Category: Music
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Revising, like war, is hell. For those of you stuck in your own Work-In-Progress, or for anyone who wonders why it takes so long to write a novel, I offer up my own (unfinished) experience.
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Kiss / Sonic Boom (KISS Records/Universal) Ace Frehley / Anomaly (Bronx Man) OLD dogs may not learn new tricks, but they can master the ones they know. Take Kiss. After repackaging and recycling their prime 1970s material on gratuitous “best of” collections and multiple tours for the last 13 years, founding members Gene Simmons and…
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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…
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Sebastian Bach: Kicking and Screaming (Frontiers/EMI) After being the charismatic frontman for Skid Row in the later wave of hair metal circa 1989-91, Sebastian Bach has kept busy touring, but largely off the radar of current rock music. It’s a welcome surprise, then, that his latest solo effort has plenty of punch. The title track is…
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Ratt: Infestation (Roadrunner/Loud & Proud) Ratt has never been “cool,” but if you were in junior high in the mid-1980s, you can probably remember when they were “awesome.” After a couple of decades in the musical wilderness, the band — original members Stephen Pearcy, Warren DeMartini and Bobby Blotzer, at least — returns with a new…
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I read Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt about a year or two after it came out and it is a flat-out great read, even for someone who, like me, followed the shenanigans of Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars when they were high atop the metal heap in the 1980s. Back then I…