BY MIKE METTLER — MAY 19, 2016
Rock is rock, no matter where it comes from and who’s playing it. Sure, certain sounds and styles will always get some kind of genre label attached to them, but it all really boils down to one thing: Does the music move you? “Obviously, we’re from the South […]
BY MIKE METTLER — MAY 4, 2016
Any band can sound good in the studio, but it’s the live stage where artists really have to prove their mettle night in and night out, especially if they’re interested in a little ol’ thing called longevity. One group that owned the planks from the minute it first stepped […]
BY MIKE METTLER — AUGUST 26, 2015
It’s hard to believe, but the eternally youthful blues maestro Robert Cray is celebrating five decades of plying his craft with the imminent release of 4 Nights of 40 Years Live (Provogue) in various formats, including Blu-ray + 2 CDs, DVD + 2 CDs, and LP + digital […]
BY MIKE METTLER — JULY 15, 2015
Leave it to Dave Edmunds to always want to take things a little bit left of center. “I’ve never liked listening to albums, and I’ve never liked making them,” admits the Welsh-born guitarist and producer known for his modern rockabilly sensibilities (see Rockpile’s Seconds of Pleasure and solo hits like […]
BY MIKE METTLER — DECEMBER 31, 2014
Whether you choose to digest your music via 180-gram wax, high-resolution downloads, and/or full 5.1 surround sound, this past year delivered a spate of full-length aural goodness. In reverse order, here are The SoundBard’s Top 31 long-players of 2014.
31. The Dollyrots: Barefoot + Pregnant. (Hunnypot) Coolest of the cool garage-sters […]
BY MIKE METTLER — JUNE 11, 2014
There are blues legends and there are blues masters, and then there’s John Mayall. Long acknowledged as the father of the British blues scene that emerged in the heyday of the ’60s and the man who helped school the guitarslinging likes of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Coco […]
BY MIKE METTLER — JUNE 6, 2014
Born of pain and longing, their song had the power to break the unhappiness of the world. —from The Story of Layla and Majnum, by Ganjavi Nizami
“Laaaaaaaaay-la!” That instantly identifiable, gut-wrenching battle cry has rallied the bruised and battleworn hearts of countless listeners over the past 44 years […]
BY MIKE METTLER
If knowledge is power, then Alan Paul is the chairman of The Allman Brothers board. His definitive inside history of The Allman Brothers Band, One Way Out (St. Martin’s Press), is one of the most thorough, in-depth, and best-researched rock biographies I’ve had the pleasure to read — and if you know […]
BY MIKE METTLER — APRIL 17, 2014
The bottom end has never been quite the same since Jack Bruce picked up his first bass over 6 decades ago. The vaunted Cream bassist wrote the book on the art of the low-end hook, as his syncopated approach to playing bass helped shift pop music’s bottom-end emphasis away from […]
BY MIKE METTLER
Damn the naysayers — I say the album format lives! With that vital declaration out of the way, it’s high time to cite the records that caught hold of my expert ear over the past 12 months — the full-length discs and/or LPs I consider most worthy of purchase, hi-res download, and/or […]
