HEELING HAND: SORUM STEERS STILETTOS TO STARDOM!

7/17/09 Former Guns N' Roses, The Cult, and now current Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum has well, dug his heels into a new rock and roll side project dubbed the Darling Stilettos, a four member group of gorgeous girls who sing, dance, shimmy, and shake their way through a series of classic rock covers. The group performed last night at Cinespace in Hollywood, on Hollywood Blvd, in front of what could be described as a stack of women jealous of these girls' voices, bodies, and moves, and a pack of men jealous of Sorum for being such a lucky bastard! All in all, the entire crowd enjoyed what they heard, saw, and experienced. Here's my review:

HEELING HAND: SORUM STEERS STILETTOS TO STARDOM!
Studly Matt Sorum, former Guns N' Roses and The Cult drummer, and current stickman for Velvet Revolver, obviously knows a thing or two – or a thousand – about women and rock and roll. He's combined those two passions in his latest side project, the Darling Stilettos, a four female act that combines rock, raunch, dance and danger, much to the delight of men and woman alike. With Sorum on drums, Ace, Gina, Lindsey, and Allie strutted their stuff last night at Cinespace on Hollywood Blvd, wearing skin-tight black leather pants and barely there tops, and, as to be expected, stilettos, while singing classic rock anthems made so by bands such as Queen, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, T. Rex, David Bowie, The Clash, and the Sex Pistols, just to name a few. Historically, male rockers are said to have swagger; these sexy and sassy singers have an abundance of swagger with the added well, attraction of being able to shimmy and shake while belting a tune. As Sorum himself put it, while walking down the red carpet prior to the show, "This is Rock and Roll A-Go-Go." If you're into sex, pumps and rock and roll, the Darling Stilettos are a perfect fit!

VIDEO INTERVIEWS: Video 1 - Video 2 - Video 3

(AT THE KEY CLUB '08)

MICHAEL FRANTI & SPEARHEAD

7/15/09 If you've yet to experience the spiritual, tribal, communal feeling of seeing Michael Franti & Spearhead live in concert, do yourself a favor and catch him this Tuesday, July 21, at the equally spiritual, tribal, communal – and beautiful – Greek Theatre in the hills overlooking Los Angeles. Michael will be opening for the Counting Crows, so you'll get two incredible bands for the price of one. In fact, Augustana is also on the bill, so make it three! Only at the Greek!! Click here to hear a great conversation I had with Michael Franti earlier this year. And finally, pick up Michael Franti & Spearhead's current All Rebel Rockers album. If "Say Hey (I Love You)" doesn't immediately get you up and dancing, you need to check your pulse! See you at the Greek this Tuesday!!

KEATON SIMONS AT THE OPIUM LOUNGE

6/29/09 Singer-songwriter Keaton Simons tonight played a brief acoustic set at the Opium Lounge in Crustacean Restaurant in Beverly Hills. I'd never been to this venue before, and based on conversations I had with a few folks in attendance, it seemed like this may have been the first night ever music had been performed there. The setup in the room was a bit strange, with a mix of folks there for dinner, waiting for their tables, and those of us there strictly for the performance. Despite the unique surroundings, Keaton soldiered on, and delivered heartfelt performances of several songs found on his current Can You Hear Me (an appropriate title for tonight's performance, for sure) album. Standout songs from the CD, and tonight's performance, include "Without Your Skin," "Good Things Get Better," "Misfits," and the title track. Catch Keaton's cuts at www.keatonsimons.com. Thanks to my friend, April, for joining me tonight, and a special hello to my new friend, Lisa Hughes, whom I met this evening. It was a pleasure.

WARPED TOUR '09

6/28/09 Man, did Aly and I catch a break on the weather today at the Warped Tour stop in Ventura. This is the 3^rd or 4^th year Aly and I have covered and enjoyed the Ventura show, and each year it's been HOT!! VERY HOT!! Today, the ocean breeze was keeping the temperature down considerably. My thanks to Aly for videotaping my backstage interviews with Saosin, TV/TV, and Alexisonfire. I'm hoping I'll be able to share some of the footage here soon. Or I'll put it up on my website, www.currentclassics.com. All of these guys were very cool, and I enjoyed each of my brief conversations with them. For me, easily, the standout performance of the day was TV/TV. They have an excellent pop rock sensibility, and therefore are obviously much more melodic than most bands on the Warped Tour. And because this year's lineup didn't really include a real big name Aly and I wanted to see as a headliner, we left early, got lunch in downtown Ventura, and headed home. People, I was in bed by 10!!!!!! Next up: Keaton Simons tomorrow night.

ANGIE TURNS 25! and DRAMARAMA

6/27/09
HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY to my beautiful daughter, Angie!!! Last night a group of family members gathered at the Hard Rock Café at the Universal Studios City Walk for dinner and drinks. Today, Angie drove down to San Diego to continue her birthday celebration with friends.

