This year has been a great year for introduction of new, more underground musicians in the rock genre. I have two more in bands in addition to the few that I have already mentioned this year that I have been quite impressed with.

I love simplicity when it comes to rock. I like bands that focus on the music they love instead of how much tail they plan on getting when they “make it big”. Some bands may become huge in the mainstream, but in the long run they are forgettable. A lot of mainstream acts don’t have the impact that some of the bands of yesterday do. They catch a records execs. “Green eye” and they are thrown in the spotlight, showered with pr, and when they stop selling albums they are discarded like a used battery. The ones that really touch us in our hearts and deep down in our souls are the bands that we never forget and still sell records 30 years after they disband.

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Sometime last year I mentioned on Metal Martyr that Modern Rock Is Dead. To me it was. There was just a lack of bands that wanted to make good rock music. Sure there were train-loads of bands like Hinder, Saving Able and such that seem to be more in the lines of putting together songs and living the life of the rock star. That’s a big problem in every genre of music to include metal, but there are enough “Underground” acts to follow that you can filter out the wanna-be’s and poser fairly easily in metal. I’ve felt this way for years. I lost my faith in modern rock and pretty much wrote it off. With the exception of a handful of rock bands in the mainstream, I wasn’t willing to listen to modern bands. Ana from Austin Sound Check told me to “turn off the radio, word of mouth and blogs”. Since then there have been a few bands that have caught me by surprise.

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There’s a good reason why The Answer was chosen to open for hard rock veterans, AC/DC. Why? Because they kick ass. They may not have a new or even a modern sound to them but they know how to rock.

The first time I heard the answer was on their Never Too Late EP. When I slipped it in and pressed play, my initial reaction was; “Great, another AC/DC clone band.”, but they were far from it. I had only heard a few seconds before making that statement to myself, but as I continued to listen it just had a certain vibe to it that screamed classic rock with a modern twist and I was hooked.

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When you write for a rock and metal blog you get offers for reviews from various places. Sometimes it’s a PR group and sometimes it’s a label. Some of the bands are big and some are small. The bigger names and labels you kind of have an idea of what you’re going to get. With smaller labels and indie bands you never really know what to expect. Sometimes it’s really good and sometimes it’s so bad that you wish you never heard it. Thankfully this time it’s one of those pleasantly surprising bands.

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I’ve sworn off buying Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy and I’m kind of glad I did. A friend let me borrow a copy and I really don’t know what to day to make this sound like a great record. I’m not a Gn’R fanboy so I will never say that I love this album.

You know those jig-saw puzzles have so many pieces and every one of them looks the same? It’s kind of like that in a weird way. It sounds like the entire record was pieced together like a giant, strange puzzle. I wouldn’t call it Guns N’ Roses. If it was Guns N’ Roses with most of the original member I would be wondering what the hell happened. It doesn’t sound like a Guns N Roses Album, it sounds like an Axl Rose solo album.

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Converse 100th Anniversary The Doors Edition All Stars. So far I’ve showed you the Converse 100th Anniversary All Stars for Black Sabbath and The Grateful Dead. This one is long overdue, but I now bring you The Doors edition of the 100th Anniversary Chuck Taylors.

Although I’m not a huge Doors fan, these are by far my favorites of the bunch. This edition of the All Stars kind of has a Viet Nam war era jungle boot look to it. With an olive drab color and black sole, the colors contrast really well. The laces are a bit more heavy duty that a normal pair of Chucks, and as you can see the upper part of the canvas is edged with zipper teeth.

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My Rock Dose Top 10 Rock Albums Of 2008 covers mainly established rock acts and not this new wave of modern rock as we know it. I’ll go through each none and tell you why I chose it. Take in to consideration that I only went through bands that I’ve heard this year and not every rock album that has come out. If you expect Nickelback or Hinder to be on this list then you came to the wrong place. So what does this list mean? Nothing really, it’s just MY favorite picks of 2008, so don’t cry if your favorite band didn’t make my cut. Instead give them a shout in the comment section.

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Forget everything I have ever said about Sixx A.M. and The Heroin Diaries. Forgot all the trash I talked in the past about how this is a shitty album and how I looked at this book in a negative way. I can be a cynical douche at times. I still don’t care for a lot of things Nikki Sixx says but I’ve started looking at both of these things in a different way as of late.

Upon listening and reading through the lyrics of Sixx: A.M. I actually see this for what it is. It’s therapy for Nikki Sixx. An outlet of for him for the mistakes he’s made in his life and what led up to those mistakes. It’s a way for him to show others that they can overcome and inspire them to get clean. It’s therapy for others that have broke their addiction to perhaps look at and relate.

I’ve yet to read the book yet, but that will come later.

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The longevity of most modern rock bands is short. The chances of a veteran band that came about in the 80’s, releasing a new album these days that’s actually good, keeping it modern, yet not straying from the root sound is rare or nil. Some bands know how to do it and keep their old fans while gaining new ones as well and some bands…just flop. So where does Tesla fit in to this category? Let’s just say that 24 years later, Tesla still knows how to rock.

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Bob Dylan Tell Tale signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 Rare And Unreleased 1989-2006 comes out this Tuesday October 7th on Columbia Recordings. Let me begin my review by saying this: Now if I sat here and told you that I was a long time Bob Dylan fan, I would be lying through my teeth. The fact is that I have only heard a handful of Dylan’s work. I’ve seen him perform on some VH1 Classics shows from way back but I was never really interested in buying any of his music. The respect for his musicianship and his messages was there but I just never really thought about going out and buying any of his work.

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