I didn't say I didn't support them, I just don't think the current Skynyrd is even close to the original version of the band. That said, if it wasn't for the Tribute tour I never would have seen them in any form. I have also been a fan from the beginning but history took it's course before I had a chance to see them on the Street Survivors tour.

I love Skynyrd but with all due respect the post-crash version doesn't even come close to holding a candle to the original (pre-crash) lineup of the band. The Allmans on the other hand are still just as vital as they've ever been thanks in no small part to Derek Trucks.

Review: Hank Jr., Skynyrd at less than their best without Billy Powell

More details on Neil's upcoming box set: Forever Young Neil Young's Long-Promised Archive Is Actually in the Works And Coming Out on Blu-ray Neil Young circa 1970 Getty Images By ETHAN SMITH Since the 1980s, Neil Young has been telling fans he is close to releasing an exhaustive, interactive archive of music, photographs, video footage and other material from his storied career. The project has achieved legendary status in the music world, not for the music it contains but because it has never surfaced, despite Mr. Young's periodic promises. The Canadian rocker has attributed the serial delays to technical shortcomings and sound-quality problems in media ranging from CD-ROMs to DVDs. You can read the remainder of the article here.

I also love their cover of Boom Boom.

I haven't really followed Big Head Todd & the Monsters all that much in recent years but I do thoroughly enjoy the two records I have by them (Sister Sweetly and Strategem). They also kicked ass the couple of times I saw them in concert back in the 90s. The first time was during one of the first H.O.R.D.E. Festival tours, the second was a free show in Wilmington, NC with the Dave Matthews Band and the Boxing Ghandis. The DMB pretty much put me to sleep but Big Head Todd and the Monsters were great, especially their covers of Zep (Tangerine) and Cash (Folsom Prison Blues). Their originals are very good too.

Yes, it would. At least I think so. I saw them last year for the first time since Dickey left and they still have "it" (my last show [for no apparent reason] was during the Shades of Two Worlds Tour back in the early to mid 90s). Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes have breathed new life into the band. Some people already swear them off because of no Duane, no Berry or no Dickey but without Gregg I'd think they'd have to hang it up for good. ....on another note entirely I've read that Gene Simmons plans for Kiss to go on even without him and Paul Stanley once they retire from touring.

Sort of like the Marshall Tucker Band who are touring with only one original member? They played near me a year or so ago but damned if I was going to pay $30 to see 'em. Same for Blackfoot who are touring without Rickey Medlocke. Without Medlocke there is no Blackfoot. For years Molly Hatchet toured with no original members but people still paid good money to see that shit. I can only figure there's a generation raised on "classic rock" radio that simply didn't know any better, they just wanted to see the band who's song gets played every five minutes on the radio.

That's cool but I was actually talking about Tift and Zeke finally tying the knot.

Believe it or not I still don't own Archives. Unfortunately I don't think it's still available or if it was even ever available on CD. I do remember it on vinyl though.

All the World's A Stage was my first Rush album back in the 70s and definitely a good one. I really should pick it up on CD at some point.

As one of the handful of Tift fans here you might be interested in this.

Neil Young gets new honor -- his own spider LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) - Iconic singer and songwriter Neil Young has had an honor bestowed upon him that is not received by many musicians -- his own spider. An East Carolina University biologist, Jason Bond, discovered a new species of trapdoor spider and opted to call the arachnid after his favorite musician, Canadian Neil Young, naming it Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi. You can read the rest of the article here.

Has Neil Young Miscalculated His Fan-Base? by Paul Cashmere photo by Ros O'Gorman Neil Young is making a massive mistake by limiting his forthcoming Archive collection to Blu-Ray. For someone who has put his audience first for more than 40 years, Young is risking alienation of epic proportions by placing his fan-base below technology. To read the rest of the article click here.

If you check out some of the box sets I mentioned you're bound to find some stuff you like. I just think the 80s gets a bad rap (especially on this board where so many seem caught up in the music of the 60s and 70s). I like Plant's 80s output but like several artist of that time period, the production techniques (ie, the drum machine) are very telling of the time and immediately date the music. That said, there was also the "roots" music movement of the time period where those type of production techniques were eschewed in favor of more traditional methods. Again, there was so much more going on in the 80s than just New Wave and Hair Metal; I think there's something there for most everyone to love whether it be punk, reggae, roots rock, the blues revival, the Paisley Pop movement, etc.

Up through my high school years and into the early 80s I was pretty heavy into hard rock but my tastes started to shift (again) once I first heard R.E.M., the Replacements, U2, the Alarm, and local bands like Let's Active, the db's, the Spongetones and others. That said, I still love Zep (duh), Sabbath, Foghat, Van Halen and most of the other music I grew up listening to in the 70s. By the time Cinderella, Poison, and that whole pretty boy hair metal thing hit I had completely lost interest in that type of music. In fact, I can't think of a time when I was ever a fan of hair metal.

