Business, Culture, Writing, and Other Stuff
Sadly, this is the last year I will be an Society for Technical Communication (STC) member after more than 15 years. This was a really tough decision for me to make, highly emotional. Because it was emotional I realized my continuing annual renewal was coming from a place of sentimentality and it was time to [...]
Cover of Pyromania Admit it: you like Def Leppard's Pyromania (1983) as much as everybody else in the world. Yes their newer stuff is embarrassing and they can't pull off the old stuff like they did the first time. However, Pyromania was that one defining moment some bands have where they have relevance. They created [...]
There are a couple of things about Christian rock I need to address before continuing. First, I grew up in Arkansas surrounded by a hostile Southern Baptist atmosphere. I got into Christian rock as an alternative to the mainstream music I was told would send me to hell (not joking). There's a whole story there [...]
Cover of Sloppy Seconds When I was eight I was given Dr. Hook's Sloppy Seconds (1971). I can't remember the logic of giving an eight-year-old such a raunchy album. Believe it or not, I didn't get any of the meaning of the lyrics in this outrageous album but I played it relentlessly, memorizing every filthy [...]
Today's pick is obscure but full of awesome. J's Blood Muzik (2001) is one of my favorite albums since I first picked it up as an import at a local CD store in 2002. J was the bass player from Luna Sea, a Japanese visual rock band. His solo stuff is amazing. It's straight up [...]
Cover of Pieces of Eight It is possible to like Styx in a non-ironic way. Pieces of Eight (1978) is a good album all the way around from a band with a permanent identity crisis. In spite of the band's destiny to become such a joke they were practically booed off the stage at a [...]
My own personal School of Rock respects the Dio. Ronnie James Dio has a set of lungs that could raze a small city. One criterion I have for my favorite 100 albums is the physical damage the original medium suffered from overplaying. Dio's Dream Evil (1987) played so much in my '76 Camaro that I [...]
Long Way From Home by The Heavy