Thoughts on last week and releases of note until May

There's not much to speak of being released tonight, a live album of Jerry Garcia from the September of the Year I was born with covers of The Beatles' "Dear Prudence" and The Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend The Night Together" and an album by Pam Tillis, one of the women Dolly Parton had in "Romeo," which was about and featured Billy Ray Cyrus.

But last week had some really good releases beyond what I mentioned, most of the tracks from SAWAYAMA were nice blends of pop and hard rock and had a good sense of humor to them.  I'd like to see if I can get tickets when her show's rescheduled.  The blues album contained a lot of hits from the genre, I had even forgotten ZZ Top's "Jesus just left Chicago" was also on the album.  Jeff Beck, another bluesman, teamed with actor Johnny Depp for a cover of John Lennon's "Isolation," the second-best cover of that song I've heard after Ann Wilson's live take.  Hayley Williams had an excellent single called "Why We Ever" and I'm seriously looking forward to hearing it all come together on her full-length solo release on the 8th.  Whitesnake also released an outtake from last year that works well enough on its own and is planned to be released with a set of remixes, and fellow former Deep Purple member Glenn Hughes released his first commercially available single with The Dead Daisies called "Unspoken."  It's also a fantastic hard rock track, easily one of the best I've heard all year, and intros like The Who's "Bargain."  Last, but most certainly not least, is the arrival of BPMD, a supergroup made of members of Metal Allegiance who plan to release an album of 70's American Rock covers in mid-June.  They've started with Aerosmith's "Toys in the Attic," and the tracklisting promises Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Saturday Night Special," ZZ Top's "Beer Drinkers and Hellraisers," Blue Oyster Cult's "Tattoo Vampire," Van Halen's "DOA" and of course, Grand Funk Railroad's "We're An American Band."

On April 28th, or April 27th, 9:00 PST, Cherie Currie, former lead singer of The Runaways will release an album courtesy of her former bandmate's label Blackheart Records.  Called "Blvds of Splendor," I can't tell you much because available information is limited.  What I can say is there's going to be a new version of Runaways track "Queens of Noise" with special guests Brody Dalle, Juliette Lewis and the Veronicas and the first track, "Mr. X," will reunite Guns N Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum.  This second piece is especially exciting as I've seen YouTube videos of the three at Kings of Chaos shows, performing the backing to Glenn Hughes singing "Communication Breakdown" and Myles Kennedy singing "Immigrant Song," as well as joining with Steve Stevens, Glenn Hughes, Corey Taylor and Billy Ray Cyrus even for a rendition of "Tie Your Mother Down" by Queen.  This promises to be a fun rock album and I look forward to hearing it.