And tonight, I went to the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip to see Dramarama, and hang out with my good friends John Easdale (singer, songwriter) and Mike Davis (bass). I brought along my sister Connie, my friend Erica Forster and her boyfriend. It's always fun to see Dramarama live because John is one of my favorite songwriters, and Mike works real hard onstage, while having a great time! Of course everyone knows Dramarama's biggest hit, "Anything, Anything," but I guarantee if you see them in concert, you will be blown away by what a powerful live band they are, and by the array of excellently crafted songs John's penned.



No rest for the wicked: tomorrow morning I'm off to the Warped Tour stop in Ventura, north of L.A. for some quality time with Aly, and some face-to-face time with a handful of bands. Yes, folks, the music never ends!!

6/26/09 I picked up a one-day job today, thanks to my beautiful friend, Tanya Hart from the American Urban Radio Network, to run sound for an all-day video shoot. The AURN partnered with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to shoot a series of public service announcements (PSA's) featuring a host of celebrities, encouraging the African-American community to get tested for HIV/AIDS. I was honored to be asked to help on such an important cause, and grateful for the opportunity to help. Some of the celebrities who stopped by to lend their voices – and in certain cases, considerably gorgeous face – included Angela Bassett, Iona Morris, Mateo, Laila Ali, Tamera Mowry, Jody Watley, Kevin Phillips, Fonzworth Bentley, Danny Granger, and the extremely beautiful Beverly Johnson. And they call this "work?" J Thank YOU, Tanya!

OUR LADY PEACE - RAINE MAIDA

6/25/09 As many of you know, I was fortunate enough during my days at Rockline to help kick start the careers of some of today's biggest bands. Collective Soul and Matchbox Twenty are just two examples. Our Lady Peace is a group who has achieved superstardom in their native Canada, but has yet to break it really big in America. Don't get me wrong, they've done OK, had a few songs on the charts, etc, but nothing to the degree of the two bands I noted above. Well hopefully that will all change with the July 21 release of Burn Burn, the band's 7^th studio album, and I believe one of their best. I'm predicting the album's first single, "All You Did Was Save My Life," will well, burn burn up the charts, and make these guys household names worldwide!! Lead singer Raine Maida is another one of a handful of musicians (rock stars) I'm blessed to say is a friend. He invited a tiny handful of people and me to his beautiful home studio here in L.A. tonight to hear songs from Burn Burn. Though we hadn't seen each other for years, it was as if we'd seen each other the night before. Raine is a very soft-spoken guy off stage – and in this case, at home – but he's anything but onstage! And I can't wait to see him and the band July 28 onstage at the Troubadour here in L.A. Again, Burn Burn arrives July 21: trust me, I'm sure you'll love what you hear in your own home just as much as what I heard tonight in Raine's home. Thanks again, my friend. It was great to see you again.

FATHER'S DAY, BBQ, and WILCO!

6/23/09 Following an uncharacteristically quiet week, capped by a beautiful Father's Day spent BBQing in the company of my two daughters at my sister Patty's house, last night Mark and I caught Wilco at the Wiltern (try saying that 10 times fast) Theatre. Both Mark and I are fans, but I'd never seen them in concert. Man, what a great, great show. The band was much louder than I'd expected, often playing big, brash tunes cranked up to 11, featuring a triple electric guitar attack I was not expecting. When I think of Wilco, I think more acoustic, more AAA, earthier, more twang. There was all of that as well, but the band flexed its muscle just as often as it turned down its amps. I'll say this: I'm a much bigger Wilco fan after last night's show.

UNRIVALED: RIVAL SONS BRINGS BACK BLUES-BASED ROCK!

6/13/09 What a day of diverse music I experienced yesterday. It began with my friend Todd Brodginski and I taking a quick road trip to Ventura, about 90 minutes north of L.A., to see perform and hang out with Brokedown Cadillac, a band I've written about in the past. These guys – and gal, lead singer Corri English – are as talented as they are cool. You can't beat a beautiful California day near the beach listening to great music and hanging out with great friends, old and new. My thanks again to Todd for inviting me to come along, and to Corri, Randy, Jeff, Don and Danny for the wonderful music and great conversation.

After the Brokedown Cadillac show, I hopped back into Todd's meticulously mechanically maintained BMW for the drive back to Hollywood for the Rival Sons show at The Roxy. WOW!!! I went in to the show with high expectations after hearing this young four-piece band's upcoming debut album, Before the Fire, and man, my expectations were met…and then some!! As Todd and my daughter Angie's boss, Mitch Schneider, the MS of MSO, the Mitch Schneider Organization, said several times during the set, these guys were almost too good to be true. If you miss hearing fresh classic rock (NOT an oxymoron with these guys) that takes you back to the early days of Led Zeppelin, Free, Cream and The Who, to name a few, then Rival Sons is the band for you. I can't wait to sit down and talk to these guys about their sound, their songs, and about what they have in their respective record collections!! In the meantime, here's my review of their show…"been a long time since I rock and rolled," indeed!

