Rock History

It took a life-altering event to prod Benji Madden and his identical twin brother Joel down the Rock road – a Beastie Boys’ concert. The “hey, we can do that” mentality ruled as the Waldorf, MD, natives, who’d relocated to Annapolis, developed their chops. Benji picked up the guitar and wrote songs while Joel worked…

When the term “Heavy Metal” (taken from the William Burroughs novel “Soft Machine”) was coined in the late-60s it was used to describe loud, earth-shaking guitar-oriented Rock. Black Sabbath may not have entirely embraced the term and all its loutish connotations, but their ominous songs that dwelled on the sinister, occult and macabre defined the…

Instead of Badfinger, they should have called themselves Bad Deal because that’s what they got. Badfinger was signed by The Beatles’ Apple Records. Paul McCartney wrote their first worldwide hit “Come and Get It” for Ringo Starr’s film (with Peter Sellers), “The Magic Christian.” The Beatle connection haunted the band. If you didn’t look too…

Phil Walden, head of Capricorn Records, suggested Duane Allman, a renowned session guitarist, start his own group. First, Duane installed his brother as the lead singer. Nobody liked that idea even though Gregg also handled keyboards. Dickey Betts was the second guitarist – you can never have too many guitars. Berry Oakley played bass. Also,…

Thinking about becoming a Rock star? There are two ways to go. First, you can develop your sound from one album to the next delivering one creative high after another. Trouble is, you may run out of ideas or lose your audience in the process. Or you can do what Boston did. Release a studio…

One good thing about an ex-husband is you can keep their last name – if you want. That’s what Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane/Starship did. And so did Patricia Andzejewski (there’s a name that will never get by spell check). She is otherwise known as Pat Benatar. She married her high school sweetheart Dennis, but…

When the name Deep Purple comes up most people immediately think “Smoke On The Water.”  The thing is, Deep Purple had a long, accomplished career before and after that song. Early Deep Purple could be described as a covers band with Prog Rock tendencies. The covers included “Hush,” a major hit, “River Deep, Mountain High”…

On April 28th and 30th, 1978, Cheap Trick performed at Tokyo’s Budokan Hall before a wildly enthusiastic audience. The show was recorded with the idea of releasing a live album for the Japanese market. From their second studio album, “In Color,” they launched into “I Want You To Want Me.” The studio version of this…

It must have been difficult for The Church starting in ‘80 while their fellow Aussies, the Little River Band and Air Supply, were choking the airwaves. The Church didn’t Rock as hard as AC/DC, who came earlier, or INXS who followed, and they certainly had nothing in common with the MOR pop of LRB or…