Joe Pug * Nation of Heat EP

Singer/Songwriters are as abundant as clouds across an overcast sky. They tend to blend together without distinction. Every so often, however, there is a break from which the sun shines. The effect is beautiful, heavenly and inspiring. 23 year old Joe Pug’s Nation of Heat EP is such a ray of light. The songs are stripped down, naked; guitar, vocal, harmonica and banjo. Pug’s lyrics are immediate without the obtuseness or camouflage typically associated with the genre. On Hymn #101, universal reflection of one’s own merit is posed with frank eloquence “I’ve come here to get high, to do more than just get by; I’ve come to test the timbre of my heart”. I Do My Father’s Drugs sees through the distinctions claimed my all generations and focuses on the common themes of each. “You will see me at the protest, but you’ll notice that I drag. I burn my father’s flag.” Lots of thinking stuff here; wrapped in accessible tunes that demand repeat listening.

If Pug continues to grow and evolve from this initial brilliant offering, he may very well turn into pure light by the time his kids start doing his drugs.

Feeding from the trough of: Bob Dylan, John Prine, Jesse Winchester

Play MP3: I Do My Father’s Drugs

WWW: joepugmusic.com

Look Ma Joe Pug’s Nation of Heat EP!

Warped 45s Canadian East Coast Tour Summer of 2009.

The Warped 45s will be tearing East Coasters a new one this summer.

Creature to Shake Booty in China

Creature will bring their brand of dance rock pop to China.
If you happen to be in the vicinity check ‘em out.

April 29, 2009
Club: D-22, City: Bejing

May 01, 2009
Club: D-22, City: Bejing
Club: Yuyingtang, City: Shanghai

May 02, 2009
Club: 4698 Bar, City: Changsha

May 05, 2009
Club: True Colors, City: Shenzhen

Juno Award Winners Announced

We were crossing our fingers for the mighty Creature to steal their nomination for Pop Album of the Year from the Juno regulars Alanis Morisette and David Usher. It just didn’t happened. Their career is still in meteoric motion, having found a strong following in France and a tour of China in the works.

Montreal's Creature on their way to shake asses in France and China.

Blossom Toes * Blossom Toes & If Only For A Moment

We Are Ever So Clean

Thanks to the fine folks at Sunbeam two rare, much-overlooked psychedelic treasures are once again available for all to enjoy. To be sure, Blossom Toes is a band you will never hear too much about, but after listening to these two albums you will wonder why the band’s name isn’t on everyone’s lips. The band has the distinction of putting out a psychedelic album as good as anything The Beatles, Small Faces or The Kinks had done, and then follow it up with an album so heavy Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin could have stolen ideas from it (and probably did).

Unfortunately, the band put out their whimsical, slightly-twee psych-rock album when there was a glut of like-minded music flooding the market and put out their heavier record before the taste of the public had moved towards heavier rock music. Much revered by fans of late ’60′s psych, these two Blossom Toes albums have been much sought after for years by collectors and music zealots who swear Blossom Toes were putting out some of the best music of the ’60′s.

Take a few listens and find out for yourself how right they were!

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BMZ * Live at The Winchester

Cleveland band BMZ came together as a group because the members of the band were all looking to do something musically and had nowhere to turn to fill that desire. With Jim Bacha on bass guitar and vocals, Michael Misiak on drums and vocals, and Jerry Zsigo on guitar and vocals, the musicians have created a solid rock band.

The band decided to take their best material and attack the songs in a live setting and record the resulting show for future release. That resulting show took place on March 10th, 2007 at the Cleveland, Ohio concert venue, The Winchester. The band has taken the recorded show and put it out on a double CD album, entitled BMZ Live at The Winchester.

Previous to the date of the concert recording, the band had recorded and released two albums as a four-piece outfit. The new CD features the band in its current three-piece power trio line-up. The difference is definitely noticeable; and it’s a change for the better. As a trio, the band is tighter and the songs rock harder. Having recorded the first two albums in the studio, BMZ Live at The Winchester shows that the real magic happens onstage.

The audience that showed up that night for the recording helps make the live experience come through for the audience listening at home. And the band answers back with a great instrumental entitled Let It Happen that seems to convey the message that the band is happy for the audience’s support.

