Gary Markasky and the Temple of Life

By Chris Shapiro
April 2013

The Gary Markasky Project.

It’s a bar very similar to that of NBC’s sitcom Cheers.  You’re there once and everyone knows your name.  The place is Belmont Stakes.

Cookie, the owner, is talking to customers, to friends.  He and his wife run the neighborhood bar.  It’s one that’s nestled just off Belmont Avenue and easy to past by if you’re not paying close attention, as most treasure is.

The people in the bar are friends and close relations.  There’s a sense of family among them.

In the corner, there’s a band setting up.  Flood lights on the floor project larger than life shadows of five band members onto a wall behind them.  Their shadows symbolize their greater calling.  They’re knights who crusade to keep a treasure alive.  A treasure that is stored in the temple of the heart.  They are of the brotherhood of Rock ‘n Roll.

These men call themselves The Gary Markasky Project and leading the crusade is Markasky.

Baby, hold on, the Godfather’s in town

Review of Eddie Money at House of Blues
By Chris Shapiro

It’s not quite dusk. Through the window of the limo, the sun floats on the horizon like Aztec gold preparing to submerge into a sea of darkness. Skyscrapers rise in the distance marking the shrine of all that is called Rock ‘n Roll. Smoke billows into the industrious sky while Tequila is poured from a celebratory bottle. A toast is made for Eddie Pannutti, concert promoter and good friend of legendary rock star Eddie Money.

Eddie Money and good friend and concert promoter Eddie Pannutti at the House of Blues.

Pannutti is on his way to see the Money Man at the famous House of Blues to celebrate his 59th birthday. The two men have a lot in common. Not only are they March brothers, with birthdays only eleven days a part, but they’ve spent many years working together in the concert scene.

Pannutti is the longest running concert promoter in Youngstown, Ohio. He’s worked with Money for more than ten years to bring countless and top-notch shows to fans in the Youngstown area.

Through their work, a friendship developed. A friendship that was build from the same passion; that of music. It’s the substance that sustains and inspires. They live for it and will live for it until the sunset of their last day. Rock is in the blood of these March Brothers.

Question and Answer with Bret Michaels

 

Lead singer of Poison, Bret Michaels.
Photo used through Creative Commons. Author MATT BECKER-www.melodicrockconcerts.com – Attribution Weatherman90 at en.wikipedia

Bret Michaels, front man of Poison and native of the greater Pittsburgh area, will be performing at Jergel’s Rhythm Grille in Warrendale, PA on November 18th.  With Poison, Michaels has sold over 30 million records worldwide and enjoyed top-ten status with the hit singles, “Talk Dirty to Me,” “Nothin’ but a Good Time,” “Unskinny Bop,” “Something to Believe In” and the chart topping, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.”

Michaels took time a few days before the show to answer several questions from Retropulse Music.

Special Thanks to Jergel’s Rhythm Grille.

Question 1: How has being from the greater Pittsburgh area influenced your musical style?

Michaels: Well, Pittsburgh obviously was a blue collar town when I was growing up, and those kinds of towns lend themselves to the birth of the best raw rock and roll. I’m a story-telling song writer and that’s the kind of thing that comes from a town like mine.  John Mellencamp, Bon Jovi, and I all come from those humble roots and it shines through in the music. It has meaning and substance. Even when I’m singing something as tongue and cheek as Unskinny Bop, there was a story behind it and an inspiration about what was happening around me at the time. I believe that comes from the folk rock influence of story and song writing that emerges from hard working people in a town like Pittsburgh.

Interview with Samantha Fox

Samantha Fox, an international star known for her many top-ten charting singles including 1986’s mega hit “Touch Me” (which topped the charts in 17 countries), spoke with Retropulse Music about her reissued albums as well as her 10th studio release expected to be released early next year. Fox also talks about coming back to America and her experience at the Chiller Theater event on October 29th along with an upcoming U.S. tour scheduled for next year.

