Blogcritics Category: Music: Classic Rock and Oldies

Music Review: Jefferson Airplane - After Bathing At Baxter's

David Bowling — Fri, 9 Jan 2009 01:46:06 EST

Jefferson Airplane: Chapter 3.
The Jefferson Airplane’s second release, Surrealistic Pillow was a huge commercial success and catapulted the group to superstar status. So what do you do for an encore? The answer is you take a creative chance and move in a different direction. The folk/rock leanings were left behind, as the group put the guitars out front and embraced a...

Interview: Rob Halford, Metal God And Judas Priest Vocalist

Charlie Doherty — Thu, 8 Jan 2009 20:13:01 EST

An exclusive, eye-opening interview with the greatest living metal singer, Judas Priest�s Rob Halford.
Legendary British rock icons Judas Priest are still hard at work, four decades on into its storied career. After releasing an ambitious, underrated double album, Nostradamus and touring behind it in 25 countries, the band’s gifted and self-proclaimed “Metal God,” singer Rob Halford found over 37 minutes of his time to talk to me...

Music Review: Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow

David Bowling — Thu, 8 Jan 2009 18:53:23 EST

Jefferson Airplane: Chapter 2.
Vocalist Signe Anderson left the Jefferson Airplane in October of 1966. She was quickly replaced by Grace Slick of the Great Society who had been an opening act for the Airplane, and would solidify the group’s line-up. Slick also possessed one of the great female voices in the history of sixties and seventies rock ‘n’ roll....

Best of 2008: Counting Crows, Oasis, Black Keys, Dave Carter, B.B. King, The Bittersweets, Mudcrutch, R.E.M., Coldplay, Gutter Twins, Glen Phillips

Josh Hathaway — Thu, 8 Jan 2009 18:39:57 EST

2008 was a great year for music.
It's become an annual rite of passage in the music business. Every year, the trade papers are filled with stories about how this year was worse than last year. If the music execs were hoping we'd get so tired of reading that story that we'd start to ignore it -- you know, 'the boy who cried wolf' routine -- it hasn't...

Music Review: Jefferson Airplane - Jefferson Airplane Takes Off

David Bowling — Wed, 7 Jan 2009 08:33:25 EST

Jefferson Airplane: Chapter 1.
Marty Balin met Paul Kantner in 1965 and their resultant musical relationship would lead to the creation of the Jefferson Airplane. This influential and successful American rock ‘n’ roll band would eventually be elected to the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. While there would be several personnel changes during the group’s early...

Book Review: Please Please Me by Gordon Thompson and Dusty! Queen of the Postmods by Annie J. Randall

Holly Hughes — Sun, 4 Jan 2009 08:20:32 EST

Two college professors dissect the music of the 1960s British Invasion, with varying results.
I’ll admit it, there’s always at least one book about British pop culture on my bedside table, whether it’s a tell-all Beatles bio or some esoteric volume of Kinks arcana. We navel-gazing boomers love to read about our own pop past, which is probably why the normally sober Oxford University Press has seen fit to publish these two...

Retro Redux: The Beau Brummels' Answer To The British Invasion

Big Geez — Sun, 4 Jan 2009 05:24:04 EST

Even though one member of the group was British, they weren't quite what they seemed.
Pop music in the 1960's sometimes seemed to be all about bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and others -- an era that came to be known as the British Invasion. But there was also a secondary effect. Many of the American groups scrambling for success during that period found themselves - consciously or not - emulating the British bands....

Music Review: The Who - Endless Wire

David Bowling — Fri, 2 Jan 2009 19:54:32 EST

The Who: Chapter 17.
I have mixed feelings about Endless Wire. I was fine with The Who continuing as a group following Keith Moon’s death in 1978, but John Entwistle’s passing in 2002 hurt my image of the group as an ongoing entity. Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, however, have kept The Who alive. They continue to tour and in 2006 released their first...

Music Review: The Who - Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B

David Bowling — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:29:36 EST

The Who: Chapter 16.
Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B is a four disc, five hour, career spanning history of The Who. The musical journey begins in 1964 with tracks released when they were known as the High Numbers and finishes in 1991 with their recording of “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” which was their contribution to the Elton John...

Music Review: Blue Oyster Cult - Agents Of Fortune

David Bowling — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:20:36 EST

New vinyl for your holiday enjoyment.
Back in the days of my youth and vinyl domination, I remember hearing Blue Oyster Cult’s “Cities On Flame With Rock and Roll” for the first time. The hard crunching guitar riffs were memorable and classic. It was one of the songs that sustained me during my college years. I ended up purchasing each of their releases for next two...