Metal Monday: Ozzy Osbourne’s Live at Budokan

Cover of "Live At Budokan"

Whether Ozzy will ever be able to top Tribute as his best live album is questionable, but Live at Budokan is a solid entry in the history of Oz.

Unlike some “live” albums of recent memory, this is no mishmash of past performances strung together (Note: by this I meant Mötley Crüe’s disappointing and only technically accurate Live. — DJF), but numbers from one concert, which gives the album a much more organic feel. The Japanese fans sing along on classics like “I Don’t Know” with gusto.

Metal Monday: Ozzy Osbourne’s Down to Earth

Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album)

Again, Ozzy demonstrates why he has outlasted most of his ’80s-era metal peers, as well as more recent initiates of the heavy rock genre.

Teaming up with guitarist Zakk Wylde, who first added his pyrotechnics to Ozzy’s on 1988’s No Rest For the Wicked, the collaboration proves as fertile as ever on Down to Earth.

Werewolf Wednesday: Tunes to wolf out to

As I work on my own interminable werewolf work-in-progress, I think often of what would be on its official soundtrack. This is one of those tricks authors use to avoid writing. We call it brainstorming, or world-building, or visualizing. But it’s not.

Duff knows his stuff

Duff McKagan’s Loaded / The Taking (Armoury/Eagle Rock)

It’s not easy to live down multi-platinum success, but every former member of Guns N’ Roses has to do it.

Seattle native and founding GNR bassist Duff McKagan has given it his best shot over the years, forming Loaded in 1999 and joining fellow ex-Gunners Matt Sorum and Slash in Velvet Revolver in 2004. Fans that have followed him from project to project will be pleased to know The Taking is actually good.