Prisoners of Rock and Roll

KISS was well known for their image, the characters, and the merch. But behind the makeup and pyrotechnics, Ace Frehley brought the fire. Ace was the secret weapon: a Bronx-bred, unschooled guitar slinger whose wild bends, dinosaur vibrato, and pentatonic mayhem gave KISS songs their teeth. No formal lessons, just a Les Paul through a Marshall on ten, loose picking, and pure feel. He didn't just p...

You guys ready for this one?  Dr. Dre didn’t just have a great run in hip-hop… he reshaped the entire genre three separate times in less than thirty years.  First, as the driving force behind N.W.A. He helped take raw, unfiltered gangsta rap out of the streets of Compton and slam it onto the national stage. Straight Outta Compton, an actual FBI warning letter — the whole thing was a cultural explo...

Summer’s coming in hot, and so are we. In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re checking out one of the coolest, most American sounds in rock history: surf music.  It’s a sound designed to imitate the ocean — dripping wet reverb, a clean glowing tone, and that lightning-fast, machine-gun guitar picking you instantly recognize.  It exploded right in the gap between the first wave of roc...

Jerry Garcia never wanted to be the leader. He was the reluctant heart of the Grateful Dead — the quiet, bearded wizard whose guitar could take a song and stretch it into an all-night cosmic journey. But whether he liked it or not, the band revolved around him, and the counterculture found its soundtrack in his hands. Garcia was a profoundly complicated man. A devoted family guy who cherished his...

It’s easy and honestly fun to complain about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Every year, they announce a class of inductees and music fans rise up in anger asking “how is so and so not in yet” or “how did this person get in before that person.” Or, my favorite, “what? That person isn’t even rock and roll.” We all do it. Hell, we’ve done entire episodes on how the Rock Hall screwed up.  But the Roc...

Twisted Sister started as a hard-working bar band in the New York/New Jersey club scene. These guys played thousands of shows—eight thousand performances—grinding it out night after night in dive bars long before anyone knew their names. They perfected their wild theatrical metal sound the old-fashioned way: pure sweat and persistence. Then came 1984. Stay Hungry exploded, and MTV turned 'We're No...

Rock and roll started to lose its way in the late 1970s. The bands that once sounded dangerous were now playing 10-minute guitar solos in hockey arenas. Progressive rock groups were building entire albums around fantasy epics. Disco had taken over the charts and dance floors. Punk exploded then quickly burned out.  If you were a kid looking for something fresh, rock and roll felt a little…tired. ...

In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re diving into 1976 – that wild year where America turned 200 with fireworks, flags, and music exploding everywhere. It is also the year where Ryan and I were born.  And the music world celebrated us joining the party by releasing Hotel California from the Eagles, Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, and Boston’s Debut Album. David Bowie was T...

In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re talking about covers – those magical moments where one artist takes another’s song and makes it their own…Wait, we said that in the monologue of last episode. Well it’s true! We had so many songs to talk about that we decided to jump back into the trenches and talk about more of those moments where one artist grabs a song and turns it upside dow...

In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re talking about covers – those magical moments where one artist takes another’s song and makes it their own. Sometimes they stay faithful to the original. Sometimes they completely blow it up and rebuild it into something fresh.  We’re going to talk about covers that cross genres like Johnny Cash turning Nine Inch Nails into a heartbreaking confes...

It's that time of year again: our 6th annual Christmas Episode! We've roasted bad holiday tunes, thrown epic Christmas parties with rock legends, and even had a blue Christmas diving into the blues. But this year, we're sneaking around the holiday playlist like a couple of grinches with a twist. We're talking about those classic "Christmas" songs that get blasted every December... but if you liste...

We’re opening the vault on the single most mythical recording in Bruce Springsteen’s long career: Electric Nebraska. In January 1982: Bruce locked himself in a bedroom with a four-track and cut ten of the bleakest songs he’s ever written. A few months later, he took those songs into the studio with the E Street Band and tried them loud. They didn’t work. Bruce ultimately released the original demo...

