Sadly I've jacked my hand up again. This makes typing rather on the difficult side, so I'm having to take a week off the regular write ups. As a consolation prize, I'll let Whiskeytown play a song for you.

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Today's Alternative Wednesday is going to be a little different. Then again, aren't they all? Rather than focusing on an artist, I'd like to focus on a decade or at least the popular opinion of the music of one.

One of the more common beliefs is that the 1970s were a musical wasteland. You had arena rock, disco, and nothing else. At least ( Read more... )

In 1993, I was a regular at Heroes for Hire. It's gone now, a victim of the 90's comic book boom and bust, but during it's time it was my second home. We were a blue collar bunch except for one guy. Never before have I ever met someone more obsessed with himself and the toys that daddy's money could buy; leather jackets, convertibles, and bag ( Read more... )

At first I wasn't going to talk about them. Everyone else has, so I felt like I didn't have anything new to add to the discussion. Then I realized that Alternative Wednesday isn't only about exposing people to new bands, it's about MY experiences with these bands, MY moment of discovery and falling in love with some element of some song or band ( Read more... )

One of the things that makes alt rock so enjoyable to me is that unlike many other genres, it just doesn't feel mined out. Growing up surrounded by classic rock, much of that genre feels more like sonic wallpaper than music I can actually enjoy and actively listen to. With 90's alternative rock though, I'm constantly finding new artists, new ( Read more... )

There's a part of me that will always feel sympathy for my father. Not having a lot of people to talk music with, he got stuck with hearing each new discovery of mine and trying his utmost not to be negative. Not only did he suffer through the intro to Nirvana's Territorial Pissings, but he was made to suffer the techno introduction to the ( Read more... )

Running a little late due to spending some time with a very lovely lady and a certain television program, but enough of that! It's time again for Alternative Wednesday! After the rather serious bent that Alternative Wednesday has taken over the last few weeks, I thought we'd pay a visit to a group that, if not more light hearted, certainly SOUND ( Read more... )

I've mentioned it before, far too many times to count in fact, that one of the ways I was introduced to new bands was via the mix disc. Prior to the advent of easy digital downloads, a mix disc was a way to hear bands that might not get national exposure via the radio or MTV and if you didn't have an older sibling, vibrant music scene, gutsy ( Read more... )

Everyone loves a female vocalist. Okay *guys* all love a female vocalist. It's not due to the performer's appearance (at least to me it isn't), but rather to the delivery and that, in our heads at least, the song is being sung directly to us. It's one thing, as an example, for Robert Smith to sing a Love Song to me and quite another for Tori ( Read more... )

There are some artists who despite their level of commercial success make such an immense artistic impact that their influence is obvious, enduring, and immediate. The Smiths and the Sex Pistols are bands that had that sort of impact as did the Jesus and Mary Chain. The Pistols, with stadium rock at it's mightiest, proved that non rock ( Read more... )