On Stage: The Picturebooks focus on Motorcycles and Metal

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times The Picturebooks Heavy rock music and motorcycles have been linked since the late 1960s. The link can be traced back to Peter Fonda’s motorcycle movie “Easy Rider,” which featured Steppenwolf’s song “Born to Be Wild.” The song’s lyrics introduced the term “heavy metal” – “I like smoke and lightning, Heavy metal thunder, Racin’...

On Stage: Carlene Carter reaches back into her family tree for new project

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times Now that Valentine’s Day is over, it might just be a good time to check out some live music. There are shows with a variety of genre choices around the area on February 15 including country rock/Americana, jazz/blues, alt-pop, avant-garde, Hawaiian/SoCal reggae and singer-songwriter. Carlene Carter Carlene Carter, who has one foot in country-influenced...

On Stage: Love and metal in the air for shows tonight

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times Hideous Divinity While many of the shows on February 14 will focus on love songs and romantic tunes in celebration on Valentine’s Day, there will be a show on February 13 at MilkBoy Philly (1100 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, 215- 925-6455, www.milkboyphilly.com) that will be the flip side of the coin. The all-metal show will feature Vader as the...

On Stage: Leftover Salmon a delicious rock/blues dish

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times Leftover Salmon Music fans have been dining on (actually, listening to) Leftover Salmon for years and enjoying the tasty musical dishes (songs actually) the band serves up on stage and on record. Leftover Salmon is an American jam band from Colorado that plays a blend of rock, zydeco, bluegrass, country and Americana. The band formed in 1989, when...

On Stage: Crack The Sky keeps defying categories

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times Crack The Sky Crack the Sky, which is viewed by some as a rock band and others as a prog band, was formed in Weirton, West Virginia in the early 1970s and is still performing and recording in 2020. On February 9, the Ardmore Music Hall (23 East Lancaster Avenue, Ardmore, 610-649-8389, www.ardmoremusic.com) will host “An Evening with Crack the...

On Stage: Recreating The Dead’s Europe ’72 tour

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times Rainbow Full of Sound Deadheads, as fans of the Grateful Dead are known, are passionately devoted to the legendary San Francisco band. They are also extremely knowledgeable about the Dead’s music and career. Not only are they extremely familiar with the Dead’s best-known songs, they know every song in the Dead’s catalog. There are no deep cuts...

On Stage: Midge Ure share four decades of history

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times Midge Ure Back in 1975, the penultimate track on the Kinks’ “Schoolboys in Disgrace” was a song titled “No More Looking Back.” In the song, Ray Davies sang, “No more looking back, No more living in the past, Yesterday’s gone and that’s a fact, Now there’s no more looking back.” The same year, Midge Ure was playing...

On Stage: Barone and Mercer revist NYC music scene of the late 70’s

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times Richard Barone and Glenn Mercer If you want to hear a top caliber musician tap into musical history with authority and bring music from the past to the present to perform it in a contemporary way, then Richard Barone is your man. Barone is an American rock musician who first gained attention as frontman for the Bongos. He works as a songwriter, arranger,...

On Stage: The Glass Menagerie at The Phoenix Theatre

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times The Glass Menagerie This is a good weekend to ignore the winter weather outside and head inside to catch a top-flight local theater performance. The Phoenix Theatre (The Phoenix Theatre at SALT Performing Arts, 1645 Art School Road, Chester Springs, https://www.thephoenixtheatrepa.com) is continuing its debut season with a production of an American...

On Stage: String Machine taps into anxieties of youth

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times String Machine There are a lot of bands whose music is informed by relationships with cars. The Beach Boys alone had more than an album’s worth with songs such as “I Get Around,” “Little Deuce Coupe,’ “Fun Fun Fun,” “This Car of Mine,” “409,” “Little Honda” and “Custom Machine. “ Some of rock music’s other auto-driven...