Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, David Lindley – Carmelita
Oldies Songs The Worn-Out, World-Weary Romanticism of Desperation There are some songs that, upon the very first note, transport you not just to a memory, but to an entire psychic landscape. They…
Ted Nugent – Queen of the Forest
An Ode to Primal Power: The Enduring Rock Mythology of Nature’s Sovereign Spirit It was 1975, a year that marked a raw, unapologetic shift in the landscape of American hard…
Ted Nugent – Homebound
“Home Bound” is the unexpected, soulful instrumental journey on the wild ride of Cat Scratch Fever, representing a moment of poignant reflection amidst the usual hard rock frenzy. There are…
Slade – Miles Out to Sea
An emotional reflection on the wild, surreal distance fame can create. The year was 1974. For those of us who lived through the glorious, glitter-drenched, yet strangely grounding era of…
Jackson Browne – The Times You’ve Come
Finding Hope and Steadfast Love in the Face of Life’s Inevitable Tides The heart of Jackson Browne’s second album, 1973’s masterpiece For Everyman, beats with a profound weariness, a contemplative…
Steely Dan – My Rival
The Paranoia and Possessive Longing of a Man on the Edge, Driven to Madness by the Phantom of His Undoing There are some albums that arrive not as music, but…
Ted Nugent – A Thousand Knives
An Ominous Prelude to Rock ‘n’ Roll Mayhem The very mention of Ted Nugent’s 1977 masterpiece, Cat Scratch Fever, conjures up the raw, untamed spirit of hard rock, a time…
Walter Becker – Surf and / or Die
A Stream-of-Consciousness Requiem for the Unruly Spirit, Lost to the Lure of the Edge The year was 1994, and after a silence that had stretched for fourteen long years since…
Jackson Browne – Call It a Loan
A Ballad of Lingering Loss: When Giving More Than You Get Becomes a Heartbreaking Reckoning The year was 1980, an era when soft rock and heartfelt singer-songwriters reigned supreme, translating…
Slade – Love Is Like a Rock
An Unyielding Anthem of Endurance: The Enduring Power of Love as a Steadfast Force Ah, the 1980s. A decade of excess, neon, and, for bands who’d dominated the previous era,…