Throughout the 2-hour concert of high-voltage power rock, BMZ shows that with time comes experience, and with experience comes talent. Jim Bacha, Mike Misiak, and Jerry Zsigo have the experience and the talent, as BMZ Live at The Winchester definitely shows.

If you like power rock, this album is a MUST for your music collection. This is not only a great live album, it’s a great album all the way around.
To hear the music, purchase the album, or for more information on the band, go to www.bmzmusic.com.

The Armed Forces * Modern Gospel For Modern Men & Modern Women

The thing I love about rock and roll is the wide sonic pallet that it encompasses. That is why I never get bogged down in genres, but sometimes I do feel myself listening a bit too much to one style or other so it’s nice to have a band come along and kind of smack me upside the head and change my sense of direction.

The Armed Forces are from Nashville, Tennessee and at first listen of their CD Modern Gospel For Modern Men & Modern Women I knew there was something there that I liked, I just wasn’t sure what it was. But as with all of my favourite CDs, multiple listening revealed to me a great band that had a definite, modern twist to their powerpop hook. The song that got to me first was The Runaways. The finger clicking and female back up vocals clinched it for me and made me hungry for more. In The Free World was next and everything else on this 5 song CD followed quickly thereafter. I won’t insult you by comparing them to somebody since you will probably email me to tell me that I am out of my tree because they sound more like THIS band but I will toss out moder, hooky, angry at times and volume knob worthy.

Check them out at their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/thearmedforce and listen to them on an upcoming edition of the Rock and Roll Report Podcast and Rock and Roll Report Radio. Good stuff!

APG * This Brutal Addiction

When a popular band decides to call it a day, usually the followers of that band are left with an empty feeling of never being able to see that band again. And if it happens that two bands decide to call it a day at the same time, twice as many people have the same empty feeling.

This is what happened when Cleveland-based band hard rock band Another Path and heavy metal band Gatlin decided that it was time to move on. However, when members of both bands heard of the other’s demise, a new partnership began between the lead singer of Another Path and the remaining members of Gatlin.

The new project became known as A Passion Greater, now known simply as APG. The lead singer, Dave Hudec, picked up where he left off in Another Path by writing songs for his new band, and his new band mates helped turn the new songs into something real, something different than what either band was playing before they broke apart. Along with Dave Hudec on vocals, the rest of the band consists of Jon Drake on bass/vocals, Don DeBiase on guitar, John Marshall on guitar, and Tony Castillo on drums.

The members of APG merged their two styles together into a melodic hard rock band. Taking the best of both worlds and combining them into one makes APG a band with a sound that would fit on any modern day rock statio

Once the band was together, they went into the studio to record their debut album, This Brutal Addiction. Engineered by Brandon Youngs, the 2007 album gives the listener their money’s worth, as the album clocks in at just under an hour.

One of the best hard rock albums of 2007, This Brutal Addiction definitely is an album for rock music fans. The band has been nominated Best Hard Rock Band at the 2008 Free Times Music Awards in Cleveland. This is the perfect time to check out this Cleveland group and their music.

For more information, go to www.myspace.com/apg. Also check them out at www.purevolume.com/apg.

Cover Story – Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Are You Experienced?”, with photography by Karl Ferris

Copyright ©1967 and 2008 by Karl Ferris – All rights reserved.

Subject: Are You Experienced?, a 1967 release (on Reprise Records) by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, with cover photo & design by Karl Ferris

Considered by many music fans and critics as one of the (if not THE) greatest debut record from a rock-era artist, Are You Experienced (with or without the ?) also illustrated how records were produced, packaged and tailored for distribution to the world’s music marketplaces. Released in the U.K. in May, 1967, the record was a compilation of the fantastic music and performances that had been wowing crowds in London theaters up to that point. Those crowds included most of members of the leading musical acts of the time – including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Hollies, The Who (and many others) – who’d all come to watch and listen in stunned amazement to the trio’s musical magic.

In the 40+ years (yes, that long ago!) since its release, the record’s influence on both the musicians who’ve striven “to play guitar like Hendrix” and those who create “Best Of” lists continues, with EVERY top guitarist today confirming Hendrix’s influence on their playing and the record’s positions on Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” (#15) in 2003 (following up its #5 ranking in 1987’s “Best Albums of the Last 20 Years” and #5 on a similarly-titled list published in 2001 by cable net VH-1. It is now also a national treasure in that it has also been selected to be permanently preserved by the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry and archive.

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