Booked On Rock

Most music memoirs and autobiographies are about the artist paying their dues and then reaching the big time. In “Rock N Roll Will Only Break Your Heart”, there is no "big time" for the author. Instead, it's about getting from point A to point B while still trying to find point C. And you know what? The ride is just as colorful without the platinum records. Kenward Cooper tells his story in a hear...

It's a dialogue with Steve Roth & Darren Paltrowitz, hosts of The DLRCast - the podcast devoted to all things David Lee Roth! TOPICS DISCUSSED: * David Lee Roth - is he the same offstage as on? Does he have an "off" switch? * Joe Satriani says a Van Halen tribute including himself, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth and a mystery bassist almost performed in New York back in August of 2021. What ha...

Following his 2016 smash hit “Anatomy of a Song”, acclaimed music journalist Marc Myers has collected fifty-five new oral histories of iconic songs from his popular Wall Street Journal column. Songs that sell the most copies become hits, but some of those hits become something more—iconic recordings that not only inspire a generation but also change the direction of music. In “Anatomy of 55 More S...

As told by the late great lead tenor Gordon Stoker, this is the story of the greatest backup group in the history of recorded music and that is undoubtedly the Jordanaires, a gospel group of mostly Tennessee boys, formed in the 1940s, that set the standard for studio vocal groups in the '50s, '60s, '70s, and beyond. In their sixty-five-year career, from 1948 through 2013, the recordings they sang...

Pink Floyd are one of the most innovative, enduringly successful bands in history. Their influence is incalculable. 1973's ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, though far from the first concept album, established a new model for quasi-symphonic, long-form investigations into the human condition: a record of thoughtfully poignant lyrics and some of the most elegant, powerful, genre-defining rock music ever mad...

Fifty years ago next month - January of 1973 - Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley launched the band KISS. Author James Campion (Shout It Out Loud: The Story of Kiss's Destroyer and the Making of an American Icon") is on the podcast to talk about the band's rise to prominence thanks to endless determination by the original four members, an incredibly creative and just as hard-w...

Claudia Stavola is a stand-up comedian, writer for Madhouse Magazine and the weekday morning host for Monsters of Rock on Dash Radio. She has just released a book titled “100 Things To Hate Before You Die” and she's on the podcast to talk about the book, her favorite books on rock, her love of Van Halen and AC/DC, her frustrations with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and more! Purchase a copy of...

Ever since Pearl Jam first blasted onto the Seattle grunge scene three decades ago with their debut album, ‘Ten’, they’ve sold 85 million-plus albums, performed for hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, and have even been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In “Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack Of A Generation”, music critic and journalist Steven Hyden celebrates the life...

The spiritual journey of the Beatles is the story of an entire generation of visionaries in the sixties who transformed the world. The Beatles turned Western culture upside down and brought Indian philosophy to the West more effectively than any guru. "The Inner Light" illumines hidden meanings of the Beatles’ India-influenced lyrics and sounds, decoded by Susan Shumsky—a rare insider who spent tw...

Mark Howard has always made unique records. For Howard, it’s not just about the recording process ― making great music is also about creating unique, comfortable environments designed to bring out the best in the artist. To this end, he’s spent a career seeking out architecturally remarkable spaces in which to make albums. In “Recording Icons / Creative Spaces”, you’re invited behind the curtain t...

Michael Tau had spent years obsessed by the extremes of musical expression. “Extreme Music: Silence to Noise and Everything In Between” is the culmination of decades of research into the sounds (and silences) that comprise the outer limits and conceptual expressions that stretch the definition of music. Tau defines and categorizes these recorded sounds into sections that allow fans and newcomers t...

“Addicted to Noise” collects the best interviews, profiles, and essays Michael Goldberg has written during his forty-plus years as a journalist. From combative interviews with Frank Zappa and Tom Waits to essays on how Jack Kerouac influenced Bob Dylan and the lasting importance of San Francisco’s first punk rock club, Goldberg, as novelist Dana Spiotta wrote, “shows us how consequential music can...

Which Beach Boys’ song brings Paul McCartney to tears? What makes “Light My Fire” a rite-of-passage song for teens in every generation, according to Doors guitarist Robby Krieger? What is it about music that brings back so vividly the passion of our early loves, our deepest losses, our richest memories? Acclaimed music journalist Steve Baltin examines twenty-nine iconic songs of modern music to ul...

