Posts by Leslie Michele Derrough

If getting older conjures up images of sitting on a porch swing and remembering what you used to be, then don’t tell the guys in the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Three/fourths of the band may be teetering on the half-century mark but are showing no signs of slowing down. Witness the last song of their […]

Actually, Duran Duran has always been a bit voyeuristic in their musical style. Rising to gigantic heights with 1982’s Rio, they were the musical equivalent of Miami Vice without the more cutting edge of Eurythmics. Young girls loved them. Young boys loved them. Rocker kids didn’t. But thirty years down the fashion runway of music, Duran Duran is still selling out major venues with most of their original line-up still intact.

The angelic voice that launched “Manic Monday” and “Eternal Flame” hasn’t faltered much in the years since the eye-popping heyday of The Bangles. The genuineness of Susanna Hoffs’ vocals on her latest album, Someday, is as sparkling as ever on such tunes as “Picture Me,” “Always Enough” and “Regret.”

Don Dokken is ready for some changes. With the release of his namesake’s latest, and possibly last, album under the Dokken monikor, he is contemplating some new and exciting pursuits; one being a project with guitar phenom Michael Schenker

For a while in the 1990’s, the Smashing Pumpkins had a whirlwind ride, spitting out singles such as “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” and “Zero” that enraptured listeners with a searing dose of alternative corrosiveness from the psyche of frontman Billy Corgan. It touched a nerve and brought the band to the height of fame. Now in 2012, Iha has put together a reflective solo album titled Look To The Sky and last month took a little time while home in New York to call in to talk about his “cool” youth and what inspired him to go back into the studio.

When Poison breaks into “Nothin’ But A Good Time” they could very well be singing the theme song for this summer traveling extravaganza with headliners Def Leppard and the back-in-black-leather Lita Ford. Dubbed the Rock Of Ages tour, these 80’s icons have been kicking up their heels and definitely having a good time rolling across America playing in the heat and humidity of the sheds. “It’s hot and sticky in here,” expressed Bret Michaels happily. “Just the way I like it.”

Rob Zombie is a no-bullshit visionary. While leading White Zombie on a gory-fun trail through the rock & roll hemisphere, he carved up electrifying stage productions and music videos filled with fluorescently vivid images of the macabre while playing grungily catchy tunes; something that he continues to do with his solo band.

Within the coziness of the 300-plus seat Manship Theatre, Lindsey Buckingham walked out with a seriousness that normally proceeds a symphony performance, picked up one of the dozen guitars he had lined up behind him, and took the audience on a carousel of notes with a staunch authoritativeness. If you were expecting a rock concert, you guessed wrong. Tonight Buckingham was in artiste mode, creating masterful chord changes with his bare fingers, forgoing a pick in favor of the intimacy a piece of flesh can convey.

After 15 years with Sevendust, guitar player John Connolly has finally stepped out of his comfort zone to take his vocal chords for a test drive on their own. Along with his longtime friends – bandmate Vince Hornsby, Alter Bridge/Creed drummer Scott Phillips and Creed touring guitarist/vocalist Eric “Erock” Friedman – Connolly took what was supposed to be something more solo yet found the energy and chemistry too strong to keep under wraps in his Florida recording studio.

It’s been a year since the release of George Thorogood’s last record, the highly acclaimed back-to-Chess-roots salute 2120 South Michigan Avenue, featuring snazzy rocking interpretations of songs by Sonny Boy Williamson, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, yet the guitar player remains on the road, playing songs that have been a part of his repertoire for many years. And this is the very reason that Thorogood has been able to lay these tracks down and do them justice. They are in his blood and a part of his inner chemical balance. His gravelly bad ass vocals with a 50’s kick come alive on such humdingers as “Help Me,” “Mama Talk To Your Daughter” and “Willie Dixon’s Gone.”

Suddenly there is the sound of a cracking whip guitar, slicing through the bright sunlight and out run a bunch of young bucks with flying hair and British accents. This is not KISS and this is not Motley Crue. This is The Treatment, a band causing humongous ripples everywhere they play opening THE TOUR.

