DECEMBER 11, 2021

  have long championed the notion that Battle Beyond the Stars, B-movie mogul Roger Corman’s 1980 space opera on a shoestring, has been long overdue for a pop cultural rediscovery. It hasn’t happened yet. Strange considering that space opera these days is limited to the offerings of a galaxy far, far away and the final frontier. Thanks to streaming, we’re inundated with both Star Trek and Star Wars despite some hit or miss results. You would think that Corman’s humble space epic that got its plot points from Akira Kurosawa would spark some sort of curiosity. You mean to tell me it’s possible to keep a space western yarn limited to one movie? One clever movie? Not to say that Battle Beyond the Stars doesn’t boast any pop cultural bonus points. It was the film that got director James Cameron (The Terminator, Aliens, Titanic) his start by cutting his teeth as the film’s art director. Acclaimed screenwriter John Sayles wrote the film’s clever and exciting script. Producer Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens) also got her career in film going as an assistant to Roger Corman and Oscar-winning composer James Horner showed the world what he was made of. His score for the film was so out of this world that Corman’s studio used the damn thing in a couple of other unrelated movies.

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APRIL 18, 2021

APRIL 11, 2021

APRIL 6, 2021

MARCH 5, 2021

JANUARY 31, 2021

DECEMBER 27, 2020

hristmas is over and now everyone is back to worrying about the stimulus package that has found itself in limbo. 2020 has been a battlefield year marked by a global pandemic, civil unrest, Karens, an ugly Presidential Election and death. The only thing that can be agreed upon is that this catastrophic year needs to come to an end and the end of this week, we're all going to get our wish. Singer songwriter and former CHICAGO front man BILL CHAMPLIN is especially excited for all that the promise of a new year holds. On January 1, 2021 CHAMPLIN will be ringing in the New Year with the release of his new single REASON TO BELIEVE from his forthcoming album LIVIN' FOR LOVE soon to be released digitally through IMAGEN RECORDS. Physical CDs will soon be available through CHAMPLIN's website www.billchamplin.com/shop. LIVIN' FOR LOVE will mark CHAMPLIN's first solo album in ten years. As society is in the midst of a pandemic, the release of CHAMPLIN's latest solo offering comes at an exciting time indeed. However, CHAMPLIN's musical career is one that has been marked by a series of exciting highs as both a singer and a songwriter.

DECEMBER 6, 2020

hen I got on the phone with NORMAN MATTHEW of AS STRANGE AS ANGELS it was a whole hour before he and drummer MICHELLE GRAVES were going to kick off a livestream performance on YOUTUBE. The excitement was electric and tangible even over the phone, but then again, it was the eve of the release of the band's new single THE CURSE – a thunderous active rock stomper that is all about raging against the darkness and stepping into the light. The subject is not entirely unexpected coming from MATTHEW – a songwriter who has made a decent coin within the heavier side of rock – but the rah-rah-rah comes at a most frightening time for music and music makers. In the throes of a pandemic that has only worsened it is the fighting spirit of active rock that seems to be the only music addressing the crisis and AS STRANGE AS ANGELS have their work cut out for them in a grim way. Things couldn't be further away from the time I first spoke with MATTHEW five years earlier.

NOVEMBER 22, 2020

y 1982 PAT BENATAR, rock n roll's premiere coloratura, had become a force to be reckoned with in the world of music. The proof of this was in three platinum selling albums that boasted the woman's flare for the dramatic when it came to matters of the heart and sexual politics. Even if critics of the day weren't on board with what the diminutive siren had to offer, two consecutive GRAMMY wins in the category of BEST FEMALE ROCK VOCAL PERFORMANCE ( In 1981 for her album CRIMES OF PASSION and in 1982 for the single FIRE AND ICE) provided both vindication and validation. Fuck ROLLING STONE! While gramophone-shaped trophies and favorable chart placings on the BILLBOARD 200 gave the ex-bank teller-turned lounge singer-turned rocker some enviable notoriety, it was MTV that made BENATAR a superstar.

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

o one was prepared for the horrors of 2020. No one could've predicted civilization being rocked to a stand still by the prevalence of a virus that forces one to wear a mask and keep six feet away from both strangers and loved ones alike. And lets not even bring up one of the most bitter and contentious election cycles ever in this country. We may not have expected wine and roses but no one saw an ATWOOD-styled dystopia either. However, the synth duo BLACK MANSIONS may have been on the money with the release of their haunting debut EP, PART I – PRAECURSIO. Comprised of singer TOM KUNZMAN of the band 18^th & ADDISON and keyboardist SPAGS of the band END OF AN ERA, BLACK MANSIONS is a project that has allowed these two gentlemen to break free from the guitar driven rock that their respective bands are noted for and traverse the kind of synthesized musical landscape that made groups such as DEPECHE MODE and YAZOO the transistorized pioneers that they have become in the annals of pop music.