This episode’s guest is Kevin Brown, who is the host of an absolute must listen podcast for any Tom Petty fan called “The Tom Petty Project”. Kevin digs into Tom Petty's catalogue, starting with the first track from the debut Heartbreakers album, all the way through to the final song from ‘Mudcrutch 2’. He also gets into the outtakes, B-sides, and other Tom Petty related material. With today being...

On a sweltering Sunday evening in August 1965, 56,000 people traveled by plane, car, bus, ferry, and subway train to pack New York’s Shea Stadium. They were there not for a ballgame, but a rock and roll concert—the audacious dream of promoter Sid Bernstein. No band had ever played a baseball stadium, and few believed it could be pulled off, but on that glorious night, The Beatles sold out Shea Sta...

Greg Renoff is the author of “Van Halen Rising: How A Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal” and “Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life In Music”. This week, both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar celebrate birthdays and Greg is here to talk about the careers of both then, "right now" and in the future along with plenty of Van Halen discussion along the way. Greg Renoff was bo...

Few rock artists continue to gather more and more adulation with age. Sir Elton Hercules John is an exception who proves the rule. In “Elton John at 75”, veteran rock journalist Gillian Gaar presents a unique and beautifully produced celebration of the iconic and beloved rock star, examining Sir Elton through the lens of 75 career accomplishments and life events. Key studio albums are featured, of...

“Mixtape” is a journey through one of the most exciting eras of popular music. Each chapter covers a song released between 1975 and 1985, and features in-depth research, critical assessment, and the occasional dose of snark. Some of these 21 songs will be familiar, others not so familiar, but all of them have fascinating stories to tell. “Mixtape” is a great read for fans of music and popular cult...

Whether you want to take better photos in your everyday life or make a full-time income as a photographer, maybe even working in the music business shooting concerts and album covers, the five-part framework author David Molnar teaches in “Learning to See” will work for you: See: have a vision for your shot and execute that vision Shoot: become technically proficient with your camera Edit: help re...

Discover music that dared to be different, risked reputations and put careers in jeopardy — causing fascination and intrigue in some and rejection and scorn in others. This is what happens when people take tradition and rip it up. “MusicQuake” tells the stories of 50 pivotal albums and performances that shook the world of modern music — chronicling the fascinating tales of their creation, receptio...

Sandy Gennaro is a world-class speaker and drummer who has recorded and toured with several globally known artists including Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, The Monkees, Bo Diddley, Johnny Winter, Montrose, The Pat Travers Band, Mark Farner, Robin Gibb and Benny Mardonis. Sandy plays drums on Benny’s hit single from 1980 - “Into The Night”. Along the way, Sandy has learned a thing or...

"This band has no past" was the first line of the farcical biography printed on the inner sleeve of Cheap Trick’s first album, but the band, of course, did have a past—a past that straddles two very different decades: from the tumult of the sixties to the anticlimax of the seventies, from the British Invasion to the record industry renaissance, with the band’s debut album arriving in 1977, the yea...

‘In the beginning,’ Billy Joel entertained Long Island locals, with The Hassles and Attila, prior to forging a solo career in 1971. One year later, the singer-songwriter-pianist captivated college students when “Captain Jack” dominated the Philadelphia airwaves. ‘And so, it goes…’ ‘Cold Spring Harbor’ was rife with barrelhouse piano and tear-stained balladry but with ‘Turnstiles’ Joel realized his...

When the use of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” turned 1955’s ‘Blackboard Jungle’ into a teen sensation and a box-office smash, it proved the opening shot in a cinematic and cultural revolution. Starting with Elvis Presley and the teensploitation films of the ’50s and ’60s, in “Rock on Film” award-winning author and former Rolling Stone editor Fred Goodman takes readers on a wide-ranging jour...

Phil Collins was everywhere in the 1980s. He had more top forty singles in the US than any other artist: fourteen as a solo artist and eleven with Genesis, along with two number one solo albums, plus twenty-five solo or group hit singles and eight number one albums in the UK. Collins also recorded with a diverse list of artists including Peter Gabriel, John Martyn, Frida, Robert Plant, Mike Oldfie...