5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #179

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week is a feature I run on Young Ears, Fresh Perspective on Sundays/early hours of Monday morning where I pick out 5 tunes that I think are notable and tell you a bit about them. The point is to give you some rocking music to help you deal with your weekday blues. You can either listen to one each day, listen to them all at once, or any other combination that you feel. As long as you can get through the week without the man getting you down, that's all I care about. Without further ado, here are the 5 tracks I've picked out for this week:

1. Mind Your Manners, by Slash feat. Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators

Guns N' Roses axe man Slash is at it again with a new single from his upcoming album Living the Dream. This song is pure straight up, bare bones, no frills rock n' roll. It's pretty much exactly what you expect from a solo Slash song at this point. I don't think it is anything all that special, but it knows what kind of song it is and doesn't try to be anything more. I think that is where the strength of it lies for some people.

2. Only Friend, by The Temperance Movement

I went to a Judas Priest and Deep Purple double bill last week, and much to my pleasant surprise, The Temperance Movement was opening. I've been wanting to see them for YEARS and this was the chance I wasn't expecting. This was one of the tunes they played and it has grown on me even more than it already had before. It's so grooving, bluesy, and full of soul. This could have easily been a radio hit back in the 70's.

3. Megitsune, by Babymetal

Now I know what you're going to say. Babymetal, Josh? Really? Yes, really. I think if you gave them a chance you might find that you actually like some of their stuff. Their blend of J-Pop and modern metal works surprisingly well. Plus, they have some fantastic choreography and costumes to boot. If you're at all curious, this song in particular is a song about female empowerment and I think that is a wonderful thing.

4. Living After Midnight, by Judas Priest

This is one of the songs that Judas Priest encored with last week - to the surprise of absolutely no one, of course. It's a good song and it is one of the ones that put them on the mainstream radar, even to this day. It's definitely not my favorite song of theirs, nor is it anywhere near their most heavy and technically proficient song, but it's catchy, rocking, and fun. At the end of the day, there is just as much a place for that as there is anything else in metal.

5. Bloodsucker, by Deep Purple

Much to my pleasant surprise, Deep Purple pulled out this obscure gem at the concert last week. You don't hear them playing all that much of anything from Deep Purple in Rock any more, so this was pretty cool. That said, Ian Gillan can definitely NOT do the kind of screams he was doing in 1970 any more, but it was still an overall solid performance. This is one of my personal favorite tracks from that album, so I definitely feel it is worth giving at least one listen.

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #178

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week is a feature I run on Young Ears, Fresh Perspective on Sundays/early hours of Monday morning where I pick out 5 tunes that I think are notable and tell you a bit about them. The point is to give you some rocking music to help you deal with your weekday blues. You can either listen to one each day, listen to them all at once, or any other combination that you feel. As long as you can get through the week without the man getting you down, that's all I care about. Without further ado, here are the 5 tracks I've picked out for this week:

1. Coast to Coast, by Trapeze

I don't feel this song, the album it came from, or the band that made it get talked about anywhere near as much as they deserve. This tune is one of their more laid back, grooving, melodic tunes and somehow it always helps me chill if I'm all wound up. It gives me some serious feels too, but I still have yet to ever figure out why. Maybe it's just an atmospheric thing? Regardless, this is definitely good for relaxation time.

2. Breaking the Law, by Judas Priest

Since I'm going to go see these guys this week, I figured it was a good idea to throw in one of their classic hits. This is one of the first songs that I and many other people ever remember hearing out of Judas Priest. Though I like their 70's material better, British Steel is still a classic album and deserves the fame and glory that it has all these years later. Without this hit, I don't think Judas Priest would be the hallmark metal band they are considered to be today.

3. Nancy the Tavern Wench, by Alestorm

If you dig pirates and heavy metal, then this tune will be right up your alley. Pirate metal while on a surface level may seem silly, it is still a lot of fun. This tune makes you feel like you're in an old run down sleazy tavern by the port at least 300 years ago. It certainly brings that time period and that atmosphere alive in a way that vibes with a wider audience today. You will feel like a heavy metal Jack Sparrow pretty quickly for sure.

4. What's Going on Here, by Deep Purple

Honestly, I NEVER hear anyone talk about this song, even in the circles of people that do still happen to talk about Deep Purple. It's one of my personal favorites from the Burn album for sure. It's just a straight up piano driven swinging blues tune, but somehow it just grooves in such a way that makes you want to stomp your foot along and sing along with the delectably vocal layered choruses. Why this isn't a big hit, I'll never know.

5. Lipstick Traces, by UFO

This is a completely instrumental tune, but it evokes more emotion than most overplayed love songs ever will. I get this picture of hanging out with my gal in a hammock on a beach on some warm, but not too warm summer night with a gentle breeze rolling through. Maybe a candle or tiki torch too. Who knows. Regardless, if a song can paint that vivid of an image in my head even though it doesn't have lyrics, there is definitely some worth to it to me.

Throwback Thursday: Wake Up the Neighborhood, by Wake Up the Neighborhood

You know what? I'm getting bored with the same old routine. Every week I pick some classic album from the days of yore of rock n' roll (though some times not all THAT long ago) and I talk about it for a few paragraphs. This week we're going to do something a little different just to change things up a bit. This week we're talking about an album from a band I used to be in called Wake Up the Neighborhood.

