“That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.” — H.P. Lovecraft What… you thought another October would arrive without Hokeyblog’s annual Buttkickin’ Halloween Songs coming into the forefront? Forsooth! Fooey! and Fiddlesticks! Welcome back to our yearly celebration of all things Creepy-Crawly, darkly frosty, and chillingly spooktopic. Halloween approaches and…
Honky Château could almost be described as the quintessential album of Elton John’s “early” period. It retained the classic line-up of Sir Elton on vocals and keyboards, Davey Johnston on guitars, Dee Murray on bass, and Nigel Olsson on drums/percussion. That core group would contribute music and backing vocals to almost every track, along with a few…
We turn our attention today to Kiss’s 1979 release Dynasty, or as it’s known by fans: “The Disco Album”, or perhaps even “When Things Go Horribly, Horribly Wrong”. Depending on your particular sensibilities, you wouldn’t be wrong with either assessment, but you would be able to walk away feeling that Dynasty is still a pretty…
Well, not literally… So for those of you who are new to the whole Hokey Industries International experience — or for old-timers who wouldn’t mind a review, and you’ve read this far so why not? — your humble host is a bit fond of music as a prosaic exclamation point. I mean seriously, why underscore…
With Press To Play, Paul goes contemporary 80s with producer Hugh Padgham. The results are surprising, but possibly the least McCartneyesque album of his career.
Elton John’s Madman Across The Water was released in early November of 1971, arriving in stores barely a year after his acclaimed 1970 masterpiece Tumbleweed Connection. Sir Elton was always nothing short of an absolute workhorse; he would continue his “album a year” pattern for a good long while afterward. This of course begged the…
Elton John’s late 1970 release Tumbleweed Connection represents his second album of the year, dropping a scant six months after his breakthrough self-titled album made him a household name in the US. While the earlier album felt more like an early 70s “singer-songwriter” effort, generating three top-40 singles (including the smash “Your Song”), Tumbleweed Connection…
Hey, hey, we are The Monkees, you know we love to please A manufactured image with no philosophies… Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson wrote and produced the absurdist yet strangely (and often beautifully) endearing 1968 film Head. Directed by Rafelson, the movie takes The Monkees off the television screen and into their first cinematic adventure…
I really started getting into The Beatles in late 1981; eleven-and-a-half years after the band broke up, and just under a year after John Lennon’s murder. Having been born in 1971, the ten year gap between the breakup and Lennon’s death is a bit fuzzy in my mind. I was certainly aware of The Beatles,…
It took me awhile to really warm up to The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees, which was not only the band’s fifth studio album but their last commercially successful one. Their previous two records, Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., showed that they weren’t just pretty pusses plastered onto prepackaged product for…