We’re in the dog days of our miserable “winter of discontent,” if I may borrow that phrase from Shakespeare. Cold, grey days that go on seemingly endlessly. Can’t really go outside, everything is still blanketed in dirty, soot-covered snow. Typically this time of year sends me into some deep rock n roll ruminations. Last year…
Lucinda Williams has returned with a spectacular new album, World’s Gone Wrong, and it’s chock full of rocking – and for lack of a better description – socially conscious tracks. There’s nothing as overt as Springsteen’s spot-on new protest tune, “Streets Of Minneapolis.” Instead these tracks are all about every day people and the difficulties life is…
Venerable rock legend and B&V favorite Van Morrison has returned less than a year after the spectacular Remembering Now – which can only be described as a sensational comeback after a few years “in the wilderness” – with Somebody Tried To Sell Me A Bridge. I was wondering how Van had returned so quickly with a new…
Last night, while the Rock Chick and I were watching the Australian Open, venerable soul-legend Al Green dropped a 4-song EP entitled Everybody Hurts. The four songs are all cover songs – and admittedly we’ve heard some version of two of them before – from The Bee Gees, R.E.M., Lou Reed solo, and Lou Reed with the…
One of our favorite bands here at B&V, the Cult, have released a brand new 16-track live album Paradise Live under their earlier moniker, Death Cult. The Cult began their career when lead singer Ian Astbury formed Southern Death Cult. By the time shredding lead guitar player Billy Duffy joined they decided to drop the “Southern”…
“Turned on some music to start my day, I lost myself in a familiar song, I closed my eyes and I slipped away…” Boston, “More Than A Feeling” (a track that could be our theme song) We started off 2026 as we usually do, by looking back 50 years to the rock n roll of 1976…
“The good times never end…” – The Black Crowes, “Pharmacy Chronicles” We had to wait 15 years between the Black Crowes 2009 LP Before The Frost…Until The Freeze and 2024’s Happiness Bastards. That was mostly because they broke up, but that feels like splitting hairs, right? Today I woke up to the wonderful surprise that the Crowes will…
After waiting 21 years between albums of new material, specifically 2002’s Up and 2023’s i/o, Peter Gabriel has returned only three years later with a new song, “Been Undone (Dark Side Mix).” The new song is from what appears to be a companion album to i/o, entitled creatively, o/i. Gabriel, on his last album had two different producers…
*Image above from the Smithsonian taken from the internet and likely copyrighted Here we are in another new year, 2026. The end of one year and beginning of another is always a time for reflection. Many people use New Year’s as a hopeful look forward, many with “resolutions” to help change the trajectory of their…
By any fair assessment, 2025 was an awful year. Thank the heavens that we have a bunch of rock n roll culled from the vaults to keep us going in these troubled, divided times. It’s always nice to close the B&V lab door behind me, set down my phone to get away from the “socials,”…