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

t was only the summer of 2000 and already the new millennium felt like a bust. It was my first full year out of college and my days were spent working various temp jobs and my evenings were devoted to playing in a band I had started. Starting a band was what I had wanted to do the most once I got out of college and I had already prepared myself for having to work some job I didn't like in order to help make that silly rock n roll dream a reality. I was young and I knew I could do it but eventually the band broke up after an ugly fistfight and all I was left with was strumming on an acoustic guitar, working a job I hated and drinking too much. Oh 1999 was supposed to be a launching point for me but the last notch of the 20^th century wasn't the party that PRINCE predicted. Hell, even STAR WARS came back and that sucked. I complain in retrospect but no one had any idea of the horrors that were just around the corner in terms of a terrorist attack and the shitty millennium that has ensued. At least BLONDIE got back together.

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

ack in 1991 I was sixteen years old and life as I knew it was falling apart due to the bitter, contentious and exhausting separation of my parents. This coincided with the year that grunge music had entered the public consciousness thanks to the blistering rage of NIRVANA and the flannel shirted cock rock raucousness of PEARL JAM. One would think that a sixteen year old like me at that time would've found common ground in this new rock n roll onslaught, but I didn't. I was a gawky, mixed race kid who had nothing in common with the white rage that was coming out of Seattle. The grunge movement to me seemed like a drab fashion movement and its puritanical ethos was at odds with the music I grew up loving in the bright, neon colored eighties. In fact, rivaling my obsession over the work of FRANK HERBERT at that time was my eagerness to immerse myself in the music that had come before me.

SEPTEMBER 5, 2020

he post 9/11 world desperately needed the cartoon toughness of PAT BENATAR. After the collapse of the World Trade Center, American society had become stifled. It was no time for jokes and it was the beginning of much of the political divisiveness that has taken hold of our cultural landscape today and in the aftermath of the terror attacks by Al-Qaeda forces entrenched in Afghanistan, the country went to war...with Iraq. In a strange way it all sounds like a piece of cake now given the fact that we are in the rows of a global pandemic. We may not have had to wear masks and we may have been able to move freely, but culturally, the years that followed 9/11 were bereft. There was a sanitization that took place in music with artists like DIDO, NORAH JONES, JOHN MAYER and DAMIEN RICE putting out material that was heavy on wistfulness and pop psychological heartache, but nothing terribly punchy. Hell, even a punchy, alternative rock band like NO DOUBT went pop that year with that HEY BABY shit. This clean cut approach to pop was irritating. Thank god for PINK. Oh and there was that band EVANESCENCE with that breakthrough hit of theirs, but that got on my nerves quickly. The musical landscape of the time could've used BENATAR's pyrotechnic vocals and fighting spirit.

AUGUST 30, 2020

here wasn't a better time than 1989 to be a confused teenager. The REAGAN years got a little bit of an extension thanks to the election of GEORGE W. BUSH and my fourteen year old self wondered if that was a good thing. The AIDS crisis was in full swing and as a gawky, lanky, biracial kid coming to terms with the fact that I was gay, this disease was terrifying just by the stigma alone. The Berlin Wall came down and the communist threat was over, but what did that mean? My only refuge from all of the confusion was pop radio and STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION, but with playlists seeming finite in what they had to offer and MTV pushing the same damn thing radio was, it seemed like pop music had become the hierarchy that this high school business was. BELINDA CARLISLE had declared heaven a place on Earth back in 1987 but two years on, I was starting to know better. At least there wasn't a fucking pandemic.

AUGUST 27, 2020

n the late spring of 1984 my family had purchased a brand new station wagon. A Peugot station wagon – a now little known French vehicle that wasn't easy to buy parts for. However, this Peugot 505 was assembly line new. We didn't have a ton of money growing up so a new car felt like a big deal. It finally felt like we had finally stepped into the eighties and this was just during out initial test drive. One of the features that the Peugot brand was known for was the sound systems in their vehicles and my dad had the dial on the local R&B station 95 WPGC. I remember the day so clearly because it was a happy moment for our family and ours was a family that had known a little turbulence. I remember a lot of rain and sunshine that day and the resultant rainbow appearing which kind of seemed symbolic of our coming up in the world. It was on that drive and through the speakers of that car that I first heard the voice of TINA TURNER.

