I have to confess, I don’t buy every single box set that I review. Sure, I’d love to, but then I’d be living alone in a two bedroom apartment… one room for me, one for my box sets. The Rock Chick would exile me back to bachelorhood. Maybe I’d get a cat. But when I…
Legendary Orange County California cow punk/punk rockers Social Distortion are back with their first album in 15 years with the newly released Born To Kill. Fifteen years between albums ranks them up there with the Cure, the Stones and Peter Gabriel as artists who take a more “leisurely” approach to putting out new LPs. Of course…
The Stones are back, baby! After a few weeks of “marketing tease” the Stones finally formally announced their new album, Foreign Tongues, being released on July 10th this year. As part of the announcement the Stones released the first “official” single from the album, “In The Stars.” This album follows the great Hackney Diamonds which came…
Last Friday the Black Keys, one of our favorites down here at B&V, dropped a new album Peaches! and it’s a collection of wonderful blues covers. The album was preceded by the blues stomper of a single, “You Got To Lose,” written by Ike Turner and first recorded by Earl Hooker in 1969 and later recorded by…
*Photo taken by your intrepid blogger I found myself wandering the house this week, looking for any distraction I could find from the rather grim stuff happening in the world right now. Especially since my Artemis II buzz wore off. I found myself standing in the B&V Labs (aka my listening room) and staring “with…
“Tell me a story, I don’t care if it’s true…” – Ringo Starr, “Returning Without Tears” Ringo Starr has returned with his second T Bone Burnett produced LP in a row, Long Long Road. This of course, follows Ringo’s fabulous album Look Up which came in January of 2025. I’d call this streak a comeback, but as LL Cool…
*Image of Artemis II’s photo of the Earth taken from the internet & likely copyrighted We are living in, arguably, some pretty dark times. Every day the news brings more – for lack of a better word – crappy news. But in the midst of all the darkness being caused by evil, greedy, corrupt men,…
“You people are as great as ever, I tell you…” – Gregg Allman, Great As Ever One of our all time favorite rock n roll/blues rock/blues singers, Gregg Allman, has recently released another in a string of three archival live LPs under The Gregg Allman Band moniker, this one is Great As Ever – Live In Philadelphia…
(Title is an obvious nod to the brilliant Hunger S. Thompson) Emboldened by the success I’d had running down to my local renown record store and snagging a copy of the Stones’ new vinyl-only single “Rough And Twisted,” I decided to dip my toe back into Record Store Day this morning. It had been years…
“I remember, I still remember, I still remember you…when the night turns still…” – Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs, “I Remember” I had no sooner posted my latest on Michael Stipe’s new single “I Played The Fool” that he’s done in collaboration with Andrew Watt, than I saw that erstwhile lead guitarist of Tom…