Five years ago when I was a hopeful, optimistic lad with big dreams of becoming a big rock star, I was in a band with some buddies called Wake Up the Neighborhood. We mostly played locally, but every now and again we did get a little further out there. In 2013 though, I decided it was time for us to do an album. We spent the summer getting our original material all sorted out and then recorded it all in our drummer's basement. It took a while to do, but eventually we got the whole thing done and called it simply Wake Up the Neighborhood.

Wake Up the Neighborhood at least as far as I'm concerned has a few different styles thrown into it, but for the most part it's a cohesive bluesy classic rock influenced album. I actually had multiple people tell me they thought they were listening to something from the 70's when putting it on. I took that as a compliment. Regardless, it goes from loud, pound your walls, finger blistering rock n' roll to heartfelt ballads to moments of funk to folksy acoustic and beyond.

"Let's Wake Up the Neighborhood" is the first song I ever took part in writing that I actually took pride in. I had written other stuff before, but it always felt like amateur-ish crap to me. This song however made me want to pump my fist and shout "FUCK YEAH!". It's this mid-tempo, chugging, blues tinged party rock kind of song. The kind you blare through the loudest speakers you can find in your neighborhood so you can wake them up and get them to join in on the party. I was pretty proud of the guitar solo I did on it as well.

"Relapse" is one of the other old songs from that album that was already about 3-ish years old (give or take) by the time we laid it down. It's a clean guitar and piano driven ballad that talks about the first real heartbreak I ever had and how I felt like no matter how hard I tried to move on, even the smallest thing could make me crumble back down. I'm pretty proud of how it all came together for the most part. It knows how to set a mood and then go balls to the wall rock and then back again.

Wake Up the Neighborhood is far from being a perfect album by any stretch of the imagination. Years later I can hear all the fuck-ups and things that could have been done better, but I still treasure and cherish the album nonetheless. I am proud of what we as a team managed to accomplish. There are some solid tracks on it that I will still stand by even to this day. If you have a bit of time to kill, check it out for yourself and see what you think. Maybe even leave a comment about it if you feel like.

Wake Up the Neighborhood, by Wake Up the Neighborhood receives 3 out of 5 stars.

Track List:

1. Let's Wake Up the Neighborhood
2. S.O.L.
3. Relapse
4. Just Like This
5. Dirt
6. Keys to the Night
7. Dream
8. Crawl
9. Band Jam
10. Walk Away

Listen to the album (for free) on Bandcamp:

https://wakeuptheneighborhood.bandcamp.com/album/wake-up-the-neighborhood

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #177

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week is a feature I run on Young Ears, Fresh Perspective on Sundays/early hours of Monday morning where I pick out 5 tunes that I think are notable and tell you a bit about them. The point is to give you some rocking music to help you deal with your weekday blues. You can either listen to one each day, listen to them all at once, or any other combination that you feel. As long as you can get through the week without the man getting you down, that's all I care about. Without further ado, here are the 5 tracks I've picked out for this week:

1. Angel Witch, by Angel Witch

I just discovered this heavily under rated hidden gem of a band recently. They are from the early 80's New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene and they definitely sound as such. What sets them apart from all of the other bands of that time though is that their music has a lot more memorable melody and tasty vocal harmonies. They are still heavy and fast as hell, but there is more to them than that. It's a shame they never made it as big as Iron Maiden or Judas Priest.

2. Be Forewarned, by Pentagram

I used to just sort of gloss over this song when listening to Pentagram's First Daze Here album. It's a compilation that has all of their unreleased 70's demos recorded by the original line-up. However, I went back to this song recently and was completely blown away by it. The vocal octave layering in the beginning is just so eerie, yet delightful. It gets intense musically and lyrically intriguing. It just draws you in and keeps you hooked from start to finish. There are so many layers to dissect, so I suggest multiple listens.

3. Killing is My Business, by Megadeth

So Megadeth a little while back put out this AMAZING remix of their 1985 debut album Killing is My Business... And Business is Good!. There is so much more clarity, punch, and raw energy in the songs now. You can hear stuff you wouldn't have noticed before on the original mixes. This tune in particular sounds absolutely killer (pun totally intended). I can guarantee you will be banging your head along to it as much as I did.

4. Holy Diver, by Dio

Do I really need to describe this song for you? If you are a metalhead or even a classic rock fan for that matter you know this song. It's one of Ronnie James Dio's most remembered and beloved songs of all time. It is the definition of a heavy metal anthem. I was at Uproar Festival back in 2010 not long after Dio died and they played the Killswitch Engage version of this over the PA in between bands and HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of us started singing along to it in unison in remembrance of the Man on the Silver Mountain. It was a powerful moment, for sure.

5. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, by The Shirelles

And now for something completely different. I'm going to end this week's playlist on a lighter note. This is the kind of music that I remember hearing as a little kid all the time while in the car with my mom. She would always play the oldies station to protect my innocence or whatever. Regardless, this is some of the first music I ever remember hearing and I LOVED it. I still do. Stuff like this no matter how intense of music I listen to will always hold a special place in my heart.

