Posts by Zach Johnson

Rounding out our salute to Live Aid for today’s Weirdo Wednesday, we’re spotlighting the notoriously choppy Led Zeppelin “reunion,” which took place at JFK Stadium in Philly. Joined by Phil Collins (of all people) on drums, Plant would later describe this performance as “a fucking atrocity for us … It made us look like loonies.” […]

Continuing our spotlight on the epic worldwide concert event that was 1985’s Live Aid, for today’s Tuesday’s Gone, we’re showcasing this fantastic performance of “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits and Sting from London’s Wembley Stadium. Thanks in large part to the iconic video that was in heavy rotation on MTV at the time (which […]

Continuing our salute to the king of summer road-trip anthems, the late great Tom Petty, as mentioned on yesterday’s Manic Monday, the man had no shortage of classic hits throughout his illustrious career. In fact, by the time The Heartbreakers released what was perhaps their most excellent album in 1979’s Damn the Torpedoes, the band […]

With the Fourth of July holiday fast approaching here in the States, and with tons of folks hitting the highway for summer road-trips and the like, it seems like a good time to spotlight a true American legend who penned a plethora of road-trip anthems in his heyday: the late great Tom Petty. Indeed, there […]

Rounding out our salute to the Sun City Girls this week, as you’ve probably noticed from our Manic Monday and Tuesday’s Gone selections, the band were nothing if not weird. Indeed, practically everything about them was weird, from their improvisational performances, costumes, psychedelic jazz freakout sessions, you name it, the Sun City Girls will always […]

Continuing our spotlight on Phoenix’s very own Sun City Girls, as evidenced by yesterday’s Manic Monday selection, it’s probably fair to say the band wasn’t the most accessible group in the land during their heyday. But that, of course, was the inherent beauty of Sun City Girls, and what enabled them to create such wildly […]

With the passing of last week’s summer solstice, it seems like a fitting time to spotlight one of the most delightfully deranged sunbaked bands of all time: Sun City Girls.  For those not familiar with the band, they came up in Phoenix’s underground indie scene during the 80s, distinguishing themselves from their other more punky […]

Continuing our Ty Segall tribute this week in honor of his recent 38th birthday, for today’s Tuesday’s Gone, we’re taking a trip one decade back in time to spotlight this absolutely killer performance of “Feel” live at Pickathon from 2015. Joined by Cory Hanson of Wand fame, one could make the argument this performance captures […]

As a happy belated birthday tribute to the one and only Ty Segall (who turned 38 years young yesterday), this week we’ll be taking a trip down memory lane by spotlighting some choice performances from the California psych-rocker’s heyday. And that heyday really started gaining traction with the release of his third studio album, Melted, way back […]

It had been a minute since Ohio folk-rock sensations CAAMP last graced the city of Chicago with a performance (2022, to be exact). Still, that lengthy wait finally came to an end on June 5th as the band returned to the Windy City to kick off the first of two sold-out shows at The Salt […]

Rounding out our tribute to Turnstile this week, although the band has not lost any of their distinctively unhinged energy over the years (as evidenced by our Manic Monday and Tuesday’s Gone selections), their sound has nonetheless continued to evolve in a subtly more experimental direction. Technically speaking, this is nothing new, as the band […]

In case it wasn’t already on your radar, Turnstile’s long-awaited follow-up to their critically acclaimed album Glow On is finally set to drop later this week on June 6th. The album (titled Never Enough) will have arrived nearly a full four years after Glow On effectively propelled them into the cultural mainstream, a remarkable feat […]

Part of what made Sepultura such a compelling and visceral band back in the day was that their music came from a very raw and honest place (i.e., their native Brazil). You could feel that in their music, the fact they weren’t some flashy metal band playing super technical bullshit and flashy solos. The aggression […]

Continuing our salute to Sepultura this week, as mentioned on yesterday’s Manic Monday, although the band will always be synonymous with thrash/death metal, in this writer’s opinion, they don’t really get enough credit for their experimental streak that particularly reared its head on their last album with founding vocalist Max Cavalera: Roots. Not only did […]

Finishing up our “Alt-Metal May” theme on a decidedly heavier note, we’ll spotlight the Brazilian band that took the metal world by storm in the 90s: Sepultura. And although the band may not be the first that comes to mind when thinking of the alternative-metal genre (they were admittedly more thrash/death/groove at their core), they […]

Rounding out our spotlight on the Bad Brains this week, while the band will always be known first and foremost as the trailblazing hardcore punk pioneers that they were, their influence and contributions to the alternative-metal scene that sprouted up in the back half of the 80s (and took off in the 90s) cannot be […]

Part of what makes alternative metal “alternative” is its penchant for slower, more mid-tempo rhythms versus playing fast. This stood in direct contrast to speed metal and most thrash metal that was prominent in the 80s, but the transition from playing fast to slower wasn’t just a trend in the metal world as the decade […]

Keeping with our “Alt-Metal May” theme this month, part of what made alternative-metal so distinctive when it started blossoming in the late 80s was its willingness to inject funk into heavy-metal’s traditionally rigid song structures. An outlandish idea at the time (and one that still doesn’t sit well with most metal purists to this day), […]

Rounding out our salute to Primus this week, part of what has made them such a distinctive and entertaining band over the years is that they have a world-class weirdo behind the mic and bass. And we mean that affectionately, of course, as Les Claypool’s quirky eccentricities are what make Primus, well, Primus.  There have […]

It had been nearly six years since thrash-metal titans Power Trip last graced the stage of Metro Chicago. The band, of course, had good reason for their extended hiatus from The Windy City and touring at large, given the fact that their original lead singer, Riley Gale, tragically died in 2020 at the all too […]