Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

This post is being written two days after the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13th, 2015. As of this writing, the official death toll is 129. Of those, at least 89 were reportedly killed inside the Bataclan concert hall, during a concert by the American rock band Eagles Of Death Metal. The band members escaped unhurt, but their merchandise manager Nick Alexander was among the fatalities. Eagles Of Death Metal is a California band co-founded by Josh Homme, who is also a member of Queens Of The Stone Age, although Homme was not with the band on tour when these attacks occurred. In addition to  the usual irony of a non-death-metal band bearing such a name -- Eagles Of Death Metal are better described as an alternative blues rock band -- it is certainly a gruesome coincidence that a band with the word "death" in their name became a part of such a tragic event. An MSN article about the attack at the Bataclan concert is linked below. (Warning: The article an...

The late Keith Relf – who died in 1976 from electrocution while using an improperly grounded electric guitar – was best known as the lead singer of the Yardbirds. Of course, that band is better remembered for launching the careers of guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. The last band that Relf played in before his tragic death was called Armageddon, and that band’s chief asset was also its guitarist. Unlike the future superstar guitarists who graced the Yardbirds, Armageddon guitarist Martin Pugh all but disappeared from the music business after that band's 1976 demise. Their sole album, 1975's self-titled Armageddon , is currently out of print in the U.S. It is, however, available as an import from the U.K. Esoteric label. After the breakup of the Yardbirds, Keith Relf moved away from that band's blues rock and embraced the progressive rock genre. Relf and his fellow ex-Yardbird Jim McCarty were the original founders of Renaissance, but both of them...

The 25th set of exclusive vinyl items offered to platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in late September of 2015. 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 as well. The Vault service promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (one full-length album and one 7” single) to its platinum members every three months. The twenty-fifth Vault package focused on the Dead Weather’s 2015 album Dodge And Burn , which was properly released on September 25th of that year. The package contained a limited edition vinyl version of the album, and a 7-inch single which served as the only physical version of the album’s first single, “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)”. There is no rare music in this package, only rare vinyl. The single is pressed in “inclement weather” colored vinyl, which is opaque yellow with bl...

The Colorado band Zephyr, founded by the wife-and-husband team of Candy Givens (vocals, harmonica) and David Givens (bass, guitar, synthesizer), are best remembered as the band that launched the career of the late Tommy Bolin , the highly regarded guitarist who later became a member of the James Gang, Deep Purple, and a solo artist before his death in 1976. Zephyr's self-titled debut album from 1969 mixed hard rock and blues in ways similar to the first Led Zeppelin album (released that same year). It's a fine album, to be sure, although Bolin's guitar work made a better initial impression than the contributions of frontwoman Givens, whose Janis Joplin-like wailing and blaring blues harmonica often sounded shrill on this album. The second album, Going Back To Colorado (1971), found the band moving toward less powerful hippie-era folk-rock, diminishing Bolin's guitar presence and putting more emphasis on Givens' vocals, which were considerably scaled down to better ...

The 24th set of exclusive vinyl items offered to platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in June and July of 2015. 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 as well. The Vault service promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (one full-length album and one 7” single) to its platinum members every three months. The twenty-fourth Vault package mainly focused on Loretta Lynn’s 2004 album Van Lear Rose , which was produced by Jack White. The package contained a new vinyl edition of the album, and a related DVD. The 7-inch single included two previously unreleased White Stripes covers of Lynn’s songs. Van Lear Rose is the highly respected 2004 album by the seasoned country legend. It earned wide critical acclaim, crossover success, and two Grammy awards (including Lynn’s first ever in the category ...

On Record Store Day 2015, the Cold War Kids issued a 10-inch EP titled Five Quick Cuts , which contained five previously unreleased tracks. The vinyl-only EP was limited to 10,000 copies. True to its title, the short-and-satisfying EP barely takes fifteen minutes to breeze through its five tracks, which were recorded in March and April of 2014. As was the case on the California alt-rock quintet’s two most recent albums, current guitarist Dann Gallucci co-produced the tracks with Lars Stalfors; it is therefore not surprising that the first two tracks sound like they were made by a more disciplined variation of Gallucci's former band Modest Mouse. Those two tracks also take something of a retro-‘80’s approach: “Stop/Rewind” has a synth-rocking sound that recalls that decade, while “Amazing” is reminiscent of that era’s cleanly produced blue-eyed soul. On the EP’s second side, the Kids sound quite similar to the Killers, with lead singer Nathan Willett coming on very much like Brand...

Ah, the 1980's. You know what they say: it wasn't rock and roll's best decade. But that was the decade that I grew up in. People who grew up in the '60's had the Beatles, people who grew up in the '70's had Springsteen, and people who grew up in the '80's had...Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince...I don't even want to keep going down that list! Those were the artists that my friends were listening to while we were coming of age in that era, but I was (and still am) a stubborn lover of rock and roll -- even when it is out of fashion, and even when it is going through a period of qualitative weakness. So, while my friends were listening to that era's dance pop, my FM radio dial immovably stayed tuned in to my local rock and roll stations during the '80's. There was good music that came out of the '80's, but much of it has not aged well. Still, many modern alternative bands show a clear '80's influence, so that decade...

It's sixteen, it's beautiful, and it's mine! That's how I feel today about my website, Rarebird's Rock and Roll Rarity Reviews . It was 16 years ago today when I first published my website about out-of-print rock albums on May 31,1999. On that day, the site consisted of four pages and six album reviews. I knew the site would grow bigger, but I had no idea that I would wind up creating over 35 artist pages. At the beginning of 2003, I began to create simpler "Spotlight Review" pages focusing on one album apiece, instead of on numerous albums from one artist. Even that part of the site has grown larger in size than I originally thought it would. So, at the end of 2004 (over a decade ago already!) I began to publish this blog as a forum for reviewing out-of-print albums that I've eagerly continued to discover. And, for as long as I continue to enjoy discovering rock and roll's recorded rarities, I will continue to use this blog as a means to publish ...