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Heart by Heart: Chad Quist, Lizzy Daymont, Michael Derosier, Somar Macek and Steve Fossen.

Heart by Heart Keeps the Magic Men Spinning and Barracudas Swimming

By Bob Ruggiero

Apr 22, 2022

Asked to name any members of the band Heart, most casual listeners would be able to mentally cough up sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. After all, the vocalist and guitarist have been the “faces” and most photographed of the group since their 1975 debut Dreamboat Annie, as well as being...

Everclear in 2022: Freddy Herrera, Art Alexakis, Davey French and Brian Nolan.

Art Alexakis on Three Decades of Everclear, Making Noise and His Own Future Path

By Bob Ruggiero

Apr 20, 2022

When we spoke with Art Alexakis of Everclear in July of last year, the band’s founder/singer/guitarist was literally a day away from launching their Summerland package tour trek across the U.S. One that already filled him with equal amounts of excitement and nervousness, given the whole pandemic situation. “It was...

Nazareth in 2022: Jimmy Murrison, Pete Agnew, Carl Sentance and Lee Agnew.

Classic Rockers Nazareth Keep Surviving on 25th Album

By Bob Ruggiero

Apr 19, 2022

Ah, COVID, you bastard! You have not been a friend to so, so many Classic Rock bands who had ambitious and wonderful plans to celebrate a 50th anniversary of their founding or first album in 2020…or 2021…or 2022. That includes Scottish hard rockers Nazareth, whose self-titled debut dropped in 1971...

We won't be seeing Houston Ballet Principals Yuriko Kajiya and Connor Walsh perform in Madame Butterfly this season after all.

Houston Ballet Opts Out of Madame Butterfly For Now, Due to Supply Chain Problems

By Margaret Downing

Apr 15, 2022

Thanks to COVID-related supply chain problems, Houston Ballet has announced it won't be able to present Madame Butterfly this June as scheduled, and are replacing it with one of the oldest ballets on record. "Due to the continued impact of global shipping issues and port delays, [Artistic Director] Stanton Welch’s...

America at the London Palladium in 2018: Rich Campbell, Dewey Bunnell, Ryland Steen, Gerry Beckley and Steve Fekete.

American History: Dewey Bunnell Celebrates 50 Years (Give or Take) of Music

By Bob Ruggiero

Apr 13, 2022

Among Beatlemaniacs, there’s a famous 1963 interview clip of the Fab Four in which they’re asked what the future might hold when the bubble inevitably bursts on their showbiz career. Ringo Starr—apparently serious—said that he fancied opening a string of ladies’ hairdressing salons. The idea that a pop or rock...

Micki Free with just some of his treasured guitars.

Micki Free Plays Blues Rock with a Touch of Turquoise

By Bob Ruggiero

Apr 7, 2022

Micki Free certainly remembers the first time he met Houston Local-Boy-Done-Good Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top at the Hard Rock Café in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The pair convened for lunch; the meal brokered by his guitar tech Sammy Sanchez, who also worked for Gibbons. A well-known obsessive guitar collector, Gibbons...

Scarface supports his son Chris Jordan as he accepts a donation from Adam Ross for the Chris Jordan Quality of Life Foundation.

Chris Jordan Donates a Kidney to His Dad Scarface and Starts a Foundation With Help From The Suit Boss

By DeVaughn Douglas

Mar 31, 2022

“Hey Brad! Let’s try this one,” exclaims Adam Ross, as he walks across the room with a tie in his outstretched hand. As Brad takes the tie and makes a few more adjustments, Ross watches on and directs the photographer to snap another set of pictures. As he looks, Ross speaks...

Bill Maher has a TV show, standup tour, podcast, and new HBO special coming out.

Bill Maher Has a Lot to Say about Trump, Ted Cruz, Wokeness, Millennials & More

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 31, 2022

For one hour each week (and a little extra online), Bill Maher addresses, dissects, skewers, pontificates and debates with guests the social and political topics of the day on his long-running HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher. But given just how batshit crazy things are going these days in...

Thrash Titans Testament Strike Back—Finally!

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 25, 2022

It’s been over two years since thrash metal titans Testament have been able to go out on the road. Their last pre-pandemic run of dates was in Europe with openers Exodus and Death Angel. The three bands share both a San Francisco-area geographical and personal history that stretches back to...

The Darkness may dress like a gang, but they're not! L to R: Justin Hawkins, Rufus "Tiger" Taylor, Frankie Poullain and Dan Hawkins.

The Darkness Bring Salvation with Hard Rock, Sex Robots, and a Clean Shave

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 23, 2022

Though these UK hard rockers are known as The Darkness, right now they’re only seeing White Lightness out the windows of their tour bus. That’s because a blinding snowstorm has been raging for five hours as they motor across Canada. But after some false starts, bassist Frankie Poullain is finally...