Profile Playlist by THE RIVAL SONS

UNRIVALED: RIVAL SONS BRINGS BACK BLUES-BASED ROCK! One of Led Zeppelin's greatest songs is "Thank You." Thank you is what Zeppelin fans, and classic rock fans of all ages will be saying to Rival Sons, a Los Angeles-based classic four-piece rock band that puts the "current" in "classic" with a sound and swagger so familiar, yet so fresh. If last night you'd walked into the world famous Roxy on the Sunset Strip and seen the size of the crowd on hand, you would have thought a veteran band with hordes of gold records on their walls and scores of sold-out stadiums under their belts would be headlining. If you'd walked in with your eyes closed and just heard the music coming off the stage, you still would have thought a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was playing a rare club gig. Rival Sons, a rock and roll recipe of Led Zeppelin, Free, Bad Company, and The Who, topped off with a little Cream, boogied through a bounty of blues-based gems off their forthcoming debut, Before the Fire, including the muscular-meets-psychedelic "Lucky Girl," the swampy "Memphis Sun," with singer Jay Buchanan channeling Paul Rodgers, "On My Way," a bluesy-Gospel concoction worthy of juke joint jukebox status, and "I Want More," an early Who influenced up-tempo rocker with more starts and stops than an L.A. freeway holiday weekend getaway, fueled by frenetic riff-filled Pete Townshend-like guitar, courtesy of Scott Holiday. Rounded out by a robust rhythm section consisting of Michael Miley on drums and Robin Everhart on bass, Rival Sons has no contemporary rivals to speak of, but easily rivals some of its rock and roll forefathers with its power, passion and panache. I want more, indeed!

BUTTERFLY BOUCHER

6/11/09 I had a doubly excellent night last night. I was blessed to reconnect with another one of my long lost dear friends, Kelly Winn, with whom I shared so many wonderfully wacky and fantastically fun nights during my days producing Rockline. Kelly worked with me there and she was always so much fun to hang out with. We'd lost touch for years and years, but through our mutual friend, April Gowdy, we got back in touch and I'm so happy we did. So Kelly went with me last night to see this wonderful artist, Butterfly Boucher, at my favorite L.A. Venue, the Hotel Café. But before I hooked up with Kelly for the show, I had a wonderful conversation with Butterfly, where we spoke in depth about her just released album, Scary Fragile. Her music is so hard to describe – and in this case, that's a VERY good thing – and yet so well, scarily familiar. Case in point: the very first line you hear on "I Found Out," the first song on the album, is: "I found out I can only be who I am." Sound familiar? I thought so. As engaging and fun as she was during our conversation, Butterfly was twice that later on stage. As I told her, the album's first single, "Gun For a Tongue," is as funky as it is spunky, and that just about sums up Butterfly Boucher herself. By the way, if you're a fan of Grey's Anatomy," you've probably already heard Butterfly. Some of her songs, including "A Bitter Song," have been played on the show, and she plays drums on Mat Kerney's "Breathe In, Breathe Out." Here's my review of last night's show:

SCARY GOOD: BUTTERFLY BOUCHER HAUNTS HOTEL CAFE!

Australian-born and now Nashville-based Butterfly Boucher last night played the second of her three-night residency at the Hotel Café in Hollywood, performing songs from her recently released second CD, Scary Fragile as well as her - as she called it – "old album," Flutterby. Highlights included "I Found Out," which features the profoundly personal yet unmistakably universal opening line, "I found out I can only be who I am," the album's first single, "Gun For a Tongue," which is as musically funky as it is lyrically spunky, "A Bitter Song" (featured on the ABC TV hit Grey's Anatomy), and the title track to Scary Fragile, which was produced by David Kahne (Paul McCartney, Kelly Clarkson, The Strokes). Performing solo, using occasional backing tracks triggered by a foot pedal (no easy well, feat) Boucher commanded the stage and captivated the audience as if she were performing for 20,000 in an arena, something she already has experience at, having opened for Sarah McLachlan on her 2004 Afterglow tour. In a conversation before her set, Boucher, one of seven sisters, confessed she'd dreamed early in her life she would be performing in front of a lot of people some day. I pointed out that having been raised in a family of seven kids, anything she ever did she did in front of a lot of people! Whether she's in front of a house full of siblings, a club full of converts or an arena full of future fans, Boucher holds people's attention with her passionate songs and engaging personality. Last night was no exception…or so I found out. For more on Butterfly Boucher, visit www.myspace.com/butterflyboucher.