Search for your artists here. We'll find them for you!
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Well, you voted for them, and you got them! Night Ranger is the new featured artist! There was talk about them working on a new album, and I was hoping it would be released by the time they got posted here. The latest word from Jeff Watson's official site is that they're taking 2006 off to work on their side projects, although according to Kelly Keagy on his MySpace page he was in California working on the new album as recently as 8/1/06. I guess we'll see what happens over the next few months!. Meanwhile, they all seem to be keeping busy with solo projects. Jeff Watson has a new solo CD coming out (and is working on another one), as well as a new Mothers Army CD, and recently spent time filming the movie 'Enchanted' for Disney. Kelly Keagy also has a solo album in the works. Brad Gillis appears on the latest Vicious Rumours CD and appears on a new Van Halen tribute album called 80s Metal Tribute To Van Halen. Jack Blades has been busy with the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, the Rock of Ages Musical in Las Vegas, and a Shaw Blades cover album. And there is probably more going on we don't even know about. Watch in upcoming months for more Night Ranger news!
Led Zeppelin to Reunite - Thursday, September 13, 2007
It was announced today that Led Zeppelin will be reuniting for a one-time appearance at a concert in memory of Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records. (full story) |
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| Summer Update News |
If you've been checking in here lately, you've noticed some changes around here. It's summertime again, which means I'm off from school and have a little more time to work on this site, and I've been taking advantage of it. Probably the biggest change around here is that I finally ditched my web host (whose e-mail was constantly unreliable, and who managed to break several parts of the site by changing the way things worked on me without bothering to warn me about it). The forum activation e-mails being broken (and none of the available options working) was the final straw. I have no idea how long it was broken before someone e-mailed me about it. But it IS working now on the new site, along with the rss feed for news (which was also apparently broken). The new host seems to be working well, although I found a few things I needed to fix after the switch. I think I fixed everything, but if you spot anything else I missed let me know!
In other big news, I've started filling in a few gaps where I added bands to the database that didn't have pages yet (you may have run into a few broken links in the Related Artists sections of the newest pages). The first band was Queensryche, and I think it's safe to say I now have the most comprehensive list of Queensryche links on the web right now (damn, they have a lot of web pages!). I'm already working on the next one (Styx) so look for that one within the next few weeks. Once I fill in those gaps (around 5 more bands) I'll start retrofitting all the existing bands to the new site format, and getting the links on those pages up to date.
In still more big news, as an experiment I'm paying a writer to send me news items, so I will have new news getting posted just about every day. It's only for a month now, but I might wind up extending it if things go well (if you want to help, stop by and click on Google ads and buy stuff from Amazon or GEMM through here, so I can actually afford to keep paying someone for this! I'm not exactly getting rich off of this site.) So far the news has been going well (although it'll obviously take time to build up traffic here), and adding his news items has gotten me started adding a few of my own while I'm at it. I've also discovered MySpace is a good source for music news (I've started a personal one, and I'm considering starting one for Rockers Online eventually).
You should also see more activity over the next few weeks, since I'm going to at least 6 concerts this summer alone. The first was Rush last Monday night (7/23) at the Hollywood Bowl, followed by Dream Theater at the Gibson Amphitheater on Friday (7/27). Tonight I'm heading to the House of Blues Sunset Strip to see Symphony X. I hope to post reviews of all 3 shows soon, although they could be delayed since I'm flying to New York for over a week on Thursday. Also look for more reviews of Asia (I'm going to 3 different shows in August) over the next few weeks, and there are several shows coming up in September and October too that I'm hoping to get to. I should be able to do more updates too over the next few weeks, up until I get sucked back in to the black hole that is USC. Although I'd like to think I could continue to update the site once classes start past experience has proven that to be difficult, so I can't make any promises.
Meanwhile, I'll do as much as I can. You might see Night Ranger as featured artist for a while, since a side effect to making things database driven is that it is now a lot more difficult for me to download the database and edit it manually, and I haven't gotten around to writing the page to maintain the featured artist. If I have some time before classes start I'll fix that. The new Night Ranger cd, Hole In The Sun , is finally available, BTW. But hopefully you'll see at least a couple more new band pages go up, along with a lot more news, and concert reviews.
