A worthwhile imaginary history: Eric Clapton doesn’t leave the Yardbirds in March 1965. He stays, compromised but successful, and the band’s psych-garage boilerplate “For Your Love” is the first in a clutch of similar vocal-fronted hits that eventually morph the band into a second string Moody Blues. Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page never join the … Continue reading “Deserted Cities of the Heart” by Cream
Southern Rock’s manifesto is like no other rock album. The Allman Brothers Band, released in November 1969, carries a hard sonic power absent from its closest temporal and spiritual brother, the Band’s Music from Big Pink (1968), and tight, sharp-cornered riffing missing from the work of the Grateful Dead, who the Allmans resembled in their two-drummer, … Continue reading “Every Hungry Woman” by the Allman Brothers Band
The dark end of late 70s rock culture makes for strange bedfellows on the weekly infinite linear mixtape. One week after Judas Priest released Unleashed in the East in September 1979, a career milestone kickstarting broad commercial success, the Eagles issued The Long Run, a (mostly) career-ending album that took too long to make, wore on … Continue reading “Those Shoes” by the Eagles
If they’re the only band on the infinite linear mixtape to be featured twice, and back-to-back at that, it’s because of the singularity of their two lead singers, who so influenced their respective versions of Black Sabbath that each iteration of the band made a distinct impact on rock and metal. Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi … Continue reading “Black Sabbath” by Black Sabbath
As a commercially successful American hard rock band fronted by two women in the 1970s, Heart was unique, and while it’s Patti Smith and the Runaways that have turned legendary (with merit, no doubt) for their stories, Heart’s impact on women in rock is, must be, outsized, and deserving of the same attention. While their … Continue reading “Mistral Wind” by Heart
soundstreamsunday - a weekly infinite linear mixtape 