Photo used with permission through Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. Author: Orangekaki

Susanna Hoffs is turning ‘Someday’ into today with her latest solo effort

By Chris Shapiro
October 2012

Susanna Hoffs’s latest solo album, Someday, is a cheerful, organically created master-piece that exhibits music in its truest form.

Susanna Hoffs
Photo credit: Rebecca Wilson

Someday is the best showcase of Hoffs’s peaceful vocals since 1988’s “Eternal Flame.”  Coupled with vivid lyrics, her vocals paint images so clearly the listener could get up and walk around in the worlds created.

There is no heavy usage of sound effects or computer post-production work in the creation of Someday.  Here musicians gathered and played as one group to create the magic that is music.

On the advice of her produced, Mitchell Froom, Hoffs recorded Someday in the spirit of 1960’s recording with the entire band playing together in the studio in an attempt to create music that was in the moment.

There’s a synergy in the songs as a result.  Hoffs and her fellow musicians were able to create music that was living verse produced.   Music is a spiritual expression that takes on a life of its own when musicians are willing to pour their spirit into their work.

John Parr Interview

Music without passion is nothing but noise. It takes a skillfully learned musician to induce passion into a musical piece, therefore, giving it a life that transcends the musician’s realm. The life of the musical piece carries it beyond the audiences of the musician and resonates with people of all backgrounds. Cultural barriers, political ideologies, personality differences and other such human like constructed walls are toppled when a musical piece, with a life of its own, is created by a passionate musician.

Musicians of this nature are instruments to their instruments. When they pick up a guitar or sit down to a piano, they unlock the stories hidden in the instrument. This, fused with their creative nature, is the birthplace of music. The work finds the musician and, a true musician, strives, exhaustively, to give that work life. So that, the story hidden in the work may leave the piano, guitar, violin, etc. and tell its message to those who need it most.

Such is the case for John Parr’s new album, The Mission, where every track is a story come to life through the highly talented skills of Parr. I could list reasons and give examples from his work but I would much rather allow Parr to explain in his own words the story behind the stories told on The Mission.

Above is an interview I conducted with Parr a week ago where we discussed, in detail, his most current work The Mission.

The Godfather of Rock ‘n Roll

By Chris Shapiro / September 2012
I’ve done interviews with rock stars before.  Air Supply, George Thorogood, Lita Ford and Curly Smith of Boston are just a few of the artists I’ve had the opportunity of interviewing.  While each interview was exhilarating for me, being a diehard fan of classic rock, they were conducted in a mutual meeting place.  They were done in a press room, side of the stage, or over the phone.  Yet, when I interviewed Eddie Money on Labor Day at Conneaut Lake, the interview experience expanded into a new realm of major importance.

Rock legend Eddie Money

The window of opportunity for my interview fell between 7:15pm and 7:30pm.  Money had a meet and greet at 7:30pm and would take the stage at 8:00pm.

At 7:00pm, I tried calling the promoter, Eddie Panuntti, to see if the interview was still a go.  His phone was off.  I tried again at 7:15pm.  Pannutti answered and told me he would call back in five minutes.  Sure enough in five minutes my phone rang and I was told to meet Pannutti backstage next to the tour bus.

“He’s getting ready,” Pannutti told me.  We talked a few moments about the summer and other concerts.  He then disappeared into the bus to check on the status of things.  He reappeared seconds later waving me toward the bus.

“This him?” Lee Beverly, Money’s bass player, asked as I approached. Pannutti nodded and Lee extended his hand.

“I’m Lee,” he introduced himself.

I shook his hand and introduced myself.  I didn’t look back as the bus door closed behind me but I could sense the feeling that I had just broken through a barrier. When my feet arrived at that top step, I knew I had left the fan world behind and entered into the world of Rock ‘n Roll.