Hey there, groove rebels, light one up and crank it loud. In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re blazing through songs about weed. From Willie Nelson’s outlaw anthems to Snoop Dogg’s chronic classics, the Grateful Dead’s tie-dye jams, and Cypress Hill’s hazy hits, pot’s been music’s smoky sidekick for decades. But we’re not just name-dropping—we’re digging deep into tracks that tell...

In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re reliving the one hit wonders of the 1990s. This was a defining decade for us because it’s when we graduated high school and college, and we spent a lot of it slinging CDs in a record store, back when your local mall had record stores. Music was literally in the background all the time, whether we were watching MTV, sitting in our rooms rocking o...

Abbey Road Studios in London, England was the world’s first purpose-built recording studio. Opened way back in 1931, this building and the people inside have been at the cutting edge of recording technology for over 90s years. Abbey Road Studios is most famous for being where The Beatles recorded almost all of their music, but it also drove innovation with stereo recording, multitracks, editing, a...

After doing a few episodes on scandals and artists who did time in prison, we’re flipping the script and shining a light on the good people in music – artists who pay it forward and have a reputation for just being good people.  We’ve got Dolly Parton sending books to kids through her Imagination Library and Alice Cooper swinging his golf clubs to fund youth programs. Ludacris donating school supp...

In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re going all the way back to the beginning of rock and roll – and our back catalogue – by taking another look at Sun Records.  In January 1950, Sam Phillips and his assistant Mario Keisker opened a small recording studio in a former auto glass repair shop in Memphis, Tennessee and the rest is rock and roll history. Sun Records brought us the first...

The world of music is full of interesting characters, and some of them are unfortunately bad people. In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re following our namesake by talking about musicians who did time in prison.  We have a long list of artists from different genres who spent some time behind bars, and we’re going to talk about them, their crimes, and the music they made.  We’ve got...

In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re sailing into the open waters of yacht rock and asking the burning question that needs to be asked: does yacht rock suck? Is it a rock rebel’s nightmare or sunlight escapism? The musical equivalent of enjoying a cocktail on a sunset cruise or more like being on that Titan submarine that imploded a few years ago.  Grab your life vest, drop anchor,...

Today, we’re diving into the unrelenting collapse of hair metal empire. A music scene that crashed harder than Vince Neil's drunk driving accident killed Razzle Dingley.   Sure, bands like Def Leppard, Motley Crue, and Poison are still out on the road, playing for nostalgic crowds of people who yearn to hear those power chords. But for every one of those groups that are still selling merch and pla...

Ladies and gentlemen, gather ‘round the mic because in this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re exploring some of music’s greatest duets – where two voices come together like Jack and Coke, peanut butter and jelly, or Snoop dog and weed. We’ve got a pretty solid list of crossovers and collaborations that will have you saying, “oh yeah, I remember that song” as you turn up the radio to hea...

In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re looking at the clash between music and The Man diving into times when the FBI investigated musicians. In 1956, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI created a covert and legally questionable program called COINTELPRO with the goal of disrupting groups that the Feds considered to be subversive – communists, black nationalists, feminists, anti Vietnam protestors,...

Van Halen was one of the greatest American rock and roll bands of all time, captivating audiences with their energetic performances, innovative guitar riffs, and catchy lyrics. Led by  guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen, Van Halen created the perfect blend of hard rock with some pop sensibilities..  Even as their sound evolved over the years as they switched back and forth between the showmanship of...

In this episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we’re diving into the shadows of the stage—the bass players, the four-string rebels who hold down the low end.. These aren’t just rhythm keepers; they’re the heartbeat of rock, the growl in the groove. We’ve put together a list of some of the most iconic bass players in music history. James Jamerson, the legendary Motown musician who played the slinky...

Prisoners of Rock and Roll is a show where we talk about music, the people who make it, and the everlasting effect it has on us. Today’s episode is personal. Last week, we lost Ryan’s dad John McCusker – he was a South Philadelphia icon who always put his family first, the owner of McCusker’s Tavern, a friend to thousands, a diehard baseball fan, and a music lover.  So in this episode of Prisoners...