LONDON CALLING!

  In honor of the Royal Couple (Prince William and Kate) arriving in Southern California today, I think I should talk a bit about music from the other side of the Pond. Yes the British Invasion, The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, oh yea and Led Zeppelin are the all time icons, I’ll end that list now or I could go on forever. Now I might get a lot of slack for this, but there is one band that at their moment in time epitomized the UK sound with raw passion and reckless abandon. That band was The Clash. “London Calling” had power, soul, punk and good old Rock & Roll all in one package.

 Now let’s move on to 2011. ADELE, ADELE and ADELE. This genuine young lady is a major force to be reckoned with and voice to match! She is continuing to break sales records on the UK charts. Who knows how many singles will hit the top 10 from her new CD “21”.  Her voice is healed and she is heading back on tour here in the States. Last night she played a full set at the iTunes festival in London. She sounds awesome, go check it out.                            

 Today is also the “anniversary” day, as in one year since LeBron’s “infamous” ESPN televised decision event of “I’m going to South Beach”. This makes me think about Cleveland while thinking about the UK and Rock and Roll and it all comes together in song. Yes that’s right people, “Cleveland Rocks!” the anthem song sung by Britain’s own Ian Hunter. A true legend of the early punk scene with Mott The Hoople. The song “Cleveland Rocks” was first heard on the 1979 Ian Hunter solo release called (possibly my favorite all time CD name) “Your Never Alone With A Schizophrenic”.

 Here are two newer bands from the UK that are worth giving a listen to. The first is The Vaccines. They are getting some well deserved airplay on BBC radio and I like the song “If You Wanna”. You can hear a bunch of songs from them on their website:

http://www.thevaccines.co.uk/

 The second band is relatively new to the scene and has some of that raw English sound that I like. They are the Likely Lads. You can check out two new songs from them at the link below:

http://nottoofussed.com

 Final note for the day and positive music news to take into this weekend, according to the Nielsen Soundscan album sales have increased slightly for the first time in six years! The increase covers the first six months of 2011 compared to the same period last year. While it is a small gain it is a reversal of many years of double digit percentage declines. So my friends Long Live Music! Keep sending your music and thoughts.