Feature

H.R., the legendary singer of the equally legendary Bad Brains, has had a very interesting life. This documentary does a very impressive job of talking about his career and the myriad of issues surrounding him offstage. Some of the greatest insight comes from H.R.’s brother, Bad Brains drummer Earl Hudson. This is actually the most I think I’ve ever heard Earl talk and what he talks about is fascinating, namely their childhood and H.R.’s subsequent decline into what is basically undiagnosed mental illness. His friends and bandmates in his various reggae bands also talk at length about H.R.’s solo career.…

This long overdue retrospective documentary of legendary guitarist Mick Ronson is quite interesting. Interviews with friends, colleagues, admirers, and the occasional voiceover from Bowie himself paint a picture of a musician who was one of the most talented of his ilk. Not only could he play like a demon, but he could arrange and produce as well. For the most part, he will be remembered as Bowie’s partner in the Spiders From Mars, and a lot of time in this documentary is used to talk about his association with Bowie. Bowie’s former wife Angie tries to steal the show with…

If you’re not familiar with L7, then watch this film and you will be. Four rockin’ badasses from Los Angeles formed the ultimate female alternative rock band and took the ‘90s alt rock underground by storm. Hell, 1992’s Bricks Are Heavy spawned three of the most memorable songs from the alternative rock explosion: “Pretend We’re Dead,” “Wargasm,” and “Shitlist.” This documentary is a bit different from most other rock docs; you never see the ladies of L7 on camera, only in voice-overs. But through scattered praise from fans including members of Garbage, Distillers, Bratmobile, and others, it is highlighted just…

Legend has it that it took 100 takes in the studio before Tom Petty was satisfied that he and the Heartbreakers had done full justice to “Refugee,” the leadoff track on 1979’s Damn The Torpedoes. The song turned out to be their breakthrough, the single that lit a rocket under their until-then gradual transformation from regional up-and-comers into breakout national stars. I like to think that stubbornness wasn’t so much about perfectionism as a determination to get the most you can out of the materials you have to work with. That always seemed to be the Petty ethos, right down…

People write stories for a lot of reasons: to share an idea they think is important with the world; to explore places they’ve never been but always imagined going; to interpret their own experiences in a way that both disguises and closely examines the most wrenching, difficult parts of them. (Never underestimate the therapeutic power of taking control over something happening in your own life by writing about it.) But another reason people write stories is more prosaic, even selfish: because we want to create more of the kind of stories we most enjoy reading. The latter was one of…

Ah, the curse of high expectations. On Monday night I saw a very good band play a diverse set-list, delivering enthusiastic and well-received performances at an attractive venue. A good time appeared to be had by audience and performers alike. It should be that simple, shouldn’t it? But as with nearly anything connected to the almost 50-year-old progressive rock band Yes, the truth is more complicated. The complications begin with the fact that there are currently two bands calling themselves Yes on tour: the official Yes led by longtime guitarist Steve Howe and longtime drummer Alan White, and this upstart…

The word that comes up again and again both when talking about and when talking with Pete Mancini is craft. Mancini’s work as a singer-songwriter is all about craft, whether within the context of indie-rock/Americana quartet Butchers Blind or on his newest venture, a debut solo album that leans more to the country-folk side of the broad Americana equation. Mancini himself prefers to describe the music he makes in both contexts as “American music”—a rich mélange of blues, country, folk and the bastard child the three produced together: rock and roll (thank you, Chuck Berry).Mancini applies his considerable craft to…

You just never know. In one of the reviews referenced in my entry in our 20th Anniversary feature “20 Albums That Influenced Me,” I tell the story of getting to know the “girl next door” (actually three doors down) in my freshman-year college dorm, becoming friends before either of us had an inkling there might be higher stakes involved. Thirty-six years later, we have three grown children and a new grandchild. Neither of us saw that coming at the time; it just happened. You could say the same for my relationship with the Daily Vault, and writing about music. In…

In 2004, I was an eighth grader with a newfound obsession with Queen and an equally strong desire to avoid doing my trigonometry homework. Over the course of 12 years, the obsession deepened into the longest-lasting love of my life; I never used trigonometry again, but Queen’s A Night At The Opera has been a constant companion, and I’ve spent all of my young adult life trying to put those feelings into words. Back when the Vault first emerged in 1997, it was a rarer thing to have your own little corner of the world to share and connect with…

Let’s be clear from the start what this list is and isn’t. It isn’t a list of my favorite albums, or the best albums by my favorite bands, or anything at all like that; kindly banish such thoughts from your mind. What this is, is a list of albums that reached me at a critical point along my journey and changed the way I heard music. Also, while the list itself is chronological, it’s not in the way you might expect; albums are listed in the order in which they had an impact on me, not the order in which…