Category: Rock

1. McFly

   Posted on 11:54pm Friday 3rd Feb 2012

   

   McFly – named after the “Back to the Future” character - is a British pop-rock band that formed in 2002 and has released 5 studio albums since 2004, scoring a string of hit singles mostly in the UK, Ireland and Europe.  They will be touring the UK March-April 2012, with some additional festival dates in June.

   McFly is an increasingly rare example in the pop world of mostly-self-contained good songwriting/musicianship – i.e. a band writing their own songs and playing actual instruments.

   Tom Fletcher (guitar/keyboards) and Danny Jones (guitars) share lead vocals and are the principal songwriters, with Dougie Poynter (bass) and Harry Judd (drums) also co-writing many songs...

2. Bryan Adams

   Posted on 11:34pm Monday 30th Jan 2012

   

   Bryan Adams is one of my all-time favorite artists and songwriters and his unique brand of pop, rock and ballads a major influence on my music.

   Memories

   I first became aware of Bryan Adams with “Cuts Like a Knife” and his co-writes on KISS’ “Creatures of the Night”.  Then “Reckless” came out in 1984 and became one of the biggest albums of the 80s.

   At one of my first bands (in France, around 1985-87), every rehearsal would start with a “warm up” which consisted of playing most tracks on “Reckless”, particularly “Kids Wanna Rock”, “It’s Only Love”, “Summer of 69”, etc.  That album was the model and inspiration for the kind of music I wanted to make at the time. 

   At another band (in Austin, TX, 1989-90), I insisted that we include one Bryan Adams song in the repertoire – and we chose “Run to You”...

3. KISS – Part 2: A short musical history

   Posted on 8:01pm Monday 23rd Jan 2012

   What is left to write about KISS that hasn’t been written before?...  I have grouped the KISS discography (minus some of the later-day compilations) into the 6 “musical phases of KISS” – as I see them, this is an entirely subjective and personal grouping – and for each album, listed and rated my personal favorite tracks:

   • Classics in the making (1974-75)
   • The hottest band in the world (1976-78)
   • Exploring new sounds (1978-82)
   • 80s Metal and Unmasked (1982-97)
   • The second coming (1995-2008)
   • Twenty-First Century Kiss (2009-Present)

   I finish off with my recommendations for newbies and a video playlist from the KISS VEVO channel…