Bill Leslie's Rock of Ages: This may come as a shock to some of our readers, but I don’t spend a lot of time reading music blogs. Many of them irritate me because they focus on bands that are either too obscure or too popular. I spend a lot of my time editing music reviews for this site, so if I’m reading a blog and the person can’t paint a picture for me without repeating the same phrases a million different times, I can't stand it. Plus, a lot of these things come off as regurgitated information from sites like allmusic.com, which often includes inaccurate information anyway. If the person does go ‘out on a limb’ and explore the dark spots in the discographies, it may just seem like they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about. “This sounds like rich college kids pertending to be scum-rock.” Really? Your ears are razor sharp! How can you tell they’re rich just by the sound? I could never figure that out! You were listening so intently, you actually spelled “pretending” wrong. Maybe you should listen less.
Anyway, I was selfishly going link to link to link, trying to find a half-decent spot for some free downloads, and I stumbled across Bill Leslie’s “Rock of Ages” blog. The reason my mouse stopped was because I found myself staring at the album cover for SWEET’s “Desolation Boulevard”, one of my all-time desert island discs (along with “Sweet Fanny Adams”). Well, Bill proceeds to trash the album in his review, but I found myself uninjured by reading it. He reaches explicable conclusions borne from a genuine love for seventies rock and vinyl collecting. Statements like “a recorded studio drum solo is indulgent in the extreme” had me nodding in agreement. I never really thought about that before, and I think about music a lot (shocker).
Bill loves his pomp rock and AOR, focusing some of his analysis on bands like MAGNUM, DEF LEPPARD, and THUNDER. But just when you think it’s melodic rock 101, he hits you with “Confessions of a Vinyl Collector”, a simple piece that I read voraciously. Damn you Euros! He picked up a copy of STRAY’s “Houdini” on vinyl for two pounds? I couldn't even get a used copy of THE MELVINS "Houdini" that cheap! I’ve never gotten a single disc from STRAY without paying through the nose for it or trading heavily. Plus, where do you Brits get these incredible compilation records, anyhow? He mentions an album called “Double Hard” with SABBATH, UFO, QUARTZ (!) and WHITE SPIRIT(!!) on it, which he probably picked up for pennies. Here in yank-land, every compilation of this sort has mandatory crap tracks from LOVERBOY, HELIX, and .38 SPECIAL mixed in somewhere. Damn! He also does a nice job dissecting JIMMY PAGE's "Outrider" record (remember that one? It had that one song where the guy says 'I got a weasel in my pocket!') and that first WASP album among others.
At any rate, if you’re looking for a music blog with some brains and discussion of underappreciated titles, check out Rock of Ages. You’ll even find yourself reading over his depictions of discs you’ve had for years, just to get his spin on them. Plus he uses phrases like ‘a cracking comeback!” that make you smile. Get over there and put your mouse to work.
URL: http://rockofages.wordpress.com/
{Text}