Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

A shocking death occurred in the rock world earlier this month. Gord Lewis, the guitarist for the Canadian band Teenage Head, was found dead in his Hamilton, Ontario apartment on August 7th, at the age of 65. Authorities said that Lewis was a victim of homicide, and his 41-year-old son has been charged with second-degree murder. Teenage Head began as a punk rock band. Their self-titled 1979 album had a sound that resembled those of the Ramones and the Stooges, and the band gained notoriety in 1980 when a riot broke out at a concert in Toronto. However, their music did not possess the usual rage of punk rock. Instead, they played fun, lighthearted songs about cars, girls, and parties. The five albums the band recorded in the '80's generally had more polished sounds than their debut, and the band became prominent in Canada. Much like the Flamin' Groovies, from whose 1971 album they took their name, Teenage Head covered numerous rockabilly songs from the '50's and ...

The 52nd set of exclusive vinyl items offered to Platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in July of 2022. For those who are unaware, Third Man Records is the label owned by Jack White, who is the leader of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather, and is now a solo artist. The  Vault service  promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (usually one full-length album and one 7” single) to its Platinum members every three months. The 52nd Vault package contained a quadruple-LP version of a studio album from the stoner-metal band Sleep, titled Dopesmoker , also consisting of a 7-inch single containing edited versions of two of the album’s parts. The LP’s in this set were pressed in “green kush” colored vinyl, in keeping with the band’s stoner motif. Sleep are a California trio who recorded three albums in the 1990’s. The trio’s latest studio album  The Sciences , their first full-length in 15 years, was released by Third...

You have probably heard the sad news that Olivia Newton-John, the British-born, Australian-raised singer and actress, has died at age 73 after a decades-long battle with breast cancer. Ms. Newton-John famously evolved from a wholesome country music star of the mid-‘70’s into a sexier post-disco pop star of the early-’80’s. Somewhere around the midpoint of that transformation, she co-starred in the forever-popular 1978 movie musical Grease , and she sang vocals on five of the tracks on that movie’s mega-selling soundtrack album. But the singer’s career actually stretches back further in time than most people realize. She recorded her very first single way back in 1966, five years before the release of her 1971 debut album If Not For You . That debut single was released on Decca Records in the U.K. in 1966, and was recorded during a trip to Great Britain which she had won as a prize in a talent competition on the Australian TV show Sing, Sing, Sing . The single’s A-side was a cover o...