A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Cassandra Wilson/Billy Holiday’s Record Store Day-issued split single “You Go To My Head” b/w “The Mood That I’m In.” I love the concept of “versus” releases. You know the ones, reader: the releases which pit two artists against each other under fairly limited conditions – be it to reinterpret the opposing artist’s songbook, or simply to compete and see who can make a better, more lasting impression on listeners in a limited...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the The Eco-Terrorist In Me 7” released by Rise Against + Will Potter. At first, it might be easy for the format fetishist who is searching for the great “find” or “must-have” on Record Store Day to overlook Rise Against’s contribution to the festivities. On the surface, it doesn’t really stand out at all; the band put a song from the album that they released last year (The Black Market) up front...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the deluxe reissue LP portion of the Manic Street Preachers’ Holy Bible box set. The problem with the Brit-Pop explosion that happened in the 1990s (well, it was a problem for some people – others ate it up with a spoon) is that it was a really pretty, really clean and really sterile-looking solution to the void left in pop when grunge suddenly lost Kurt Cobain in 1994. Everything just seemed to...

Ground Control revisits the Enclave release of Sloan‘s One Chord To Another, and attempts to illustrate just how important the album was not just for Canadian rock, but how it qualifies as a Classic rock album in general. If you think about it critically, Sloan has been blessed with a succession of breakthrough moments over the course of their career. The first, of course, was Smeared; the band’s first full-length album marked the band’s emergence from the Maritime-Canadian underground rock...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Popular Problems LP by Leonard Cohen. Prior to hearing Popular Problems, I was of the well-founded assumption that Charles Dickens was the man best able to straddle the line between affection and alienation which often sounded or read like someone saying (to update the language a bit), “I love you, but you such.” Granted, many poets, authors and songwriters have framed their work in a similar manner to Dickens or used...

As contrary to the basic mindset of music journalism as it might seem (most critics like to see themselves as taste-makers with an ear for a hit, a finger on the public’s cultural pulse and a keen eye which recognizes emerging future trends), sometimes there’s just no way to explain how or why a band succeeds or fails to break through and become a cultural icon. It could be argued that it just boils down to dumb luck; sometimes a...

Remember the first time you heard Jane's Addiction, Dinosaur Jr. or Pavement, reader? Back when those bands started, they were capable of doing some pretty awesome things; early in Jane's career, they were able to make the smallest acts seem totally profound with the help of some classic rock histrionics (see “Standing In The Shower, Thinking” – for example) while Dinosaur Jr. balanced incredibly high decibel levels against shockingly articulated composition and Pavement made noise and texture an integral part...

If you see enough “rock n’ roll” movies, eventually you begin to realize that there are always a few key points that are totally unbelievable: the best bands came from nothing (and a lot of them started by accident); their rise to greatness really begins at the moment the hardworking group sticks it to the man and starts doing things their own way, they reach a pinnacle of appeal and creative power at roughly the same time or immediately before...

It’s not even a minute into “Heartbreaker,” the first track on Aftershock , when Lemmy spits out the lyrics “You don’t see me shedding tears, no time to say goodbye.” While this lyric isn’t directly about his recent health scares this summer, fans can read between the lines easily and know that, sick or not, the man’s still on a mission and he’s gonna do it to the death. Aftershock is another great one for a...

Over the last few years, Hank Williams III has released so much music that, in order for him to promote it all live, he has to perform for four hours straight with no opening bands on the bill. And judging from the very diverse crowd which stuck around for his entire set at the Regency Ballroom recently, it was definitely not a problem. Hitting the stage just before 8pm, Hank and his band delivered a two-hour set of country-punk which...