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| Posted by Sharan Volin on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 22:00
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| New Symphony X |
The long-awaited new album, Paradise Lost, is finally out today! I'm sure you've seen the ads I added for it, and now that it's out (and Amazon shipped my copy this morning) I figured I'd post the preview video/TV ad here (but no, I won't torment you by making it autoplay;)):
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| Posted by Sharan Volin on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 02:37
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| Review of Asia at the Canyon Club |
 Tonight I went to see Asia, the original lineup, playing at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, CA. This show was a dream come true for me. I've been a huge Asia/John Wetton fan since the first time I heard "Only Time Will Tell" back in 1982 and it blew me away. I saw them live once in 1983 at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium back in NY (with Chris De Burgh opening for them). But then John Wetton, who is my favorite singer, left and Geoff Downes continued the band with John Payne, whose singing I never really liked and who I never really thought fit the band's sound (I apologize to those of you who actually like him). I honestly tried to get into the new band, but other than maybe Aqua and the Archiva cds I just couldn't get into them at all, and I finally gave up after Arena and stopped buying them entirely. There was still John Wetton's great solo career, and I was lucky enough to see him live several times over the past few years, but I always dreamed of the original lineup of Asia getting back together. This year, for the 25th anniversary of the band, it finally happened!
I had been hoping to make the Long Beach show on Wednesday, but homework got in the way (Damn you, Maya!). But I already had my tickets for this show and wouldn't miss it for everything! So a friend and I headed up there early, and got there shortly before the doors opened, only to find an already long line waiting to get in. The Canyon Club is a dinner theater, and we had the reserved dinner tickets, so we got to sit and have an overpriced dinner before the show, but it gave us decent seats where we could actually sit and enjoy the show. I'd heard a few days earlier that the show was close to being a sellout, and after seeing how many people were there in the standing room behind us I suspect it probably did sell out. It was a huge crowd, far more than I'd seen at any of the John Wetton solo shows I'd been to.
 The band came on stage, and it took some of the beginning of the first song for them to get warmed up, but they quickly hit their stride and, once they did....WOW! They were incredible! The playing was so tight you'd think they actually had been playing together for the full 25 years! The band played for about an hour, then took a 15 minute break and came back for another set. They started with songs from the Asia CD, and said they'd be playing the full album, plus songs from previous bands. The first of those they played was Yes' "Roundabout", and I'd seen Yes with Dream Theater at the Gibson Amphitheater on a recent tour and Asia totally blew Yes away (then again Dream Theater totally blew them away that night too. Maybe it was just an off-night but Yes did not put on a great show). They also played songs from Emerson, Lake and Palmer ("Fanfare for the Common Man"), King Crimson ("In the Court of the Crimson King"), and one big surprise, The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" - not just Geoff Downes doing it as a keyboard solo like he's done in the past, but the full band did the entire song, with John Wetton singing through a megaphone at the beginning. Geoff even got all dressed up in a silver jacket and sunglasses like it was a Buggles video.
After the first set I was wondering if they were going to play anything from Alpha or Astra, but they started the 2nd set with acoustic versions of "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes" and "Don't Cry" from Alpha. They never did play anything from Astra, but I guess that's because Steve Howe wasn't in the band at the time. They had the expected keyboard and guitar solos, and Carl Palmer did an amazing drum solo during "The Heat Goes On". After they left the stage for the second time, they came back for an encore with another surprise, the B-side to the "Heat of the Moment" single, "Ride Easy". After that they finished the show with "Heat of the Moment" itself. I had actually spent some time earlier in the day figuring that one out on guitar for a Beginning Pop/Rock Guitar class I'm taking, and I was pleased to see that I seemed to have gotten it pretty much right!
 The response from the audience was great from the very beginning. Every single song got a standing ovation from those of us seated in the dining area. The band seemed to be really enjoying the response. John Wetton looked especially happy, and had a big grin on his face after seeing the response to the first song, and made comments on the great reception they got. It was good to see the band enjoying themselves so much, and I only hope that with such a strong response at the shows they'll decide to continue with this lineup in the future!
After the show Carl Palmer and Geoff Downes were there to sign merchandise (the line for that was out the door). Unfortunately John Wetton wasn't there, but someone behind me said they heard he had a cold. But I at least got 2 of their autographs, and got to tell them what an incredible show it was and that I hope there will be many more to come! All in all, it was an amazing show, and definitely one of the best concerts I've ever been to.
BTW, I got some not too great pictures with my cell phone like the ones above, so I'll be adding more pictures to the Asia page.
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| Posted by Sharan Volin on Sunday, September 24, 2006 at 06:55
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| Jack's First Show |
Last night a friend and I went to Jack's First Show (sponsored by Jack FM). The show featured a great collection of 80s bands: Def Leppard, Journey, Billy Idol, Cheap Trick, and the Violent Femmes. We weren't too worried about missing the Violent Femmes, so when we got there they were already on.