Character defines Boston

By Chris Shapiro:

As I sit in my dorm room the night before beginning my senior year of college, I find myself reflecting upon my freshman year.  Many things have changed.  People have come and gone in my life like water running over boulders in a stream.  Yet, the one thing, the one constant in my life has been the music in my life.

When I began my freshman year, I packed four albums: Van Halen’s 5150, Huey Lewis and the News Greatest Hits, Bob Seger’s Greatest Hits  and Boston’s Third Stage.

Photo Credit: Bob Summers Photography

Boston was the first band I identified with.  It was about the 8^th or 9^th grade when my mother brought home their debut album.  If I could go back and count all the times I’ve played the songs on that album, I would have a multi-platinum record myself.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Boston was shaping me into who I am today.  It sparked the love I have for music.  How I act, live my life and even how I view the world, comes from the influences I receive from music and the artists behind the music.  For me, it was, and always will be, Boston that planted my feet in the world of music.

Now, I could go on and list all the achievements and milestones that Boston carved in the music industry but those are just facts.  They don’t tell you the “who” behind Boston or, more importantly, the “what” that Boston stands for.  Here, I’m going to make an in-depth study of what Boston truly is.

When we look at the “who” behind Boston, it’s Tom Scholz.  Master Musician.  Genius.  Engineer.  Basketball Player.  Guitarist.  Inventor.  All these describe the man who is the backbone of Boston.

How many rock stars earned their degree at MIT? How many song writers have penned timeless hits that are just as popular as they were thirty years ago?  How many musicians will be willing to spend six years creating a single album making sure every sound is engineered perfectly?  There’s only one name that fits the bill: Tom Scholz.

Carnie Wilson continues her childhood dream of helping people

By Chris Shapiro
July 2012

As a young girl, Carnie Wilson had the aspiration to help people.  It was her dream to become a nurse and put her ambition into action.  Although she never became a nurse, Wilson never deserted her inner desire of helping.  It has been through her music, rather than medical means, in which Wilson has helped millions of people from all walks of life.

Wilson remembers being in high school when she realized, along with her sister Wendy and best friend Chynna Phillips, that the their three person group had the talent to make music their life.  Together they went on to form the very successful Wilson Phillips.

“When we heard our harmonies blend, it was like, you know the gates of heaven opened up and it dawned on us right there, ‘something is magical here,’” Wilson said.

Lita Ford: The Queen of Hard Rock

By: Chris Shapiro:

There’s not a female guitarist in the Rock N’ Roll world who can compare to the talents of Lita Ford.  Her 1988 hits “Kiss Me Deadly” and “Close My Eyes Forever” are classic examples of what Rock n’ Roll is all about.  Her guitar skills and accomplishments must make her idol, Ritchie Blackmore, proud.

Singer/Guitarist Lita Ford.
Photo used with Permission: Granpas heyna at en.wikipedia / Creative Commons.

Ford’s rock roots go back to her early adolescence.  “I actually started playing when I was eleven years old, I got my first guitar and Ritchie Blackmore was my influence, Deep Purple,” Ford said.

For the next two years, Ford learned to play the guitar using guitarist Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple as her main influence.  However, her musical life received its calling when she turned thirteen.

“When I went to my first concert, which was Black Sabbath, in 1971, I think it was 71, it completely changed my life,” Ford said.

The experience revealed a new world to the teenage Ford, a world she immediate wished to belong to.

“I had to play like that.  I saw Tony Iommi on stage and Ozzy and Gezzer and Bill Ward and I was blown away.  It changed my life,” she said.

Ford says the concert experience changed something within her about how she approached music.  “I had to make people feel like they were making people feel which was total insanity, people jumping off the rafters, diving onto the stage,” she said.

The imagery of that night still burns vividly in Ford’s memory. “I was just standing there taking it all in you know.  I just was taking it all in looking around me.  I wasn’t wild.  I was watching the band and looking at them and all I could see was black, black hair and black clothes and then these huge silver or gold crosses hanging around their necks,” she remembers.