Bloggerhythms

There was no doubt about it. "Maggie Mae" was my favorite song of 1971 and the album it came from, Every Picture Tells A Story , had Rod Stewart standing at the top of the rock 'n roll mountain and looking down on everybody else. Stewart never made a better record as a member of the Jeff Beck Group, The Faces, or as a solo artist. The disc is one of the best rock albums of any era for two reasons. First, Stewart was once a great vocal interpreter of other people's work and, song for song, the album's arrangements were a lot more colorful and musically diverse than most of the standard rock productions of the period. Yes, electric guitars were prominent, but so were mandolins, fiddles, pianos, and lots of acoustic guitars. As Every Picture Tells A Story , and his other albums recorded during the late 60s and early 70s prove, Rod the Mod was a master at making soulful, bluesy, folk-rock during an era when most Brits were turning their amps up as loud as possible...

Nashville's Los Straitjackets wear Mexican wrestling masks while performing an all instrumental repertoire of high volume surf music made for dancing. The influences of Dick Dale, Carl Wilson, The Ventures, and mid-60's mainstream guitar rock are readily apparent. Group founder, Danny Amis, speaks only Spanish on stage, except for the smattering of English he uses when announcing their songs and CD titles. North Carolina's Southern Culture On The Skids (SCOTS) are a quartet who honors it's Southern roots by poking fun at themselves. They wear bowling shirts, ill fitting and wildly unmatched clothing, and throw fried chicken into the audience. Bassist/vocalist Mary Huff has the largest and highest hairdo we've seen since Dolly Parton and the B-52s. In between songs she picks up a mirror sitting on her amp and proceeds to fix her hair, flipping it around as needed to further cultivate the image. SCOTS sing about fried chicken, double wides, shotguns, and pic...

Newcomer Mikky Ekko is a hard act to label. Where does he fit within the framework of rock & roll? His music doesn't offer any of the long solos, recurring themes, or suites so common in prog-rock (so categorizing his debut CD as such would not be totally accurate) yet it's a description that fits. Ekko cites a huge number of musical influences. Among them are Beck, The Pixies, Bjork, Sigur Ros, Tom Waits, Elliot Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Radiohead, Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, The White Stripes, Nirvana, and Soundgarden. To this listener's ears his mostly low-key, brief, thirteen minute, five song, EP clearly shows traces of Radiohead as well as Bell X1, Pink Floyd, and Smile era Beach Boys. His vocals are reminiscent of Freddie Mercury in a mellow mood. As is typical with a lot of prog-rock the lyrics are often not easily transparent so the listener must be in a thinking mood to fully appreciate them. However, since melody and sound textures are more important to Ek...

On April 12th Bloggerhythms posted a review of Vox Eterna , the debut CD by Diane di Stasio. I was so captivated by her wonderful voice that I wanted to understand what made this immensely talented singer tick. I wanted to know her influences, her musical background, and her career plans for the future. Many of those questions are answered in this ten question, e-mail interview she agreed to do for Bloggerhythms. Thank you Ms. di Stasio for your time. Below is the interview. ____________________________________ CR: Based on the brief biographical information I have it appears your career has been primarily as an opera singer. Is opera your first love? If so, why then, did you make your first release a pop album? DiD: Initially, growing up, my first love was rock music. It was later in my teens and early twenties that I developed a love for the beautiful opera melodies, especially from the Bel Canto and Romantic periods (e.g. Bellini, Puccini and Verdi). I have always loved and had ...