In the old days, I’d sneak out of school or better yet work and check out what was new at the local record store. I can almost smell the incense burning while the tattoo’d, stoned staff bustled around the store arranging stacks of records. I could spend hours going through the racks and racks of…
“Ian is awfully ornery tonight” – The Rock Chick 3/24/2016 The Rock Chick and I flew up to Chicago over the weekend to catch The Cult’s “Alive In the Hidden City” tour at the Chicago House of Blues. Man, am I glad I went. As I was walking into the lobby of my hotel before…
There are many things I know for a fact. Such as, never trust a man with a pinky ring or a woman really into Pink Floyd. These are just common sense facts. However, most things I wonder about. With each passing year the list of things I don’t understand, or things that are in that…
There are holidays sprinkled throughout the year on the calendar. Some were created by Hallmark Cards, i.e. Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and the grandmother of them all, Valentine’s Day. There are government mandated holidays like Labor Day, Memorial Day and Arbor Day. Yes, Arbor Day, trees need some love, people. There’s even one holiday I…
“Got a call from an old friend, we used to be real close…” – “My Life”, Billy Joel Well, it wasn’t actually a call, but I got an email from a high school friend of mine recently. I don’t think I’d seen or been in contact with the guy since they laid the diploma on me, many…
Just when I thought new rock and roll might be dead… enter, Rival Sons…they pull me back in… I was sitting in the home office last night, lamenting the fact that I didn’t have anything to write about. I’ve been spending too much time in 2016 writing RIP pieces for my rock heroes. There wasn’t…
**picture from taken from the internet and likely copyrighted As the Stones once sang, “It’s another goodbye to another good friend”… It has been a tough year for Rock and Roll in 2016. Another great one, another titan has passed. George Martin, erstwhile producer of the Beatles passed away this week. George was a behemoth…
In a previous post on BourbonAndVinyl I published a “User’s Guide” to Bob Dylan’s vast collection of “Bootleg” recordings/box sets. I actually went all the way back to his first box set, “Biograph” the box set that started the entire box set cottage industry. Obviously I’m a Dylan fan. But I have to admit, when…
There was a time when I was younger, when I felt like my life was going to be extraordinary. My life was going to be special, “outside the norm”. I wanted to be a rock star, but I neglected to learn an instrument, oh well. Some might say the fact that I waited so long…