AUGUST 23, 2020

here was a time when pop music was serious business and artistry and commerce could come together and be happy. These days it's all about commerce and the offerings of today's pop tarts and bruhs seem tuneless and unmemorable, but that's a middle aged man's perspective. I grew up in a time when pop music was artful. Not only was it filled with melodies you couldn't get out of your head, it also had a look and that was due largely to MTV giving the music of the day a cinematic grandeur. The height of this grandeur was the year 1984 which boasted some rather iconic releases such as PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION's PURPLE RAIN, MADONNA'S LIKE A VIRGIN, TINA TURNER'S PRIVATE DANCER and CYNDI LAUPER'S SHE'S SO UNUSUAL. All of the sales for these albums were powered by MTV. Hell, MICHAEL JACKSON's THRILLER was still a hit album more than a year after its release and was still setting the course for pop music to come. In fact, it was the MICHAEL JACKSON/QUINCY JONES approach to album making that would have a profound influence over a certain Trinidadian-British R&B crooner who would burst onto the U.S. pop scene with a pulsating single that would climb all the way to #1 on the U.S. HOT 100 after years of attempting to crossover to the U.S. Market.

AUGUST 19, 2020

AUGUST 16, 2020

've said it before in other articles and I'll say it again, the nineties was a confusing time. Well, the early nineties anyway. Grunge rock was king with bands like NIRVANA, PEARL JAM and ALICE IN CHAINS securing platinum sales with music that was speaking to the angst of mostly white suburban kids (who knew?) rendering the eyeliner, hairspray and glamour typified by much of eighties hard rock and heavy metal obsolete. Despite the success of these bands and the cultural shift that came with their success, it was strange to see this indifference to the fame and notoriety it generated. It's even harder to imagine now where not even a pandemic has done much to curb this strange appetite for celebrity worship. It's fine with me as long I don't have to look at Doc Marten boots or flannel shirts en masse again. Even as an 18 year old in 1993, I found myself longing for the days when rock n roll could pretty itself up and deliver on the promise of drugs and sex. In 1993 rock n roll was all about suffering.

AUGUST 9, 2020

n a time when pop stardom is doled out on this or that televised singing contest, it may be hard to remember that there was a time when getting your name out there was a dues paying process. Such was the case for a young woman out of Long Island with a four and a half octave range and a dream. In the seven years before the release of her platinum selling debut album, PAT BENATAR, nee ANDRZEJEWSKI, got the ball rolling on her singing career as a singer in a Richmond, Virginia - based lounge quartet called COXON's ARMY. As local recognition of the young singer grew, so did BENATAR's ambitions and she set course for New York City, where the action was. Strangely, her start in New York didn't happen at TRAMPS or in the grit and grime of CBGBs, but at CATCH A RISING STAR, a comedy club famous for launching the careers of ROBIN WILLIAMS, EDDIE MURPHY and RICHARD BELZER. It was here that BENATAR began honing her sound as a pop siren with a decided rock n roll edge, even if the house band at the time didn't even have a guitarist. One Halloween night in 1977, BENATAR sported a black leotard, heavy eye make up and a toy laser gun as tribute to the 50's b-grade science fiction film CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON. Reactions to her live act in those days were strong, but with a new look, the crowd went wild and BENATAR incorporated the look thereafter. Little did she know how impactful the look would be in the years to come. Soon she was signed to CHRYSALIS RECORDS and her MIKE CHAPMAN (BLONDIE, THE KNACK) produced debut album IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT busted out of the gate with platinum sales with a little help from that joyful raucous of a first single HEARTBREAKER and nothing like THE VOICE or ADAM LEVINE hitting a buzzer and turning around in his chair was needed. Not bad for a 26 year old divorcee.

AUGUST 8, 2020

AUGUST 3, 2020

JULY 30, 2020

JULY 30, 2020

JULY 28, 2020

JULY 25, 2020

APRIL 30, 2020

APRIL 5, 2020
ROCKWiRED NOTES: ZOMBiEKiNG


APRIL 3, 2020
ROCKWiRED NOTES: A LOST ASYLUM


APRIL 3, 2020
ROCKWiRED NOTES: DELTAPHONiC


MARCH 28, 2020
ROCKWiRED NOTES: RELiC KiNGS


MARCH 25, 2020
ROCKWiRED NOTES: NEVERWAKE


MARCH 9, 2020
ROCKWiRED ARTiST OF THE MONTH NOMiNEES: ZOMBiEKiNG, A LOST ASYLUM, RELiC KiNGS, NEVERWAKE, ALL SOULS, JANGLiNG SPARROWS AND JEFF CARLSON BAND!!!


MARCH 9, 2020
ROCKWiRED NOTES: JEFF CARLSON BAND


FEBRUARY 22, 2020
ROCKWiRED NOTES: JANGLiNG SPARROWS