Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

The Bubblemen were a pseudonymous side project for Love and Rockets, the alternative trio who scored an unlikely smash hit called “So Alive” in 1989. The band’s three members – David J, Daniel Ash, and Kevin Haskins – dressed up in bumblebee costumes for this endeavor. The same costumes were sometimes seen in Love and Rockets videos, during concerts, and in the between-videos segments of their 1991 VHS release The Haunted Fishtank . Under the Bubblemen name, the trio released one 12” single called “The Bubblemen Are Coming!” in 1988. For your viewing pleasure, I have embedded a creative YouTube video for the song below. Without the chuckle-inducing visuals, the recorded track is an enjoyably trippy five minutes of inside-joke silliness, with a slow-building whimsical intro that is omitted from the video edit. This novelty song portrays the title characters as friendly aliens from the planet Girl. The B-side track (alternately known as “Bees” and “B Side”) consists of over three minutes...

Although Def Leppard will always be remembered as the definitive pop-metal band of the 1980’s, they originally came from the late-‘70’s scene referred to as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which also gave rise to less melodic metal bands such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Def Leppard’s earliest work showed them in a somewhat different light than their classic mega-selling albums Pyromania (1983) and Hysteria (1987) did. Before they were produced by Mutt Lange, the band’s recordings had a slightly heavier and less polished sound. Joe Elliott’s vocals sounded quite different on these early recordings than they did years later. From the second Def Leppard album (1981’s High ‘n’ Dry ) onward, Elliott sounded like he was partially influenced by AC/DC’s Brian Johnson. But these late-‘70’s recordings predate AC/DC’s Back In Black , and if you contrast these early Def Leppard recordings with their later work, it provides telling evidence of that AC/DC album’s impact on heavy metal. ...

A long-in-the-works album by INXS is finally set for release on January 11th, 2011. The album titled Original Sin will feature remakes of songs which originally were recorded with their late original lead singer Michael Hutchence, recorded with various guest vocalists. Here is the USA Today story: http://usat.ly/aO1PyJ Here is a key paragraph: The resulting album, Original Sin , out Jan. 11, features such latter-day artists as Ben Harper (on the first single, Never Tear Us Apart), Rob Thomas, Nikka Costa, Tricky and Train's Pat Monahan providing vocals for songs made famous by original INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, who died in 1997. John Mayer also appears, playing guitar on one track; another features J.D. Fortune, who sang on 2005's Switch album after winning the CBS reality series Rock Star: INXS . You read that right. J.D. Fortune, who started a ridiculous feud with INXS early last year, has rejoined them. He has been performing live shows with the band, and they are ...

More great news for those lucky few of us who are fans of the Distractions, the unjustly overlooked Manchester band who released only one full-length album called Nobody’s Perfect in 1980. The U.K. music label Occultation, who recently brought us a three-song EP of previously unreleased Distractions recordings from a short-lived mid-‘90’s reunion , are now set to release an EP featuring three songs resulting from another Distractions reunion earlier this year. The official Occultation site has streaming audio of the three complete songs from the Come Home EP, which the label plans to release on 12” vinyl in early November: http://www.occultation.co.uk/Occultation_Space/Releases/YMIR7DA008/ymir7da008_previ.html The three songs on the Come Home EP were recorded in June of 2010, by a lineup consisting of original vocalist Mike Finney, original guitarist Steve Perrin, bass player Nick Garside (who was a part of the mid-‘90’s lineup), drummer Stuart Mann, and guitarist Nick Halliwell. T...