Iz Prve Ruke

Clearly a massive fan of Neil Young, Bob Dylan and The Beatles, Tonics has a blog here that'll get anyone with similar tastes salivating.

Chock full of goodies, he's got a seemingly endless list of bootlegs from all of the above, along with other major players of the same ilk whilst also, on occasion, throwing in another sound from somewhere out of left field (The Exploited anybody?).

If you like your music primarily from the rock/folk stable and you want to find some high quality boots you haven't got, or if you just want a rummage to see what Tonics has thrown into the mix on a whim, check him out.

izprveruke.blogspot.com/neil young & crazy horse-weld

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Weld (1991)

Forget "No Sleep Til Hammersmith"; dump "Live In Leeds"; shove your "Live & Dangerous". To these ears this is the best live rock album ever released.

From the opening bars of Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) to the closing of Roll Another Number (For The Road) Young and The Horse crunch through the numbers, predominantly from the "Rust Never Sleeps"/"Live Rust" albums but with additional Young classics such as Cortez The Killer and Cinnamon Girl as well as Young's treatment of Dylan's Blowin' In The Wind, all delivered with an intensity and sound that makes your hair stand on end.

Throughout you can almost feel the static in the air and the stupendous production and sound quality really make you feel like you're there. This is the ultimate electric guitar record.

Clocking in at a couple of hours it's a long listen but well worth it. Be blown away.

www.neilyoung.com

A Dashing Blade

Dashing Blade opens his site with the comment "just some stuff I reckon you should hear before you die" and I couldn't agree more.

Bizarrely the site pretty much mirrors my own record collection so imagine my delight when I found it!

Mixing great music (anything from ABC to New York Dolls) with some unusual entries such as radio broadcasts, audio books and "Sounds Of The Rainforest", a free Sunday newspaper CD, and inordinately well-written commentary, A Dashing Blade is a fascinating delve into one man's sounds and interests and that, alone, is certainly going to keep this writer coming back for more.

adashingblade.blogspot.com/deep and meaningless

The Pretenders - The Pretenders (1980)

One of the great debut albums, "Pretenders" still gives me goose-bumps even after 30 years and repeated listenings.

An ex-journo and bona fide rock chick, Chrissie Hynde had brought together a group of genuinely brilliant musicians, having tried out with a number of early-incarnations of punk bands in the mid to late 70s.

There's no need to specify and describe tracks here as every one is a genuine winner, but up for special mention must go "Precious", a barn-storming barrage of new wave rock guitar and bass, "Tattooed Love Boys", odd-tempoed but astounding and "The Wait", pure rock pop class.

Other special mentions must go to the band's cover of The Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing" (Hynde later lived with and had a child by Ray Davies), "Private Life", covered later to exemplary effect by Grace Jones and the massive hit single "Brass In Pocket".

The tragedy unfolded shortly after the follow up, Pretenders II, when both guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bassist Pete Farnden succumbed to drugs overdoses within weeks of each other.

This is a must have album, if not for the fact that it's a genuine classic then for the sheer, unadulterated joy of listening to it and the knowledge that you're hearing genius at work.

www.thepretenders.com

Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson (1971)

An iconic album that was part of the background to my own childhood and the only record that I brought with me from my parents' (truly dire) collection into adulthood.

I can't do better in review than J R Heat Warp at the marvellous devotional blog For The Love Of Harry. I hope he forgives this lift...

"Following the moderate success of Nilsson Sings Newman and The Point!, Harry enlisted the production help of Richard Perry, booked London’s Trident Studio and set out to make the most rock n’ roll album of his career. Nilsson Schmilsson signaled a shift away from the heavy orchestration, multi-layered harmonies and rich production that characterized his 60s output, and toward a more organic, raucous approach to music making; a massively successful move that would yield a pair of top 40 singles (“Coconut” and “Jump Into the Fire”) as well as a worldwide #1 (“Without You”). And with this change in direction and the success that followed, it would be easy to peg Nilsson Schmilsson as Harry's "sell-out" album, and fortunately, it's anything but. In addition to the chart toppers contained within this iconic sleeve (evidently RCA failed to notice the hash pipe in Harry's left hand) were some of the most adventurous, flat out beautiful songs in his repertoire. Musicians have built entire careers around the success of songs half as good as "Early In The Morning", but here Harry knocks it out with just an organ and a set of pipes that at this point are merely colored by brandy and cigarettes, not yet ravaged by the hard partying that lay ahead. An intense, gorgeous LP that in true Nilsson fashion, left him with no other choice but to make a sequel." - JR Heat Warp

fortheloveofharry.blogspot.com

Wilfully Obscure

Spavid of Wilfully Obscure claims to dedicate his blog "to the freaks and rejects. The lonely and awkward. The last picked. Never picked. The hopeless romantic dreamers". That must be a very big club 'cos the site's got something for everyone who likes their rock alternative and with a twist and a bite.

If you're a student of US hardcore and alt-rock this blog's going to keep you interested for years, bursting with bands you don't (yet) know and love, precis to the fore. It's like rifling through the racks of an independant record shop with a wallet full of cash.

If this don't boost your listening pleasure nothing will!

wilfullyobscure.blogspot.com/pods its a bummer about bourbie

Varsity Drag - For Crying Out Loud (2006)

Ben Deily (and he must be sick to the back teeth of this tag line by now) started The Lemonheads with Evan Dando from school but split after three albums and a shit-load of critical praise.

Shortly after returning with his brother Jonno as Pods he split again to go back to school and launch a successful advertising career.

He was back in the new century with Varsity Drag and released this astounding collection in 2006.

Opener "Skinny Ties" ramps it up from the off with the familiar Deily riffage pop-centric vocals then we're into "Billy Ruane", a crunching ode to the "best dressed drunk I ever saw".

"Summertime" is straight in after, then "Miles Of Ocean", guitars redolent of classic Killing Joke but with Deily's ever positive vocals "taking hands across a thousand miles of ocean". Next track "1999" lightens the mood with tinkling piano intro and "2001 just around the bend" before "Look At Me", doop-doop's to the fore reminiscent of some of the greatest power-pop you've ever heard.

In "Starfish" we're back with the crashing guitars again and the tempo slows once more for "My Neighbor Works For Goodby" before we leave this (oh too short) album with "Hey", back with the pop feel he's so good at.

All told "For Crying Out Loud" is the best power-pop (I hate that phrase but you know what I mean) record I've ever heard and seems to have been shamefully overlooked by the masses. If you like your music with punk guitars, pop hooks and a clever dash of humour buy this CD and put the world to rights. It'll brighten your day

http://www.ben-deily.com/