This is an acoustic live album, but of course you don’t get a voice like Chris Cornell’s by just singing acoustic. As demonstrated by “Cleaning My Gun,” a perennial live favorite now making its recorded debut, this is a voice that has been honed, bruised, burnished, and beautifully scarred on the sharp, angular surfaces of Rock and the pummeling, sonic flow of Roll in one of the great rock careers of the last quarter century.

Even if the electricity is off, each song is haunted by the ghosts of Soundgarden’s anthemic grunge and Audioslave’s meaty rock, and I don’t just mean in the choice of songs, which range freely over Cornell’s whole career. No, he could be singing “Hickory Dickory Dock” and you’d still know it was a monster rock voice.

One of the appeals of this album is that it allows you to place the monster under the microscope and listen to it in an atmosphere of naked intimacy. Under these conditions songs like “Call Me A Dog” and “Black Hole Sun,” which always had a soft side, emerge as new-minted masterpieces as well as tunes that could earn a hobo busker a hearty meal at the diner.

When Tokyo expats Mark Ferris and Kim Forsythe’s young son Tyler died of leukemia, they transformed their grief into an effort to give his brief life lasting meaning. The Tyler Foundation for Childhood Cancer supports children with cancer in Japan, and since 3/11 has also been utilizing its expertise in treating stress to help children in the northeast recover psychologically. ShineOn! Songs Volume One was created to help give the gift of hope for a better future, with inspiring songs by, among others, Alan Menken, Amber Lily, Julian Lennon, Maxi Priest, Monday Michiru, Sir Tim Rice, Tin Cup Gypsy and Wendy Parr. Making the album even more personal is the fact that Ferris himself composed many of the tracks, while children in Tohoku contributed some of the chorus parts. Flavors range from Monday Michiru’s big band jazz to the soaring political-pop of Maxi Priest to intimate ballad that is the Sakari Elementary School featuring Rie Fu’s “Who I Want To Be.” As producer Gordon Goodwin of the Big Phat Band says, “To know that your music is touching someone on a real level, there’s nothing better than that. A Grammy Award…is not better than that.”

100% of all CD sales from the website benefit the Tyler Foundation. www.shineonsongs.org

“I wonder if what I think about what happened in The Dogs’ day,” asks legendary MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer in liner notes to this set, “means much to anyone outside of the small tribe of music nuts who can’t get enough trivia about their favorite artist.”

Doggy Days… The Dogs Live L.A. To Tokyo and The Dogs Tribute… Doggy Style are, respectively, a five-hour-long DVD and 35-song tribute CD documenting and honoring the career and revival of one of Detroit’s most influential cult rock bands.

Along with The Stooges and MC5, The Dogs helped forge the template for punk in the late ’60s and early ’70s with a snarling, anti-establishment attitude, and industrial-sized slabs of Motown power chords. After years of obscurity, these bands saw, along with the rise of Detroit’s White Stripes, a resurgence of interest in the new millennium that for The Dogs—the least known of the three—culminated in their first tour of Japan in 2007.

The answer to Kramer’s rhetorical question is that he’s right—his thoughts on The Dogs probably do only matter to a bunch of music nuts. But for them, they mean a great deal. For these devotees—and curious rock fans who happen across this collection—Doggy Days, produced by Tokyo resident “Detroit Jack,” provides a fascinating, if long-winded, window into a little-known side of rock history.

Beginning with footage of The Dogs performing in LA in 2001, the DVD takes viewers both backwards to their early days in Detroit and LA, and forwards to their riotous Tokyo gigs in 2007.

Despite the jerky quality of the footage and low-budget editing (which in some ways impart an authentic flavor), what really makes Doggy Days a good view is the sheer charisma of the band, in particular frontman Loren Molinare. White-haired and balding he may be, but Molinare retains the DIY energy and f#*k-you attitude of someone one-third his age.

Producer Detroit Jack says the reason Detroit bands like the Dogs resonate with young Japanese rockers comes down to one fact: both groups view rock as a way out of a life of soul-destroying, low-paid work.