When we walked in, first we had to get past the huge shopping mall area outside (the $35 band t-shirts and expensive food weren't enough, they had actual vendors there selling clothing and other merchandise). Fortunately they were also selling $15 disposable cameras, one of which I made full use of, so I have an entire roll's worth of new pictures to post here on I get that developed. We weren't exactly next to the stage but the video screens on both side of the stage should help. There were also planes flying by with banners saying things like "While you're here we're robbing your house" and "We're not seeing enough nudity on the lawn" courtesy of Jack FM. By the time we got past all the rampant capitalism in action, Cheap Trick were already in the middle of their set.
Of all the bands there last night, Cheap Trick were the only one I'd seen previously (when they were opening for Survivor). They did pretty well, although if they played any of their 80s hits it was before I got there. They did play several of their earlier hits, including the theme from "That 70s Show" (which is how they introduced it). They unfortunately suffered from some serious problems with one of the speakers in our section of the amphitheater, which were fortunately fixed for the next act.
After them, Billy Idol came on stage. I missed the beginning of his set too because of the really long lines for the restrooms (no wonder Jack FM were giving away a port-a-potty on the air). He definitely put on a great show, playing many of his hits, like "White Wedding", "Rebel Yell", and a version of "Mony Mony" that included parts you may have heard at parties but didn't exactly expect to hear from the actual artist;). But Billy Idol and his band were having a lot of fun up there, and so was the audience. I was surprised at the end when he announced the keyboardist as Derek Sherinian (previously from Dream Theater).
The next act on stage was Journey. I used to be a huge Journey fanatic for a while (before I discovered Asia), so it was really surprising when I realized that this was actually the first time I'd actually see them live. I also had another reason to be excited about seeing them, their current singer, Steve Augeri, wasn't able to go on this tour, and replacing him was Jeff Scott Soto, an amazing singer who was in a great band named Takara, has a really good solo album called Lost in the Translation out now, and was also recently in the band Soul SirkUS with Neal Schon (which now that I think of it is probably how he got the Journey gig). I figured this would be interesting, since he's probably the first singer to join the band who didn't sound just like Steve Perry, and I figured he was a good enough singer that it was going to be a great show.
So Journey came on stage, and basically blew the audience away! They put on a truly amazing show. Jeff Scott Soto really pulled off the Journey songs well. One of the speakers in our area was cutting in and out at the beginning of the set, which really hurt the vocals, to the point where people near us were cheering when someone finally went up to fix it. But even with that you could tell he was doing an amazing job. This date must have been a dream come true for him! He's from Southern California, and his family and friends were there, and here he was playing in front of a sold-out crowd in a much bigger place than probably any band he'd played in previously had been in, in a legendary band like Journey. It must have been a great night for another reason too, but I'll get into that later.
I was surprised that they didn't play a single new song, but I guess it made sense since the lead singer from those albums wasn't there, and since it was a big 80's show. I knew every song they played, and they were all great. Drummer Deen Castronovo sang on about 3 of the ballads (including "Open Arms" and "Faithfully"). They also made good use of the video screen behind them, with some nice graphics to accompany the music. When they finished the set they left the stage, but returned for one encore, "Separate Ways".
Now Journey was a tough act to follow, and people near us told us they already felt like they got their money's worth. In fact several people around us seemed to feel this way and actually left, but the place was still crowded. Def Leppard came on stage as the final act, and did an admirable job of following them! I don't think I enjoyed their set quite as much as Journey's, but I think that was because it was a little Hysteria-heavy, and that's the one album of theirs I always thought was a little over-rated. In fact I didn't listen to them after that until I discovered Euphoria, and discovered they were doing some of their best work ever now.
Despite that, they put on a great show. They made even more use of the video screens than Journey did, and did a really interesting long, extended version of "Rocket" with some cool science fictiony graphics including a Union-Jack rocket flying around. All the band members were obviously incredible musicians, and it was good to see Rick Allen still with them and doing such a great job (I always liked him)! At one point they played through several songs and transitioned so smoothly between them without stopping that you couldn't tell where one song ended and the other began. I would have liked to hear more from Euphoria and X, but the only song they played from either was "Promises".
They did play a couple of cover songs from their new CD, Yeah, and did a great job on those, so I'm looking forward to getting the copy I ordered last week. They finished the set with "Rock Of Ages", and surprised everyone by bringing out Jeff Scott Soto to sing along with Joe Elliot on this one!
After a set like that they came back for an encore, and played two songs, "Love Bites" and "Armageddon It". They closed by bringing up yet another big surprise - they announced that will be playing the Hollywood Bowl for the first time on October 13th! My friend and I looked at each other immediately and both said "We are SO there!". Besides, it's 2 days after my birthday so it'll make a great celebration, and I just found out Journey will be there too, so it should be another incredible show!
So, all in all, it was an incredible show! If you have a chance to see Def Leppard and Journey near you, I highly recommend that you take it!
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| Posted by Sharan Volin on Monday, August 21, 2006 at 03:54
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