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19 Dec

2008: Year Of The Indie

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If last year was big, this year was more medium-ish, musically speaking. Several of my favorite rock acts didn’t release anything bigger than the odd digital-only track or three (Springsteen, Switchfoot, Fountains Of Wayne, Ian Hunter, Chris Cubeta) and the prog scene was relatively quiet, other than well-received solo albums from David Gilmour and Billy Sherwood, and rumors of a Yes/ELP/Asia package tour in 2009. Where that left me personally was focusing yet more attention on the ever-growing ranks of super-talented independent acts out there. So this year for the first time, I’m offering five awards to label-backed releases and…

29 Nov

John Lennon Retrospective

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Singer. Songwriter. Bandmate. Celebrity. Activist. Artist. Husband and father. These are just a few of the most public roles played by one of the most important musical – and arguably, societal – figures of his generation, John Lennon. As a founding member, co-chief songwriter and co-lead vocalist of the most important and influential band in the history of popular music, Lennon’s musical legacy would have been secure if he had never played another note after the Beatles broke up in 1970. But he did, creating a complex, at times uneven, but never dull body of solo work that includes some…

22 Nov

Jon Troast Rocks The — Er, My House

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Jon Troast is up front about what you get when you book him for a house concert on his now year-long “100 Dollar Tour” -- a one-hour show in your living room for as many (or few) people as you want to invite, copies of his most recent CDs and a chance to hang out with the artist. The side benefits are less well-advertised. When I mention shortly after he arrives that our house is the cleanest it's been in months, his response is a wry grin and “I get that a lot.” The relationship between artist and audience is rarely…

25 Oct

Concert Classics Retrospective

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Once upon a time, the live album ruled -- the time being the 1970s. Oh sure, there had been a few successful live albums before that, notably the Beach Boys’ Beach Boys Concert, which went to #1 in 1964 – but the real heyday of the live album was the 70s, when both global superstar bands like The Who and the Rolling Stones and next-tier acts like Bob Seger and AC/DC issued live albums that captured not just the music but the full character and commitment of the artist. In the 80s, 90s and beyond the live album’s star has…

30 Sep

Kansas Retrospective

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Some months ago there was a lively discussion on the Daily Vault staff writers’ e-mail list about the criteria for choosing featured artists for our monthly retrospectives. A consensus formed that the artist chosen should meet two or more of these criteria: 1) groundbreaking, 2) influential, 3) large sales, 4) longevity, 5) historical/representative of a specific era or style of music. There was also the sixth “X ingredient,” as identified by the inimitable Duke Egbert: “some damn fool is willing to do the majority of the work.” Kansas, the Midwestern prog-rockers gone arena rockers gone 80s power balladeers and back…

22 Sep

Golden Smog’s Marc Perlman: The Daily Vault Interview

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Among its many distinctions, Golden Smog is the only band I know whose name is a take-off of an obscure character from The Flintstones that was itself a parody (the Flintstones character the Golden Fog was based on Mel "The Velvet Fog" Torme). It is also, technically speaking, an alt-country-rock, or Americana, or whatever “supergroup.” Of course, being the iconoclasts that they are, the Smog’s own members immediately reject this label. Yes, the group is made up of members of Soul Asylum (Dan Murphy), the Jayhawks (Gary Louris, Marc Perlman), Run Westy Run (Kraig Johnson) and Wilco (Jeff Tweedy), and…

30 Aug

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers Retrospective

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The ditches lining the great highway of rock and roll are littered with the wreckage of bands that tried to buck the wrong trend at the wrong time, and strewn with debris from groups who almost made it, only to bust apart on the cusp of success. Not many bands can say they passed through both of these gauntlets, came out stronger and ended up one of the most-admired acts of their era. But then, if Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers have ever stood for anything, it's the idea that the more you doubt them, the stronger they get. Petty,…

03 Aug

Women Of Country Retrospective

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Those who trade in stereotypes might find it slightly counter-intuitive to realize that of all the genres that make up popular music, the one with the largest contingent of highly successful female artists might just be country.The singing cowgirl has been part of American legend for too many years to count, but in the 1950s the iconic image found human form in the person of Patsy Cline. The emotion she poured into her performances helped pave the way for contemporaries and successors like Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton.In the 1970s a new generation of female country singers and…

25 Jun

Deep Purple Retrospective

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A band with as long a lifespan and as broad an influence as Deep Purple comes with a lot of legends. One of them goes like this. When the original lineup of Montrose -- generally regarded as the first homegrown American heavy metal band -- first met with producer Ted Templeman in early 1973, he asked them who their favorite bands were. Between the four of them they named just two groups. Led Zeppelin was one. The other was Deep Purple. Most people recognize Zeppelin as one of the progenitors of heavy metal music; fewer understand that they went toe…

25 May

CCM & Friends Retrospective

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In these days of Afro-Cuban-Filipino reggae-pop-metal-house music, it sometimes feels as though there are as many genres of music as there are varieties of religious belief in the world. One musical genre born of belief, however, has transcended its peers both in terms of sheer popularity and in terms of the breadth of musical styles that coexist under a single umbrella -- the umbrella of Contemporary Christian Music, or CCM. CCM, launched, most would agree, with the advent of "The Jesus People" in the late 1960s and "fathered" by early artists such as Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, and Mark Heard,…