Barstool Rockers

Here's someone else who has SEEN IT ALL. Lita Ford was first recruited by Kim Fowley to join the all-female band the Runaways and in 1979 she headed out on her own. In 1980, after the breakup of the Runaways, she signed with Mercury Records and released her solo debut: Out For Blood. From there, she continued until 1995, when she went on a hiatus. In 2008, she came back with a vengeance and hasn't let up since.

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Denny Laine was a co-founding member of the Moody Blues. He left the band in 1966 to form the Electric String Orchestra. From there it was Ginger Baker's Air Force. Along the way, he got to know Paul McCartney musically and personally and after some other projects, it was on to help form Wings with Paul and Linda.

He left Wings in 1981 and kept a fairly low profile, but has released a dozen solo albums along the way. He was finally inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in April of 2018 with his fellow members of the Moody Blues.

These days, he performs with the Denny Laine Trio and Denny Laine & the Moody Wing Band.

There's PLENTY more to learn so have a listen to the conversation Finn had with the legendary Denny Laine.

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If you haven't seen Bohemian Rhapsody, see it. This story picks up mere months after Queen's iconic performance at Live Aid, when Freddie Mercury was recruited by his dear friend, Dave Clark (Dave Clark 5) to record a track for a star-studded concept album based on "Time": A sci-fi, rock musical written by Clark. A few months later, Freddie Mercury returned to Abbey Road studios to record a second song: 'Time.'

Finn had a few minutes with Dave Clark to talk about the process and Dave shared some humorous memories.

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There's not a lot we can say about Lou Gramm that you don't already know. As a youngster he sang and played drums for his band Black Sheep that released a single called "Stick Around." On tour with KISS, an icy accident claimed their equipment truck and the lack of ability to support its albums with live performances caused the band to disband.

Along the way, Lou met Mick Jones and when Black Sheep disbanded, it just so happened Jones was in search of a lead singer for a band he was assembling. That band was Trigger which eventually was renamed Foreigner.

The bands first eight singles cracked the Billboard Top 20 and the band was a huge success. Gramm & Jones had a volatile chemistry but their creativity was second to none. After Foreigner's "Agent Provocateur" album took three years to release due to creative differences between Jones & Gramm, Lou felt the winds blowing him toward Solo work.

Gramm's first solo album, 1987's Ready or Not was met with critical acclaim and the song "Midnight Blue" cracked the top five.

The 90s saw Lou doing ample solo work along with providing vocals for Christian rock band Petra's Petra Praise 2: We Need Jesus." On the eve the band was to head to Japan for a tour, Lou was diagnosed with a type of brain tumor called a craniopharyngioma. Even though it was benign, the treatment damaged his pituitary gland. The recovery program caused him to gain weight, which likewise affected his stamina and voice. By '98, he was back to touring with Foreigner, playing summer festivals and small markets.

In 2003, he again departed Foreigner to go solo.

On June 13, 2013, he and Mick Jones were reunited once again, as inductees to the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Their body of work was recognized by their peers, and the duo performed "I Want to Know What Love Is"

After that, Gramm joined Mick Jones, Al Greenwood, Ian McDonald and the current lineup of Foreigner for three songs at a Foreigner 40th Anniversary show at Jones Beach Theatre in Long Island, New York. They continued to do shows with original members and current members sporadically, during their 2018 tour dates, filming the shows for later release.

Double Vision: Then and Now, A Celebration Concert Series with Current & Original Band Members will be released in October of 2019 and there's talk of some new recordings coming out with Lou Gramm on vocals.

On Saturday, August 17, Lou Gramm will be performing as part of the 80s in the Dells show alongside Asia on the Crystal Grand's Indoor Stage.

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Corky Laing started his life in 1948 as the youngest of five siblings in Montreal, Canada. His early bands enjoyed a good local following, opened for many of the popular British invasion acts and, ultimately, got a record deal with Atlantic Records in New York. Through the teenage summers, his band was a regular on the Island of Nantucket, Massachusetts and frequented clubs in New York City. In September 1969, his life changed for good when Mountain happened. There started a few crazy years of rock mayhem. Mountain was followed by West, Bruce and Laing – a super group featuring Leslie West, Jack Bruce and Corky that was destined for greatness, but brought to an untimely end by the darker forces of the music scene. After West, Bruce and Laing, Mountain continued to tour and record on and off. The months and years off left Corky with plenty of time for his own musical explorations and other careers. He released a solo album, almost set up another super group, worked in a driving service and in real estate, had a senior position at Chappell Music and became a vice president of A&R at Polygram, Canada.

