RELEIGH, NC | Some Friday nights get circled on the calendar months in advance, and for the metal faithful of Raleigh, September 25 was one of them. W.A.S.P. rolled the 1984 To Headless tour into The Ritz with KK’s Priest along as very special guests—two bands carrying a serious share of heavy metal history. Nobody walked in expecting a quiet night. Nobody expected just how loud it would get, either.
Raleighwood showed up, and W.A.S.P. and KK’s Priest brought the wall of sound. When I arrived, people had been lining up since a little after lunch, mostly clad in all black, battle vests, and studs, and ready to rock.
KK’s Priest came out and wasted no time, busting out hit after hit with some of the biggest songs first: “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” “Breaking the Law,” and “Living After Midnight.” With former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing leading the charge and Tim “Ripper” Owens on vocals, the band dug deeper into the Priest catalog Downing helped build with “Beyond the Realms of Death,” “Victim of Changes,” and “Turbo Lover,” and mixed in their own “Hellfire Thunderbolt” and “Raise Your Fists.”
The energetic and very loud crowd showed the kind of love usually reserved for the last band of the night. The band mentioned they were recording all the shows, and Raleigh may just be the loudest. There was no doubt that people had been planning for this Friday night for a long time.
Famed songwriter Jimmy Webb has written hundreds of hits for dozens upon dozens of famous musicians, Glen Campbell being a prime recipient of Webb’s largesse. But the songs Webb wrote for Campbell were, well, songs, and not “MacArthur Park,” that fantastical overflow of deep thoughts expressed in the form of surrealistic imagery and incoherent similes. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Webb was on acid when he wrote it. Hell, maybe he was.
It was a long run of albums for Alligator that finally brought Albert Collins sustained and much-deserved recognition. Still, before his association with that long-serving Chicago-based indie, he’d already achieved the status of a Texas master. Along with T-Bone Walker, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Freddie King, and Lightnin’ Hopkins, Collins is an essential component in the Lone Star State’s post-World War II blues progression, and his pre-Alligator material reveals an artistry that thrived on versatility and yet was also quite focused.
Denver, CO | Wax Trax Pushes Established Legacy As Vinyl Institution Across Colorado: Just like any thriving industry, vinyl has its institutions. Some point to Amoeba Records in Los Angeles or shops like Rough Trade and Newbury Comics, but in Colorado, a humble operation has opened its doors to new generations of collectors since the mid-seventies. Wax Trax Records has become a landmark, not only for vinyl fanatics, but the local community as well. The mom-and-pop operation now boasts four locations across the great state of Colorado while maintaining a quaint feel across its wax empire, making it one of the more recognizable and long-standing names in record collecting. Wax Trax shows 
London, UK | Zuru’s Mini Brands brings vinyl pop-up to London: The one-day Listening Lounge welcomed crowds in London over the weekend with music, giveaways and refreshments Zuru’s Mini Brands turned up the volume on its Really Works Vinyl collection last weekend with a one-day Listening Lounge pop-up café in London, created by experiential agency Backlash. 
As the frontman and creative co-architect of Ultravox, co-writer of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, and the producer behind some of the most enduring records of the new wave era—including “Fade to Grey” and “Vienna”—he shaped synth-pop and post-punk at the moment both genres were finding their footing. His fingerprints are all over many eras.
And the songs I heard after that struck me as a bit fey and simplistic; Marc Bolan truly was a dandy in the underworld, and I failed to get the whole “T. Rextasy” thing that swept England in the wake of 1971’s Electric Warrior.
Ennis, UK | Clare poets go on the record for under threat Ennis store: A campaign to keep the doors open at Ennis’ only vinyl record store and cafe The Record Break has been given a ‘write’ boost as a collective of women poets has come back together for a fundraising tour of the county in support. In 2018, a group of women poets in Clare formed under the name Seven Sisters to perform in response to the lack of representation of women’s work in a historic collection of Irish poetry. Among the original line-up of poets was Record Break owner Sinéad Nic Síoda and when fellow poet Ruth Marshall heard about her ongoing fundraising campaign to save the business 
Miami, FL | New Times members celebrate 35 years of Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” Grunge fans gathered at Technique Records in Miami for a listening party celebrating more than three decades of the landmark album by the Seattle band. Music has a way of bringing people together, and what better excuse for a gathering than the 35th anniversary of one of the most influential albums in rock history? On Wednesday, Sept. 23, Miami New Times took over Technique Records for a listening party celebrating 35 years of Nirvana’s seminal album, “Nevermind.” Members and local grunge fans gathered to revisit the record, trade memories and celebrate the lasting impact Nirvana has had on generations of musicians and listeners. And this 
Grand Funk was one of the biggest arena acts of the 1970s, but nowadays you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone besides Homer Simpson who will admit to liking them. I’ve never heard a single rocker cite Grand Funk as an influence, and unlike their Michigan brethren, the MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges, Grand Funk scored a big zero when it came to hipness factor. Their talk of revolution was transparently empty jive, they didn’t have a proto-punk bone in their bodies, and in general, all they did was fill arenas—something the far cooler MC5 and the anarchic Stooges never came close to doing—and make the people in those arenas (and their bongs) happy.
