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!