During his career, Corky has played, written and toured with the who's who of rock. Keith Moon was a close pal, and Levon Helm, a mentor and friend. Eric Clapton played on his solo album and Tony Williams recommended to Jack Bruce that Corky should be included in West, Bruce and Laing. Corky Laing All Star Show Band included Mick Taylor, Lester Chambers and Meatloaf. Corky has written, among others, with Peter Frampton, Mick Jagger, Ian Hunter, Mick Ronson, and obviously, with Leslie West, Felix Pappalardi and Jack Bruce. At the Lone Star Café in New York, he partied with the likes of Robin Williams and John Belushi.

However, Letters to Sarah (Polite Bystander Productions, 2019) is a rock autobiography with a difference. In addition to the exceptionally honest and endearing voice of Corky chronicling the ups and downs of his life, there are excerpts from dozens of letters (out of the c. 200) that Corky wrote to his mother, Sarah, between the years 1963 and 1997. She had saved them all. The letters were a way for Corky, away on the road for years on end, to keep in touch with his roots and also, to make sense of his life. This continues in Letters to Sarah, as Corky relives the first 50 years of his life, up until his mother's passing in 1998.

The book opens with a Foreword by the incomparable Kinky Friedman. It was written together with Corky's manager and partner, Tuija Takala, PhD, who is a widely published academic author and who, initially discovered the letters to Sarah tucked away in a box at Corky's rehearsal studio.

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He needs no introduction. His side project, The Hollywood Vampires, just released a new album entitled RISE. He's heading out with his own band on the "Ol' Black Eyes Is Back" tour in a few days and he was just in the news for being part of a supposed death pact with his wife of 45 years.

Alice Cooper is one of the main-stays of rock music and the godfather of shock. You're just as likely to see him spending time with a guillotine as you are with a pet snake or playing 9 holes of golf.

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2019 is proving to be a bright and shiny 25th anniversary year for Atlanta multi-Platinum rockers COLLECTIVE SOUL, and they'll be celebrating their ongoing legacy in all-out style with a little bit of the old and a lot of the new. They're in it for the long haul and are gearing up to keep the party going.

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Chuck Garric is one of the hardest-working bass players in rock music today. Not only has he toured and played a key role in Alice Cooper's band since 2002, he also fronts his own band, Beastö Blancö, alongside Calico Cooper. He has also co-written songs for Alice Cooper.

A Nashville native, Chuck has played with a with Turd, The Druts, L.A. Guns, Dio, and the Eric Singer Project. He's also played bass for Billy Bob Thornton, Ted Nugent, Don Felder, and Journey at the Alice Cooper Christmas Pudding for the past three years.

Beastö Blancö recently wrapped up touring in support of their latest album "We Are" and is currently prepping for a tour with Alice Cooper that starts in weeks.

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Begin the Begin is the first biography of R.E.M. wholly researched and written since they disbanded in 2011. It offers by far the most detailed account of the group's formative years--their early lives, their first encounters with one another, their legendary debut show, early tours in the back of a van, initial recordings, their shrewdly paced rise to fame.

The people and places of the American South are crucial to the R.E.M. story in ways much more complex and interesting than have previously been presented, claims Robert Dean Lurie; he explores the myriad ways in which the band's adopted hometown of Athens, Georgia--and the South in general--shaped its members and the character of their art. The South is much more than the background here; it plays a major role: the creative ferment that erupted in Athens and gripped many of its young inhabitants in the late 1970s and early '80s drew on regional traditions of outsider art and general cultural out-thereness, and gave rise to a free-spirited music scene that produced the B-52's and Pylon, as well as laying the ground for R.E.M.'s subsequent breakout success.

Lurie has tracked down and interviewed numerous figures in the band's history who were underrepresented in, or absent from, earlier biographies--they contribute previously undocumented stories and cast a fresh light on the familiar narrative.

ABOUT ROBERT DEAN LURIE

Robert Dean Lurie is a writer and musician based in Tempe, Arizona. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and is the author of "Begin the Begin: R.E.M.'s Early Years," "We Can Be Heroes: The Radical Individualism of David Bowie," and "No Certainty Attached: Steve Kilbey and The Church."

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If Rick Nielsen weren't one of rock and roll's most colorful and accomplished characters in real life, there's no way to have dreamed him up. A homemade cartoon figure who is also a down-to-earth family man. A superlative guitarist who makes it look like a goof onstage. An inveterate joker whose best-known song is a sincere request for love. You think it's all an image, a pose? Spend a few minutes with the man and you'll find out just how wrong you are. (From RickNielsen.com)

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