I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself. I know for a fact that Bon Jovi will never release an album that has me firing on cylinders again. Fact is, I’m pretty sure they’ll never record an album I’ll even find decent again. So why bother then? Beats the hell outta me. It’s the fan in me, I guess. Maybe because I want them to give me something that’s at least worthwhile so bad. It was 20 years ago that happened. Bon Jovi aren’t the same band any more. Not even close. But they still sell a lot of albums and they draw a big crowd so they sure still has a lot of fans out there. As far as I’m concerned, Bon Jovi aren’t even a band at all anymore. This is Jon Bon Jovi with a back-up band and has been so for many years, even before his right hand Richie Sambora took his guitar and his amazing voice and took a hike.
I’d like to think I’m a dude who has a pretty good track on rock-music in general and knows a thing or two about what’s going on. I know who Phil Collins is, for example. Everybody knows who Phil Collins is. I know he used be a progressive drummer in Genesis and I know he spent the 80’s recording dull, mainstream ballads for mainstream radio. I knew he has kids. What I didn’t know was that one of his kids, this guy Simon, is a rock musician who makes records. I have tendency to forget to read press-releases so when I gave this record a listen, I had no clue who Simon Collins was or why Frontiers had signed him – because musically, this is not exactly what you’s expect from that company. So, I had to find out who the guy was so I read the press release. Phil Collins’ son, huh. I’ll be damned. I feel like an idiot…
I don’t hate Pearl Jam anymore. What a way to start a review, huh? Well, when Grunge slaughtered every other Rock genre in their way in the 90’s with bands like Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam, I gave all of them bands a fair shot but I couldn’t find anything to embrace within those bands. Dark, gloomy, depressive – and they all looked like they had been living in someone’s basement for years. There were some good songs, of course, but not that many – and growing up in the 70’s and being a teenager in the 80’s, I so missed music that was fun and great musicianship was important. With Pearl Jam, I listened to their debut album Ten (1991) several times to no avail. Only a couple of songs were to my liking so I guess Grunge was never for me. After that I album I didn’t bother with Pearl Jam anymore. Until that one day.
This is the third release by Bo “Zinny Zan” Stagman under his real name and since I have reviewed his last two solo-offerings with an accompanying foreword, there’s not much history left to contribute with, so if anyone has missed out on anything, go to the links below and read those. What can be said of this release is that for someone like me, a dude who has had issues with Swedish lyrics for all my life and despite of that was completely floored by Stagman’s previous records, is that it comes with enormous, to the point of it being unjust, expectations. Stagman’s previous releases are more or less an open front-door to his life, opinions and beliefs where total honesty rules without even the slightest trace of bullshit. Combine that with amazingly good songs that aims for both the heart and the gut, great musicians and a killer production, my issues with the Swedish lyrics disappeared faster than last month’s salary.
One of the first things that entered my mind when I heard that Pretty Maids’ bass player Rene Shades was about to release a solo album was; “in which way will his record company promote this”? Will they use him being a member of Pretty Maids as a sales argument or will they leave it out, trying to sell Shades as something entirely new? I wonder because Pretty Maids are still not a huge band – which they really should be – and the music on Shades’ record is apparently totally different from Pretty Maids. I think the Pretty Maids connection here might be a hard sell because if we’re honest, who would buy a record based solely on that Shades is the bass player in that band? Well, I kinda would but then again, I’m not really normal in that sense. I would bet that unless you’re a hardcore Pretty Maids fan, you wouldn’t. So, for the most of us, Rene Shades is the cool bassist in the top-hat but we know very little about the man and his song writing abilities.
Ok. Where shall I start? I must admit that I’m not that well versed in Alan Parsons and all his activities. Thing is, I really don’t know squat about the guy other than that I have seen his name in articles and such. Before this review, I didn’t even know what the guy looked like and I can’t name a single song of his. According to Wikipedia, Parsons started his band The Alan Parsons Project back in 1975 and in 1976 they released their debut album Tales Of Mystery And Imagination and has to this day released eleven albums, the last one, The Sicilian Defense came out in 2014. Parsons has also released five solo albums, including this new one of which the first one, Try Anything Once, came out in 1993. But his musical career started back in 1967 when he, at the age of 18, got the job as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road studios and has since then worked on classic albums with bands such as The Beatles, Wings and Pink Floyd.
My wife and I were just about to park our car when this fat, bad-ass groove came blasting through our car stereo speakers. We just had to stay put until the song ended and the DJ would let us know which band we were listening to. The DJ, however, was silent and a new song began. Dammit! It would take us another couple of days before we were informed that the band in question was called The Struts (a name that makes us Swedes smirk some as ‘struts’ means ostrich in Swedish…) and the song was called “Kiss This”. A quick google told me that the song was taken from the band’s debut album Everybody Wants (2014), an album that was reissued for the US in 2016 with some new songs added and a couple of songs removed. A quick visit on YouTube told me that The Struts had more killer tracks than “Kiss This” and a purchase of said album was a no-brainer for yours truly. The record was, of course, awesome and their gig at Sweden Rock Festival in 2016 was a real killer – the party was on at noon!
It was only one year and a couple of months since Bo Stagman (aka known as Zinny Zan) released his debut album under the Stagman moniker where he sang in his native tongue for the first time ever – and now he’s already back with the the follow-up Moder Jord (Mother Earth) – it sure seems like he’s on a creative high right now. The fact that the album – Är Ni Kvar Där Ute (Are You Still Out There) – was sung in Swedish wasn’t only new for him, it was just as out there for his fans as well, so it’s understandable that he must have been nervous of how the record would be received. But he needn’t have worried at all, the album got shitloads of rave reviews and his fans seems to have embraced his new me totally. To be honest, I have never been that big on music sung in Swedish and I can probably count the artists that I like that sings in Swedish on one hand. I just don’t think it sounds right, for the most part.
I won’t get into an introduction about Joe Perry here because if you don’t know who Joe Perry is you probably have lived on the moon for the last century or something. However, Perry’s solo career might have passed some people by as those records haven’t exactly sold millions and trillions and whatnot. Perry’s solo career started when he left Aerosmith back in 1980 and he released three albums under the Joe Perry Project moniker – Let The Music Do The Talkin’ (1980), I’ve Got The Rock ‘n’ Rolls Again (1981) and Once A Rocker, Always A Rocker (1983) before he rejoined Aerosmith for their 1985 album Done With Mirrors. Since Aerosmith haven’t been especially creative when it comes to releasing new music in later years, Perry have decided to be creative on his own instead and released records under his own name. Joe Perry (2005), Have Guitar, Will Travel (2009) and Joe Perry’s Merry Christmas (2014) didn’t exactly set the world on fire but at least they had him working both in the studio and on stage when his day job have been on hiatus. And now there’s a new record out by the legendary guitar player.
Right before Rick Springfield’s last album Rocket Science was released the word got out that Springfield was about to release a country album. A country album! I was worried plenty because even though I don’t have anything against mixing up rock music with a bit of country, plain country music really isn’t my keg of beer, so to speak. Well, it turned out that the whole country thing was a bit exaggerated. Sure, there were country vibes all over that album but for the most I think that album had all the right ingredients a Rick Springfield album should have – rock, pop, AOR, west-coast but with country influences here and there. And there was no need to worry – that album was awesome and I see it as a true Springfield record. For his new effort it was time for another change. This time Springfield is about to release a blues record. A blues record!
CD & Festival reviews 