Your Sound Choice
Bios and stories about the artists we feature
The Turtles almost didn’t happen. Call it fate or kismet or whatever, but one of the top selling bands of the late 1960s were DOA and then they weren’t (more on this in a bit). When vocalist Mark Voman passed away in September of 2025, it prompted me to find a copy of his […]
Let me set the record straight once and for all. Jethro Tull was a real person. He was an 18th Century agriculturist known for inventing the seed drill. Tull’s name was suggested to band leader Ian Anderson by their manager when they moved from the north of England to London. Gigs were hard to […]
I have an admission to make: I have always been and continue to be addicted to reading newspapers. It began innocently enough when I would grab the Marquette Mining Journal that the paperboy would put behind our screen door each day. The first and only order of business when this started was to flip to […]
The following artist’s names conjure up an instant mental image: Cher, Elvis, Prince, Madonna, Rihanna, Shakira, Adele, Beyonce, Bono, Sting, Eminem, Sade, Kesha, Flea, and Slash (to name a few more modern examples). Do you remember the black leather clad Elvis or the spangly jumpsuited Elvis? Do you see Cher standing next to Sonny Bono […]
If you are wondering about my numbering system for the band Guns N’ Roses, let me count them off. Version 1.0, the original line up that found fame with their debut album, included Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagen, Izzy Stradlin, and Steven Adler on vocals, guitar, bass, second guitar and drums, respectively. They came […]
Though they span decades and many genres, there is a connecting thread between the following list of guitar players: Jeff Beck, Lindsey Buckingham, Ritchie Kotzen, Robbie Krieger, Albert Collins, Albert King, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, and, as noted in the title above, Mark Knopfler. It isn’t a brand of guitar, the […]
After frequently using and citing references from Guitar World magazine, I was asked why a drummer would subscribe to a guitar magazine. It was a valid question and my tongue in cheek answer was, “Well, with my guitar playing skills, it isn’t for the articles about shredding solos or pentatonic scales.” The truth is, […]
It has been a while since we did a quiz to shake up the old grey matter, and thanks to our friends at AARP magazine, we have another fun one to share. We tacked on a few questions with local appeal and (as we have done in the past), the answers begin near the […]
Over the first two weeks of September 2025, I took my third consecutive concert trip to the WOAS-FM West Coast Bureau in Eugene, Oregon. This trip was a little different because I didn’t get to actually see a live show. In 2023 and 2024, I got to see live performances at the Cuthbert Outdoor […]
From the Vaults: First Heard In August of 2025, I was reading an interesting article by ‘Metal’ Tim Henderson. He was interviewing Dave Meniketti from the band Y&T when the subject of Ozzy Osbourne’s last performance with Black Sabbath came up. Meniketti told Henderson he missed the big show in Birmingham on July 5, […]