No Rock and Roll Report Tomorrow

In celebration of Canada Day on July 1st, there will be no Rock and Roll Report published. Come back on Friday for more Rock and Roll fun in the sun!
Later.

If you like U.S. ‘60s Garage Bands

If your idea of rock and roll nirvana is something like Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968 then you will love 60s Garage Bands.Com. Every month Mike Dugo and his crew put together an incredible array of news, reviews and interviews with dozens of Sixties era garage bands. I am sure I have talked about this site in the past but it has been updated to sport a cleaner look that makes finding things or just plain browsing a joy. An invaluable resource and a great read.
Later.

The Hives Player

Check out the cool multimedia player for The Hives here and listen to “Walk Idiot Walk” in style!
Later.

Ever Wanted to be a Roadie?

If you ever wondered what the roadie’s life is like you should check out Roadie.Net, a site by roadies for roadies with some incredible behind the scenes pictures and some good advice on becoming a roadie. A really valuable resource for roadies and potential roadies as well as rock and roll fans in general. Check! Check! 1, 2, 3, 4! Check!
Later.

Now This is Rock and Roll! The Charms

The Little Steven Underground Garage Rock Festival will be featuring a lot of great rock and roll on August 14th and one of the bands that will be playing is the great Boston-based band The Charms. With 2 CDs under their belt trust me when I tell you that if you ever hear the expression “chicks can’t rock” slap on a copy of “So Pretty” by The Charms. That will shut ‘em up. A great rock and roll ride from a band that knows how to mix sex appeal, farfissa organs and catchy rock and roll hooks, I was in love as soon as I heard them. Check out some MP3s here and have a blast.
Later.

The Rock and Roll Report Radio Spotlight is on Surfin’ in Inner Space

If you are looking for some great rock and roll this Thursday then check out Surfin’ in Inner Space with Dan every Thursday from 12:00 – 2:00 PM on the very cool LA-based Internet radio station Kill Radio. Great rock and roll on a radio station that is trying to further itself from the corporate stranglehold that radio finds itself in in the U.S. A great listen.
Later.

Get ready for another Wild Weekend in Spain

Spain is rapidly becoming my destination of choice for a rock and roll holiday as I just saw the line-up for Wild Weekend 5 and it looks great! Coming to Benidorn, Spain November 18th to 21st, Wild Weekend 5 will feature:

The Monks (US)
The Music Machine (US)
The Nashville Ramblers (US)
The Vice Barons (Belgium)
Harold Ray Live in concert (US)
The Embrooks (UK)
Shutdown-66 (Australia)
The Rippers (Italy)
The Stags (UK)
The Imperial Surfers (Spain)
Palookaville (Spain)
The FaceFul (Japan)
The Staggers (Austia)
Der Beat Agent (Denmark)
The Hollywood Sinners (Spain)
The Unchayned (UK)
The Hollywood Sinners (Spain)
The Playmobils (France/Sweden)
Three Delcias (Spain)

On top of that there will be a Thursday pre-party, GoGo dancers, a bunch of really cool DJs and a “groove lounge.” Sounds like an absolute blast. If you have any questions you can join the Wild Weekend Yahoo Group to stay on top of all the details.
Later.

“Rock music is a cyclical thing that goes through various surges in popularity.”

So says the report Rock Returns to Retail Chart which points out that five of the Top 10 albums on the Billboard Top 200 chart for the week of June 14 were rock albums. The charts are also bolstered by “rock-leaning” bands like The Beastie Boys (!) and Avril Lavigne (!!). I suppose this is all good news but there is so, so much more good rock and roll out there that these infamous charts have always missed. I must be old but I just cannot for the life of me understand the deal with Slipknot. They remind me of that old wrestling tag team The Roadwarriors. Sigh. I sound like my dad when he used to complain about my Kiss records!
Later.

It was one year ago today!

Well it was one year ago today that I started The Rock and Roll Report and it has definitely been an amazing experience. My goals behind creating this site remain the same as one year ago: to identify and highlight those cool rock and roll record labels, radio stations, bands, magazines and websites that keep the rock and roll fires burning bright and hot. Everytime I hear a cool band that I had never heard before or read a cool magazine or website I had never read before my reaction is always the same, get it on The Rock and Roll Report and spread the word and hopefully somebody out there will get the same smile on their face that I had. I will also continue to write about some of the great books, films and rock and roll events that make this such a vibrant art form. With a 50 year history and counting, rock and roll is still going strong, no matter what you might hear or read elsewhere.
As I start year two there are a bunch of things I would like to do to improve The Rock and Roll Report. The first is to expand the continuously updated news feeds so that I can spend less time posting the music news that others do so much better. I would like the music news to be a nice combination of the mainstream and the not-so-mainstream.
I would also like to expand on my “Now This is Rock and Roll!” feature to highlight more bands that I think are deserving of more recognition as they blaze their rock and roll trail from stage to stage. I will try and add more band details as well as the requisite MP3 downloads since music always speaks louder than words. I will also try and tie this all in to the “Listening Post” so you can hopefully buy the CD of the current band I am raving about.
Finally I would like to get more people involved in writing at The Rock and Roll Report. I have been lucky enough to have some great contributors in Wayne and Christian and the more the merrier since there is so much great music out there I can’t possibly keep up with even a fraction of it. Record reviews and band spotlights are a particular area of need but I will accept any contributions as long as it has something to do with Rock and Roll (and let’s face it you can almost make anything fall under that standard)!
As I look forward to the next year I am planning on a complete graphical overhaul (any help would be appreciated) as well as moving to a new software hosting platform. Eventually, I hope that a real community will help sustain both The Rock and Roll Report and the music we write about. I know it is a cliche, especially in this day and age to write about the “power of rock and roll” but you know as well as I that when you are listening to that certain CD or you are at that certain concert and everything just seems to come together perfectly, there is no other music that can put a smile on your face like great rock and roll can. Rock and roll reflects the world around us both for the good and the bad but it also has the power to transform that very same world one note at a time. Sometimes it might get lost in the white noise of the media but there will always be, somewhere out there, a bunch of friends strapping on guitars and adjusting drum sets ready to take on the world in the name of rock and roll and I thank them for it every day.
Thanks for reading and supporting The Rock and Roll Report. Thanks to everybody who has written a post or dropped a comment and thanks especially to my wife for putting up with this crazy blog thing. Here is to another year of great rock and roll, great friends and a lot of laughs. That’s what life should be all about. I’ll be back tomorrow to continue the rock and roll fun and adventure. Until then take care.
Later.

Ozzy Does American Idol

Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne are apparently considering a rock and roll version of American Idol to pick a band for next year’s Ozzfest. Can you imagine watching the bands as they try to decipher Ozzy’s comments to them! That would be worth watching.
Later.

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