Coming into Bush following the departure of founding member Nigel Pulsford during the Golden State tour in 2002, Chris Traynor stuck with Gavin Rossdale after Bush’s abrupt hiatus, playing with him in a project called Insight and then on Rossdale’s solo venture. But 2011 brought forth Rossdale and Traynor with drummer Robin Goodridge and bass player Corey Britz for the recording of The Sea Of Memories. And fans were just as happy to have them back as they were to see their fans, as the first single “The Sound Of Winter” scored at number one.

It is a well-known fact that Tyler Connolly was not a happy camper when he wrote the band’s latest record The Truth Is, but what happened in the process was that a popish, devil having fun, part rock/part rockabilly hornet’s nest of a symposium was created instead of something more sinister. And it worked. The singles have been hits, the shows have been sell-outs, and Connolly just may finally be a happy man once again.

If all you know about Don Felder is that he was the guitar player in the Eagles who came up with the music to “Hotel California”, then you’ve obviously been hiding under a 1970’s-era rock. Publishing his autobiography, Heaven & Hell: My Life In The Eagles, in 2008, it not only opened the doors into one of the most influential and timeless bands of the peaceful easy feeling era but showed his own personal highs and lows in brutal honesty. Since leaving the band in 2000, he has continually played sold out solo shows and shared his memories of growing up poor in the musically fertile Gainesville, Florida. He is a scrapper with an eloquent tongue.

The adventures Mark Evans shares in Dirty Deeds range from the funny (Angus and Malcolm playing in the snow) to the strange (encountering a ghost in an old hotel), from the dark (the creeping onset of depression) to the darkest (the death of his daughter). These are the early days of AC/DC and for Evans, he just wanted to share his stories.

She is not yet 30, but her skills on the guitar has already garnered her some impressive high fives from fret masters such as Carlos Santana and Steve Vai. Hailing from Australia, Orianthi knew early on that her future followed the yellow brick road not through academic poppy fields but along the gleaming stretched out strings of an electric guitar; it’s incredible hum and vivre capturing her soul in such a way that she dropped out of school early and ended up in the promised land of masqueraded broken dreams, where the young lady has actually beaten the jesters and is succeeding where many young musicians have cemented in dead-end non-musical gigs.

Having been an integral part of the Widespread Panic sound for the past six years, he has just popped out a new record, Subject To Change Without Notice, that captures a lot of different spirits: Jazz, blues, rock, mystical mind explorations and good-time hootenanny banjo picking fun. Although Herring takes a humble approach to his career, having played with everyone from the Allman Brothers to Bob Weir and Phil Lesh to Bruce Hampton, his guitar playing is bordering on being flawless. Just don’t try and call him a genius.

Bass player Matt DiRito is jumping on the couch like an over-excited ten year old boy. It’s an hour before showtime and Pop Evil is chilling out before taking the stage at the Hard Rock in Biloxi, Mississippi. Vocalist Leigh Kakaty is stretched out on the other couch, his black hair hidden underneath a hat as he talks in a soft voice about growing up in Michigan. The band, formed in the Wolverine state in 2001, has had a very hot hit single (“Monster You Made”) from their latest CD, War Of Angels, and another popular single and video featuring Motley Crue’s Mick Mars (“Boss’s Daughter”) that recently hit the airwaves.

few weeks after interviewing Ian Astbury, the cosmic soul of The Cult, GLIDE was able to talk with the band’s so called “nuts and bolts”: guitar player Billy Duffy. Possessing a fun sense of humor, Duffy was excited about the band’s new record Choice Of Weapon and the tour that was just getting underway when we spoke. But first on his agenda was soccer.

For Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, the time is ripe for them to move up another notch on the rock and blues hierarchy. With a superb, extra bluesy/captivatingly mystical new album called The Lion The Beast The Beat, the Vermont based band are storming across the country, opening for Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney, and taking a hooky day to sit in with the Flaming Lips as they broke the record for most concerts played in different cities within a 24-hour period. And it feels good. Just ask Potter, who has an infectiously natural joie de vivre about life at this moment in time