As any stand-up comedian can tell you, it takes a lot of work to be funny. Social commentary and criticism – no matter how superficial – require a precarious balance of obviously out-sized imagery and prescient truth in order to get over with audiences because the delivery will lose audience members if one is too heavy on one side or the other of the truth/mockery line. Is the act too serious? That's not funny and one risks the possibility of...

In every music genre, there are a few records that mark time and mark a shift in values that would forevermore be felt and seen in the style and sound of that genre – how it's perceived, what it might mean to the people listening, what it means from both a historical and sociological standpoint – and indicates a shift in direction as far as how that sound is both performed and consumed. In the early years of hip hop...

Some sounds are just universally comforting. Whether it's a melody that reminds a listener of an easier time or it's a chord progression that invokes feelings of nostalgia, there are some songs that will cause a listener to heave a sigh of relief involuntarily as muscles begin to loosen and relax. Songs like this dot the catalogues of lots of singers – Van Morrison has “Rcok Your Gypsy Soul,” Ben Harper has “Diamonds On The Inside” and Billy Joel  has...

Some sounds are just universally comforting. Whether it's a melody that reminds a listener of an easier time or it's a chord progression that invokes feelings of nostalgia, there are some songs that will cause a listener to heave a sigh of relief involuntarily as muscles begin to loosen and relax. Songs like this dot the catalogues of lots of singers – Van Morrison has “Rock Your Gypsy Soul,” Ben Harper has “Diamonds On The Inside” and Billy Joel has...

So…….yeah, no review here unfortunately. There was a mild misunderstanding at the box office and the ticket that was meant for my writer wasn't there. The name wasn't on the list, but we still looked under the table, checked clipboards, the trash and even went up on stage to ask the crowd if they have seen an extra ticket. Everyone just shook their heads and/or shrugged and that was that. It was just me with my camera. And I would...

As my friend Ray recently said about Lemmy of Motörhead, some things do seem to “get better with age.” In this particular case, by “better” I mean “more creepy.” For most sexagenarian musicians, this would be a horrible fate. For Alice Cooper, it may just be what he has been working towards for all of these years. Off-stage, he’s known as an avid golfer, a restaurateur, an actor and even a fan of The Simpsons but under the spotlight, Cooper’s...

At some point, goth culture – as in, eye-liner, heavy foundation, the glory of The Smiths and maintaining a general state of very outspoken malaise – wears a bit thin as fans age and gets comical for those on the outside looking in when they see the caricature of “aging darkness” that the average aged gothic music fan becomes. Needless to say, bands must grow with their audience in this particular subculture or risk the same indignant fate. This fact...

Over the last couple of years, it has become fashionable for a band to inflate its sound to out-sized proportions using strings, an army of side musicians, studio trickery – whatever – and present listeners with a lumbering and over-ambitious monster that thy affectionately call a “defining document.” More often than not though, all a band that attempts such an endeavor might prove is that their ambition can get the best of them; whatever they came up with might be...

I'm just going get this out of the way right now. Yes, I voluntarily went and saw Pink at the HP Pavilion, and yes, she was nothing short of absolutely fabulous. Now that that's off my chest, let's continue… As I was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic between San Francisco and San Jose while listening to the latest Marduk record, the inner metal-head in me was starting to wonder what I may have gotten myself into. As we all know by...

I'm just going get this out of the way right now. Yes, I voluntarily went and saw Pink at the HP Pavilion, and yes, she was nothing short of absolutely fabulous. Now that that's off my chest, let's continue… As I was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic between San Francisco and San Jose while listening to the latest Marduk record, the inner metal-head in me was starting to wonder what I may have gotten myself into. As we all know by...