“Factories are oppressive places,” he says. “Machines are not sympathetic to the humans that are forced to become a part of them, and neither is management. This feeling of powerlessness is shared by Japanese in a culture that emphasizes the group above the individual. There is a struggle going on inside many in Japan that is very similar to the struggle of the factory worker in Detroit.”  

For trainspotters of Japan’s live house scene, the concert footage from Tokyo looks pretty convincing. And The Dogs Tribute companion CD, containing covers by underground Japanese legends like Melt-Banana, is a story in and of itself.

“Is this important?” Kramer again asks.
“I think it is,” he answers.
“Why?” he asks again.
“Because it tells me I’m not alone. I’m not the only nutcase out here who cares.”

http://futurenowrecords.blogspot.com

From Michael Jackson’s zombie dancing in “Thriller” to Slipknot’s famed alter egos and the psycho-clown affectations of the Juggalo rap subculture, horror has long been one of the elements flowing through the bloodstream of popular music. The main instigator of this infection is Alice Cooper, the godfather of shock-rock whose success in his 40+ year career is as much down to colorful stage shows and ghoulish story concepts as it is to the music. Celebrating the 35th anniversary of his first solo album—when he actually broke from the band whose name he later took—Cooper has now released what is touted as its follow-up, both in terms of the narrative carried by the songs and the musical personnel involved, notably producer Bob Ezrin. Like its earlier near namesake, Welcome 2 My Nightmare is a rich and diverse platter with an underlying story. Musical styles range from the Stones-esque rock of “I’ll Bite Your Face Off” and the Tom Waits-inspired “Last Man on Earth” to “The Congregation,” which is a clear tip of the hat to Oasis, and “Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever”—which speaks for itself. Stand out tracks like opener “I Am Made of You,” with its searing solo, and the ballsy duet with Ke$ha, “What Baby Wants,” make the point that AC is a timeless rock institution—although the zombie make-up probably helps.

OK, the sleeve looks a bit like four Scooby Dooz from Hell, but because Nazareth have taken trouble over the contents, this daft-looking cover is destined to become a much loved icon in many a hard rock record collection. Now enjoying something of a late career renaissance, the melodic rockers, centred round the legendary voice of main man Dan McCafferty, take another tilt at reliving their glory days of the 1970s, when the Scottish outfit were a seminal influence. Big Dogz is packed with well-worked tunes that balance McCafferty’s honey-and-razor-blades vocals with Jim Murrison’s unhurried but driving guitar. From strong, moody opener “Big Dog’s Gonna Howl,” where McCafferty comes out like AC/DC’s Brian Johnson’s meaner, bigger brother, through the snarling blues of “No Mean Monster,” to the claustrophobic riffing, spacey string bending, and vocal samples of album closer “Sleeptalker,” this is an album of big, muscular songs that are not afraid to put their boots on the table and stretch out. But beneath the swagger, there’s also plenty of heart. The anthemic and nostalgic “Radio” is invested with all the emotion that can only come near the end of a long career that is, on the evidence of this album, still very much in full flow.

The world is much better disposed towards Duff McKagan than it is to his old, megalomaniac GN’R bandmate Axl Rose. For this reason we tend to be a bit more indulgent towards his post GN’R output. But the truth is that the rough n’ ready rock/metal/punk hybrid the bassist is interested in exploring through his band Loaded promises diminishing returns. At times sounding like the Ramones or Black Sabbath’s younger, sloppier brother, and with plenty of punk touches – possibly to cover up technical deficiencies as much as to express anarchic rage – The Taking offers a dark, dense, aural texture and a swaggering vibe that leads to solipsistic self-satisfaction. With the riffs hammered out on the band’s last big tour and then rushed into the studio, the songs have a splurging urgency, but their refreshing energy clearly needs to be harnessed and shaped more. When it is – as with the snarling menace of “Executioner’s Song” and the effervescent “Dead Skin” – greatness almost beckons.