Review: 'The Yardbirds'

Despite never making a widely revered LP and hammering out only a handful of truly enduring 45s, The Yardbirds will always be remembered as one of the key British bands because they were the petri dish from which the country's three top blues guitarists—Clapton, Beck, and Page—sprouted. Of course, for those who care to really listen to what the group left behind, The Yardbirds are more than the sum of two truly innovative and electrifying musicians and one would-be B.B. King clone so overrated that acolytes proclaimed him "God" in graffiti all over London. And really, the majority of the Page-led era is pretty execrable. But the Beck-era Yardbirds were indeed one of the best rock bands of mid-sixties Britain, as a listen to "Heart Full of Soul","The Train Kept A-Rollin'", "Over Under Sideways Down", or "Roger the Engineer" will settle. For the quality of such records alone, The Yardbirds would be deserving of a biography of their very own.

Review: 'Star Wars: Complete Locations'

Perhaps more so than any other world-building enterprise, the never-ending Star Wars saga is largely dependent on its worlds, some of which aren't even deserts. Sure, you're likely to spend most of your time getting sand in your boots on Tattooine or Jakku or Jedha (that sand gets everywhere!), but you can also freeze your Tauntaun-straddling butt off on Hoth. You can slop around in the mud of Dagobah. You can even get all metropolitan on Cloud City or Coruscant. And if there's a location to be located in the Star Wars universe, it can likely be located in Star Wars: Complete Locations. 

Review: 'John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs'

Ian Leslie is not a rock writer. His first three books are all psychology texts apparently (I haven't read any of them). So his decision to tell The Beatles' story for his fourth will likely arch a few eyebrows. Why does this story need to be told again? Why is a guy with Leslie's particular credentials the one to tell it?

Leslie's format, in which he uses particular songs as entry points to discuss particular points along the Beatles timeline and beyond it, is not original. Neither is his focus on the relationship between John and Paul. Oddly, it's his background in psychology that makes John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs a compelling new entry in the massive Beatles library. The author didn't perform any new interviews for his book. He did all his research in the pages of other authors' works. But unlike most of those writers, Leslie really manages to make us feel the intimacy of Lennon and McCartney's relationship. 

Review: 'Queen: As It Began (Revised Edition)'

Queen became megastars by making bombastic, genuinely funny rock and roll that was full of personality. Behind the fist pumping, satin, and unitards, Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon, and Freddie Mercury were three science nerds and a shy guy, respectively. They apparently didn't indulge much in noxious chemicals and valued their privacy. 

Review: Vinyl Reissue of The Temptations' 'Psychedelic Shack'

When conservative Motown decided to dip its toes into the spiked waters of psychedelia, its LPs rarely committed fully to the genre's artiness and spaciness. For every "Reflections" there was a cornball cover of something like "Up, Up and Away". So it isn't surprising that Berry Gordy had some trouble wrapping his head around the more committedly conceptual works that artists like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder served up in the seventies. 

Reviews: 'My First Holly Golightly Album' Vinyl debut

Emerging at the peak of the brit-pop boom, Holly Golightly was a bit of an odd duck. Like Damon Albarn, she did nothing to scrub the big black smoke from her vocal cords. Unlike Blur, Oasis, Charlatans, and the rest, she otherwise sidestepped the most Union Jacky, tea-sipping mid-sixties references to dredge up the swampy blues of the early Stones and Animals. Hard riffs, harder backbeats, and 1-4-5 progressions were her stock-in-trade, and she began to prolifically grind out raw records beginning with 1995's The Good Things. 

Review: 'Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival'

Lollapalooza didn't begin as the only annual rock festival that mattered. It was to be nothing more than Jane's Addiction's farewell tour, with, at Perry Farrell's behest, the added novelty of several genre-spanning guests, booths with political activists of all stripes, and burritos. It was only after that first tour bucked all logic to become an actual financial success that Lollapalooza became a brand. In came Pearl Jam,  the freak shows, The Smashing Pumpkins, Courtney Love,  a highly unpopular Ferris Wheel, Sonic Youth, and eventually, people like Metallica and Korn.

Review: 'Eternal Flame: The Authorized Biography of The Bangles'

The Bangles phenomenon was the perfect storm for getting under the skin of serious musicians. The serious musicians in question were sisters Vicki and Debbi Peterson, who started jamming and writing songs out of a serious love for UK and LA rock of the sixties. Enter Susanna Hoffs, who shared the Peterson's adoration of sixties rock and musical talents but radiated star-power a little more radiantly and was more malleable in her definition of artistic integrity. 

Review: 'God Only Knows: The Story of Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys, and the California Myth' (Remastered edition)

In 1977, The Beach Boys were still a going concern, but one that had recently released fluff like 15 Big Ones while playing the oldies festival circuit. The group's reputation was not strong. Mike Love was flapping his chicken wings and croaking "Fun, Fun, Fun" for the billionth time. Brian Wilson was shattered. His history of making progressive, futuristic music was not what the average person thought of when confronted with the name "Beach Boys."

Review: 'Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning' (revised edition)

Tod Browning is not usually considered among the great directors. Although he made over sixty films, only a half dozen or so are regarded by film historians, and the public at large are mostly familiar with two. But they're both doozies. However, although Dracula is among the most iconic films ever made, it's also often dismissed as lazily directed. The other big Browning film, Freaks, is widely considered potent, but it's use of actual circus performers, many of whom are differently abled (a term that really applies here... anyone who'd call Prince Radian disabled couldn't have been paying attention to the film), has been attracting controversy for over ninety years.