift. Then, only a handful of years later, Layne Staley’s death was reported in the various music magazines I religiously read at the time. It is quite strange, as de Sola mentions in this book, that no proper biography of the band has been written until now. I’m happy to say, though, that de Sola’s book is a great tribute to Alice in Chains, and a must-read for any fan of their music and the scene they helped create and nurture. Continue reading →

Review: SLASH by Slash, w. Anthony Bozza (Dey Street Books)

Civilian Reader Review , , , , , , , , ,

SlashMy second Guns ‘n’ Roses autobiography

Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I was the first album I ever bought for myself. It remains one of my favourite albums. I have always been interested in Guns ‘n’ Roses. After the initial break-up of the original line-up, I followed and waited for news about what the band would get up to. As with many fans, though, I eventually lost interest in waiting for new GnR music and found more enjoyment in following the members’ other bands — for example, Velvet Revolver and Slash’s Snakepit and, now, Slash’s eponymous solo-project (R&F’nR is one of my favourite albums of his music).

I recently read and loved Duff McKagan’s autobiography, It’s So Easy, which gave a fantastic, readable account of Guns ‘n’ Roses (relatively) short rocket to fame and stardom from the perspective of a single member. McKagan was respectful of others’ perspectives, and never guessed his bandmates’ opinions or positions, nor spoke for them. As soon as I finished It’s So Easy, I went out and picked up Slash. I think it’s safe to say that Slash is one of the greatest living guitar players, and I was eager to learn his side of the G’n’R story, and also read about his other music endeavours (Velvet Revolver, Slash’s Snakepit, for example). This eponymous memoir is very good, quite exhaustive (without being exhausting), brutally honest, and accessibly written. It has a few minor flaws, but it was certainly a good read. Continue reading →

Music: AEROSMITH

Civilian Reader Music, Random, Video , , , ,

PerryJ-RocksBecause I’m currently reading Joe Perry‘s Rocks, I thought I’d just share some of Aerosmith’s music videos. First, though, here are the details of the book, which is published by Simon & Schuster:

Before the platinum records or the Super Bowl half-time show or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joe Perry was a boy growing up in small-town Massachusetts. He idolized Jacques Cousteau and built his own diving rig that he used to explore a local lake. He dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. But Perry’s neighbors had teenage sons, and those sons had electric guitars, and the noise he heard when they started playing would change his life. 

The guitar became his passion, an object of lust, an outlet for his restlessness and his rebellious soul. That passion quickly blossomed into an obsession, and he got a band together. One night after a performance he met a brash young musician named Steven Tyler; before long, Aerosmith was born. What happened over the next forty-five years has become the stuff of legend: the knockdown, drag-out, band-splintering fights; the drugs, the booze, the rehab; the packed arenas and timeless hits; the reconciliations and the comebacks. 

Rocks is an unusually searching memoir of a life that spans from the top of the world to the bottom of the barrel—several times. It is a study of endurance and brotherhood, with Perry providing remarkable candor about Tyler, as well as new insights into their powerful but troubled relationship. It is an insider’s portrait of the rock and roll family, featuring everyone from Jimmy Page to Alice Cooper, Bette Midler to Chuck Berry, John Belushi to Al Hirschfeld. It takes us behind the scenes at unbelievable moments such as Joe and Steven’s appearance in the movie of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (they act out the murders of Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees).

Full of humor, insight, and brutal honesty about life in and out of one of the biggest bands in the world, Rocks is the ultimate rock-and-roll epic. In Perry’s own words, it tells the whole story: “the loner’s story, the band’s story, the recovery story, the cult story, the love story, the success story, the failure story, the rebirth story, the re-destruction story, and the post-destructive rebirth story.”

I’m about 100 pages into the biography, and really enjoying it so far. I should be able to post a full review in the next week or so, time willing. Now, on with the music… Continue reading →

Quick Review: DANCING WITH MYSELF by Billy Idol (Touchstone)

Civilian Reader Review , , , , , , ,

IdolB-DancingWithMyselfVital Idol reading…

“I am hopelessly divided between the dark and the good, the rebel and the saint, the sex maniac and the monk, the poet and the priest, the demagogue and the populist. Pen to paper, I’ve put it all down, every bit from the heart. I’m going out on a limb here, so watch my back.” — Billy Idol

An early architect of punk rock’s sound, style, and fury, whose lip-curling sneer and fist-pumping persona vaulted him into pop’s mainstream as one of MTV’s first megastars, Billy Idol remains, to this day, a true rock ‘n’ roll icon.

Now, in his long-awaited autobiography, Dancing with Myself, Idol delivers an electric, searingly honest account of his journey to fame — from his early days as front man of the pioneering UK punk band Generation X to the decadent life atop the dance-rock kingdom he ruled — delivered with the same in-your-face attitude and fire his fans have embraced for decades. Beyond adding his uniquely qualified perspective to the story of the evolution of rock, Idol is a brash, lively chronicler of his own career.

A survivor’s tale at its heart, this sometimes chilling and always riveting account of one man’s creative drive joining forces with unbridled human desire is unmistakably literary in its character and brave in its sheer willingness to tell. With it, Billy Idol is destined to emerge as one of the great writers among his musical peers.

Billy Idol’s music has been pretty much a constant in my life. His albums were among my father’s eclectic collection; “Dancing With Myself”, “Rebel Yell” and “Mony, Mony” were frequently on tapes he would put together for road trips. So, it was perhaps inevitable that Dancing With Myself caught my eye. It’s a great rock biography, one that charts the rise of not only the author, but punk in general. He was a pioneer of so many styles and quirks that we take for granted today. An essential read for all fans of his music, but also for anyone interested in the evolution of rock and punk music. Continue reading →