Queen Elizabeth II is the latest public figure to get dragged into the ivermectin conspiracy.

The Latest Ivermectin Nonsense

By Jef Rouner

Mar 10, 2022

The anti-parasite drug Ivermectin continues to be the favorite alternative to COVID vaccination traded back and forth by the conspiracy-minded and the gullible. Though the drug has fallen out of the news cycle during the Russian invasion, the tinfoil-hat crowd have continued spreading as much disinformation as they can on...

Lou Christie today: Still hitting the high notes.

Lou Christie Strikes Again in "Stars of the Sixties"

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 8, 2022

If you had a hit record on the Top 40 charts between 1959 and 1966, it was almost a rite of passage to get on a bus, crisscross the country, and play on a Dick Clark Caravan of Stars tour. The amiable-but-business-savvy host of the incredibly influential American Bandstand would...

Tony Hazzard getting horizontal during a recording session break, late 1960s.

'60s Hitmaker Tony Hazzard Demonstrates His Songwriting Craft

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 7, 2022

It was the late 1960s and Tony Hazzard was visiting his neighbor John Paul Jones one morning for coffee and conversation in the English village of Loudwater. Hazzard, an accomplished pop songwriter and sometimes performer, knew that his musically-gifted mate was playing bass in a new band. But Hazzard wasn’t...

The Waymores are a duo on record and in real life.

The Waymores Couple Up in Country

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 1, 2022

Of all the genres, male-female duets seem most prevalent in country music. Think of the classic sides from June and Johnny, Conway and Loretta, George and Tammy, Kenny and Dolly and Tim and Faith. Sometimes the duo is a couple in real life, and sometimes just paired on record. It’s...

Soon we'll see be seeing the man behind the mask all the time.

HISD Students Won't Have to Wear Masks Anymore

By Margaret Downing

Feb 28, 2022

Houston ISD Superintendent Millard House II announced Monday that as of Tuesday, students will no longer be required to wear masks at school. The change was anticipated after the Centers for Disease Control announced that it was now advising healthy people living in areas where the risk of contracting COVID-19...

Gilbert O'Sullivan Won't Be Alone at Tour Opener in Tomball

By Bob Ruggiero

Feb 10, 2022

In the spring of 2020, the UK-based Gilbert O’Sullivan was excited about coming to the United States. in April for his first tour of these shores in a while. Then, of course, the world (and the entire concert business) shut down. And while that was devastating for most bands and...

Ambrosia in 2022: Kipp Lennon, Joe Puerta (seated), Christopher North, Mary Harris, Burleigh Drummond and Doug Jackson.

The Two Tastes of Ambrosia

By Bob Ruggiero

Feb 8, 2022

Sometimes, bands can have two entirely separate musical lives. There’s the group that casual listeners “know” from their successful, Top 40 hits. Then there’s a different side understood by more hardcore fans and deep cut listeners. Such is the case with Ambrosia. Ambrosia’s place in music culture is cemented by...

A theatrical, state-of-the-art, mesmerizing production of The Magic Flute.

HGO's The Magic Flute: It Looks Like a Silent Movie, Sounds Like Mozart

By D. L. Groover

Feb 5, 2022

Houston Grand Opera's presentation of Mozart's final masterpiece, The Magic Flute, a co-production between Komische Oper Berlin and London avant-garde theater company 1927, is one for the ages. You haven't seen anything quite like it. It is spellbinding, amazingly theatrical, state-of-the-art, and thoroughly mesmerizing. A feat of theater prestidigitation of...

Ronnie Scott introduces an act at the legendary London jazz club that bears his name.

Ronnie Scott's Doc Blows Jazzy Tales of the Man and the Club

By Bob Ruggiero

Feb 3, 2022

“Only really an idiot would really go into the jazz club business. Let’s face it.” – Ronnie Scott For more than six decades, jazz fans have flocked to London’s Soho District with one destination in mind: to glide through the small, nondescript door of Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. Since its...

Two Houston members of Congress have signed a letter calling for an investigation into nurses' pay.

Houston Democrats Want White House to Investigate if Nurses Are Paid Too Much

By Jef Rouner

Feb 3, 2022

So much for healthcare heroes. A bipartisan group of 200 members of the U.S. House of Representatives has sent a letter to the COVID-19 Response Team Coordinator Jeffrey Zients asking for an investigation into whether travel nurses are being paid too much. “The persistent strain of the pandemic has required...

Coronavirus

Shaun Cassidy: The Hardly Idle Idol

Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia's Blues PDA of "Brotherly" Love

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