Throwback Thursday: Powerage, by AC/DC

By 1978, AC/DC had managed to gain quite a bit of notoriety and reputation in the world of rock n' roll. With a few solid (and to this day classic) releases under their belts, they were definitely progressing musically in many ways from where they had started only five years prior. Their music was getting louder, longer, a bit more complex, and overall more creative both musically and lyrically. This definitely showed in their fifth studio album Powerage. This was also their first album with long time bassist Cliff Williams.

Powerage in a ways is sort of a transitional record of sorts between the raw, untamed, and wild early days of AC/DC and the refined, hard rocking, commercially successful band that we all came to know and love from Highway to Hell, Back in Black, and onwards. This is sort of the culmination of what the band had managed to accomplish, learn, and grow into without all that much influence from the outside. It still has that rough, raw, edge to it, but it's more focused.

"Gone Shootin'" in my opinion is one of AC/DC's absolute coolest tracks. It's not the hardest rocking (though there is still plenty of that), but they really manage to use dynamics, nuance, and twangy blues riffs to build something that has an irresistible groove to it. The verses lay back a bit and focus more on grooving rather than going balls to the wall, but the pre-choruses are where things manage to get intense and then lay back off. It's a damn cool tune.

"Riff Raff" on the other hand is one of the best fast tempo hard rocking songs that AC/DC ever wrote and put to tape. Usually "Whole Lotta Rosie" earns that title for most people, but I would argue that "Riff Raff" could give it a run for its money. The riff is infectious, the groove is just pedal to the metal, and it just makes you want to bang your head. Plus, you can tell the band is absolutely on fire and having a blast.

While I definitely don't think Powerage is AC/DC's best album by any stretch of the imagination, I do feel that it earns its place on the shelf with the rest of the beloved classic material. The noteworthy tracks on it are definitely memorable and hold up with age. If you are an AC/DC fan or just a rock n' roller in general, I guarantee you will find at least a couple tracks on here that you will like and keep in your regular rotation.

Powerage, by AC/DC receives 3.25 out of 5 stars.

Track List:

1. Rock n' Roll Damnation
2. Gimme a Bullet
3. Down Payment Blues
4. Gone Shootin'
5. Riff Raff
6. Sin CIty
7. Up to My Neck in You
8. What's Next to the Moon
9. Cold Hearted Man
10. Kicked in the Teeth

Buy the album on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Powerage-AC-DC/dp/B00O75S240/ref=ice_ac_b_dpb?ie=UTF8&qid=1533875207&sr=8-1&keywords=Powerage

Throwback Thursday: Sea of Cowards, by The Dead Weather

After a surprising amount of success, Jack White side project band The Dead Weather made a fairly quick return for a follow-up LP to their Horehound, which had come out the year before. The result was an LP that was sort of but not really a concept album by the name of Sea of Cowards, which is what Jack White refers to the internet as, since people can say what they want and never be accountable for it by hiding behind aliases.

Unlike Horehound, Sea of Cowards seems to go in a less raucous, yet all the more dark and focused direction. It still has some tunes on it that absolutely rock, but in a more dark, grooving, and textured kind of way. If that makes any sense to you at all. Alison Mosshart definitely brings some more of those black as night, smokey vocal performances to this album for sure. The whole band overall seems a lot more interlocked and tight in this album for sure.

"Hustle and Cuss". Oh my god. This was one of the first songs I ever heard from The Dead Weather and I fell in love right away. That thick, grooving bass line holds the song together and makes you want to just MOVE. It has this eerie, calm atmosphere to it most of the time. It honestly sends chills up my spine every time. The vocals sound absolutely ghostly and haunting in all the best ways. Play this in the dark. It's really something else.

"The Difference Between Us" in my opinion is one of the most catchy songs on the entire record. It feels the most like a traditional pop rock song. It has this earworm synth riff that plays through most of the song and sounds to me what candy would sound like if it had a sound. The whole song is so dark, ominous, and full of emotion that this is definitely not your average mindless, catchy Top 40 pop tune. There is some content to digest here from multiple listens.

In my opinion, Sea of Cowards is definitely one of the better records to come out in the 2010's so far. I wouldn't say it's the absolute best, but it is an album that will stick with you if you give it a fair shake. I will warn you now that it takes multiple listens to get the feel for, but if you do give it more than one chance then you will find that it might just be the album that satisfies the darker reaches of your mind and soul.

Sea of Cowards, by The Dead Weather receives 3.75/5 stars.

Track List:

1. Blue Blood Blues

2. Hustle and Cuss

3. The Difference Between Us

4. I'm Mad

5. Die By the Drop

6. I Can't Hear You

7. Gasoline

8. No Horse

9. Looking for the Invisible Man

10. Jawbreaker

11. Old Mary

Buy the album on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Cowards-Dead-Weather/dp/B003JHJSUY/ref=sr_1_1_atc_badge_A2N1U4I2KOS032?ie=UTF8&qid=1533270172&sr=8-1&keywords=Sea+of+Cowards