Freelance Vandals drummer deluxe Billy "The Mountain" Cairns 1974 Freelance Vandals Gig List FREELANCE VANDALS MUSIC BACK TO ALL POSTS ..read more

It's Time For Some ROCK & ROLL NEWS  From The World Wide Web! Appreciating Dave Edmunds Brian Jones & 10 Wild Instrumentals Lou Reed & The Tots: Doom & Gloom From The Tomb Why The True Story Of Glam Metal Needs To Be Told Bruce Palmer: The Lost Member Of The Buffalo Springfield     Some Lesser-Known Rock Muses The Legacy Of The GTOs: The History Of The Band Frank Zappa Started It's Pop-O-Rama 10!!! The Who’s Tommy Returns To Broadway Louis Prima & The Sicilian Sound     Paul McCartney provides verdict on Beyoncé’s cover of The Beatles What’s T ..read more

  "Time Flies Like An Arrow, Fruit Flies Like A Banana" (Groucho Marx) Seeing as it's just about Lowell George’s birthday (April 13) I thought it would only be fitting to do a post on this mercurial artist whose music has only grown in stature since his death in 1979.  Best remembered as the de facto leader of the classic American rock band, Little Feat, Lowell George's distinctive style of slide guitar and vocalizing helped create a style of music that was a unique blend of second-line funk, gospel, Chicago blues, jazz and country balladry that still stands today as one of the ..read more

I finally found the time to read a stack of rock & roll books that I had on a table right next to my big red reading chair.  This got me to thinking about just how many truly great books there are about Rock & Roll.  It also occurred to me that perhaps there are some of you folks out there who might have missed out on reading of these epic prose works!   Ready, Steady, Go!: The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London (Shawn Levy, Doubleday 2002) Ready Steady Go is a wonderful book that transports the reader back to Swinging London in the 60's.  Shawn ..read more

It's Time For Some ROCK & ROLL NEWS  From The World Wide Web! Paint It Orange: The Stones & A Movie That Almost Was Mike Wilhelm: First Psychedelic Rock Guitarist A Riot Of Their Own: The First Generation Of Female Rock Bands Black Crowes: Happiness Bastards Album Steve Harley: 1970s Cockney Rebel Who Took Risks & Wrote Hits     Radio, Radio: A Loose Report On The State Of The Format In 2024 A Short History of Folk Rock Joni Mitchell’s Final Chapter Is Epic Why The Beatles Biopic Needs Four Movies To Tell The Story Right David Bowie ‘Ziggy Stardust’ Era: Rock &am ..read more

THE VAGRANTS   "The Vagrants, between 1964 and '68, rose from a bunch of New York high-schoolers rehearsing in a basement in the Forest Hills section of Queens to playing for thousands of kids in clubs. Chances are, though, if you weren't in the audience, you've never heard the band. The Vagrants started when Peter Sabatino and his buddy Larry Weinstein saw The Beatles at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in August 1964 — literally next door to Sabatino's apartment building — and he and Weinstein decided that this was what they wanted to do. Weinstein's older brother Leslie was a good guitari ..read more

  JERRY LEE LEWIS The Casuals, Bobby One, Alan Marlo State Theatre Niagra Falls, NY   HOWLIN WOLF & HIS ORCHESTRA Rosewood Club Memphis, TN   BROOK BENTON Ruth Brown, The Falcons, The Pips, The Delloes James Moody & His Orchestra with Eddie Jefferson (vocalist) Memorial Auditorium Chattanooga, TN   BOBBY DARIN Community Hall North End, IN   CLYDE MCPHATTER BO DIDDLEY The Crests, Chubby Checker Paul Williams & His Orchestra Memorial Auditorium Chattanooga, TN   COUNT BASIE & HIS ORCHESTRA Featuring JOE WILLIAMS Blue Note Club Wichita, KA   ..read more

    "A Pop person is like a vacuum that eats up everything, he's made up from what he's seen.  And that's why people are really becoming plastic; they are just fed things and are formed and the people who can give things back are considered very talented." - Andy Warhol Our Story Begins Here.... "During 1965, Andy Warhol accelerated and amplified his scope to match the culture's momentum. In October, he announced that he was leaving art and staged a happening: a 40-foot long silver balloon was launched into space from the Factory roof. Filled with helium, it was a forerun ..read more

It's Time For Some ROCK & ROLL NEWS  From The World Wide Web! The Quirks of “A Hard Day’s Night” Joe Jackson Revives Genius Of Lost Artist Max Champion Joni Mitchell’s “Ladies of the Canyon” At 50: A Different Voice Listening To Paul Williams Johnny Thunders: The Raven Boy     Keith Richards: A Life in Clothes Hollow Hand: If You Love Late-60s-Era Kinks David Bowie: ‘In the ’70s, I Never Felt Like a Rock Star’ How Leonard Cohen & David Bowie Stared Down Their Mortality The Hidden Cost Of Streaming Music     Rolling Stone Magazine @ 50: A Bittersweet Legac ..read more

REMEMBERING BILL HALEY & THE COMETS Bill Haley was a country singer who loved to play Western Swing music. Bill Haley and his Comets had existed in an earlier, more country-flavored form as The Saddlemen but by the time they were ready to rock, they changed their name as Bill Haley & The Comets in 1952. Their frontman (Bill Haley) was already a veteran of many years of showbiz striving, paying the bills any and every way, including as a western swing showman. As time went on, Haley and The Comets suddenly had an unlikely phenomenon in the delivery room of rock’n’roll. In terms of the ..read more