Released seven years after Aerosmith and Run DMC brought rap and rock together on Walk This Way, the soundtrack to the 1993 film Judgment Night was a groundbreaking moment in the crossover between the two music genres. Every song on the album was a collaboration between an artist from each genre and it featured some of the biggest names in music at the time.  Helmet, Faith No More, Sonic Youth, Pearl Jam and Slayer worked with Ice-T, House of Pain, Cypress Hill, Onyx, and De La Soul. 30 years later, it’s a seminal moment in music history that showed us what the fusion of these two genres ..read more

It’s pretty easy to complain about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees every year – heck, we’ve done it ourselves more than once. But the nominees for the class of 2023 are out and it’s a pretty solid list. There’s a mix of artists from different eras and different genres. Some first timers and some artists that made us go “yeah, why AREN’T they in the hall of fame yet?” Still no Motorhead, Funk Brothers, or Motley Crue though.  In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re talking about the nominees of the rock and roll hall of fame. What do we think of this year’s list? Who i ..read more

Chris Cornell was one of the best rock and roll singers of the last 40 years. He had an incredible four octave vocal range that showed could be incredibly powerful and delicate, sometimes in the same song. And the music he created was as diverse as his range.  He came up in the music scene in the 1990s as the front man for Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog before taking over lead vocals for Audioslave. He also released a handful of solo albums that includes singer / songwriter material with an acoustic guitar, the theme from a James Bond movie, and some more electronic work with Timbaland ..read more

Chris Cornell was one of the best rock and roll singers of the last 40 years. He had an incredible four octave vocal range that showed could be incredibly powerful and delicate, sometimes in the same song. And the music he created was as diverse as his range.  He came up in the music scene in the 1990s as the front man for Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog before taking over lead vocals for Audioslave. He also released a handful of solo albums that includes singer / songwriter material with an acoustic guitar, the theme from a James Bond movie, and some more electronic work with Timbaland ..read more

We are heading back to 1993 to to look at songs and albums that turn 30 this year. It was a solid year for rock and roll, with Versus from Pearl Jam, In Utero from Nirvana, and Siamese Dream from Smashing Pumpkins. Debut albums from the Counting Crows, the Cranberries, Bjork, Tool, Collective Soul, Candlebox, Lenny Kravitz, Snoop Dogg, and the Wu-Tang Clan.  We’ve got a lot of great music to talk about in this one – and some not so good tunes too (we're looking at you, Snow). Our show is sponsored by Boldfoot Socks and McCusker's Tavern at 17th and Shunk Streets in Philadelphia. We're als ..read more

Live Aid was one of the biggest rock and roll concerts ever thrown. On July 13, 1985 dozens of some of the biggest acts in music performed at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia to raise money to fight the devastating famine in Ethiopia. Organized in just 10 weeks, the show was attended by 72,000 people in London and 100,000 in Philly, while another 1.9 billion people in 150 countries watched the television broadcast. 95% of the televisions on earth at the time watched that concert.  The show raised $127 million dollars. More than 75 acts performed, including Queen ..read more

Live Aid was one of the biggest rock and roll concerts ever thrown. On July 13, 1985 dozens of some of the biggest acts in music performed at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia to raise money to fight the devastating famine in Ethiopia. Organized in just 10 weeks, the show was attended by 72,000 people in London and 100,000 in Philly, while another 1.9 billion people in 150 countries watched the television broadcast. 95% of the televisions on earth at the time watched that concert.  The show raised $127 million dollars. More than 75 acts performed, including Queen ..read more

Les Claypool is a musical mad scientist and one of the weirdest musicians to have commercial success in rock and roll.  He’s best known for his amazing bass playing and quirky sense of humor in leading the band Primus (and for doing the theme for South Park), but he’s also put together a handful of other really cool projects that made other types of music.  Including Oysterhead, the funk jazz supergroup with Trey Anastasio from Phish and Stewart Copeland from The Police. The Duo de Twang country music project. And, most recently, the awesome partnership with Sean Lennon called The Cl ..read more

The Prisoners of Rock and Roll 3rd annual Christmas special. This year, we’ve decided to fill up the punch bowl, bake some cookies, and have a very special musical Christmas party. We’re opening up the studio and inviting artists who have recorded some of our favorite Christmas songs to stop by for some festive cheer.   We’ll be spending time with Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Darlene Love and Elvis. Dean Martin and…Lemmy from Motorhead? AC/DC and Henry Rollins? Dee Snider Kermit the Frog?   I better pour an extra shot of rum into the eggnog for this one. Hallelujah, holy shit. Wh ..read more

Heavy metal music is usually about speed or power, or speed and power. It’s an incredibly diverse genre of music: two metal fans can have a conversation at a bar about music and quickly realize that there aren’t any bands that they both like. The lines between metal and hard rock and roll are blurry – Encyclopedia Britannica says Aerosmith is a heavy metal band. Do they belong in the same category as Slayer or Sabbath?  There’s no simple definition of what heavy metal is but wethink those rock and roll scholars Beavis and Butthead defined it best when they said it just kicks ass.  In ..read more