Not to generalize but quite a few clerks in indie stores come across as "pompous". In case you haven't seen it (or read the book by renown author Nick Hornby) I suggest checking out the movie High Infidelity which does an outstanding job of capturing the typical indie record store feel. You need to get beyond the fact that record store clerks are going to ask you for help because in most instances that's simply not the case. Plus, you seem to be sending mixed signals. On the one hand you're complaining that they won't ask you for help, on the other you say, "I'm pretty much never looking for something specific, especially when I go into the indie store." So, why are you complaining? It sounds to me like you just aren't accustomed to the indie record store shopping experience and are more familiar with shopping in big box stores. Speaking just for myself, I much prefer the indie store shopping experience. I'll talk a pompous, yet knowledgeable clerk over a clueless fuck who has to look everything up on the computer any day of the week. I do understand your dilemma about the organization of the vinyl section. Thankfully, the indie I usually shop at is organized but I'm sure that's not the case everywhere.

If you're used to shopping in the big box stores where folks are trained to ask you for help and that's what you're accustomed to, I wouldn't expect someone at an indie store to ask you for assistance. In fact, I can't think of an instance right off hand where one of them ever asked me for help. If I'm looking for something specific and I'm not there to just browse I ask the person behind the counter for help, I wouldn't ever expect them to ask me. Again, this isn't a big box. As for the store being empty, there's a very good reason for that, indies are going out of business at an alarming rate for a variety of reasons. I also don't know about the employees being "lazy" just because they don't ask if they can help you. In an indie store you have to be proactive and ask them for assistance. Again, if you're looking for something specific you're better off to ask the clerk for help rather than sifting through an endless array of vinyl. Personally, I love browsing but if I'm in a hurry I either call ahead or ask for help as soon as I enter the store.

I beg to differ. I believe it was a very good time for music. Some people look back at the 70s and all they remember is disco. Some look back at the 80s and all they remember is what was on MTV. Neither are very good indicators of music from either time period. And, as much as I may enjoy watching them, I also blame those I Love the 70s/80s/90s shows that air on VH1, especially the one that featured commentators that said "the jocks in high school liked The Who, the stoners liked Zeppelin". Some people that simply don't know any better will watch some bullshit like that and take it as fact. Back to the 80s, it was a very vibrant time period for music with the popularity of New Wave (not all of it was the type of shit featured on MTV), reggae, roots heavy bands like some of the artists I previously mentioned such as Los Lobos, the Long Ryders, Lone Justice and many, many others. If you like psychedelic music you would probably also be interested in the Paisley Pop explosion that happened during this era with artists such as the Bangles, the 3 O'Clock, the Long Ryders and many, many other bands. Quite a few of these artists are featured on a very excellent collection from Rhino Records called Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era - 1976-1996 (a sequel to the original Nuggets collection). If you're interested, you can read more about it here. Then there were the artists that are often credited with giving birth to the "alternative" movement such as R.E.M., the Replacements, the Cure, U2, etc. Many of them are well represented on yet another excellent Rhino collection called Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the 80s Underground. Again, if you're interested in learning more you can do so here. In other words, if you think all there was to the 80s was a bunch of synth heavy bands with questionable hairstyles on MTV and hair metal, there was a hell of a lot more to the 80s than that. I would say it's second next to only the 60s for such a creative time in music history when nearly everything had a chance at some sort of airplay whether it be college radio, mainstream radio or music television (not just MTV). All this and I haven't even touched on the Hardcore scene (which is very well depicted in the American Hardcore DVD) and how Stevie Ray Vaughan pretty much single handily kick-started the blues revival. The 80s "not a good time for music"? Hardly....

To each their own. I was just never a fan of the synth heavy MTV friendly bands of that time (or of what would later become known as "hair metal"). I was much more a fan of artists like R.E.M., the Replacements, Guadalcanal Diary, Let's Active, the db's, Lone Justice, the Long Ryders, Los Lobos, Stevie Ray Vaughan, U2, etc. back then as well as reggae artists such as the Mighty Diamonds, Peter Tosh, the Itals, David Lindley and El Rayo-X, etc. Many of the New Wave and Hair Metal bands struck me as transparent and superficial. It was just never my thing.

More accurately, I'm simply not a fan. My girlfriend has attended many shows with me of artists she's not particularly a fan of so the least I can do is go see Duran Duran with her. Way back in the 80s I was working at a college radio station when artists like Duran Duran, Soft Cell, the Human League, Men at Work, the Replacements, R.E.M. Flock of Seagulls, U2, etc. first broke through so at least I have a tolerance for them. I even liked Hungry Like the Wolf for a few seconds back then but mostly I've never really been a fan of their music. If you had asked me back then if they would still be around in 2008 (much less attending one of their concerts), I would have told you no. I also recall saying much the same thing to my hair metal friends about the likes of Bon Jovi and Poision back in those days. Who knew they'd still be going strong (well, at least Bon Jovi) all these years later.

I don't even consider Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship or Starship (the moniker they cut We Built This City under) to be the same bands so I wouldn't consider White Rabbit to be a Jefferson Starship or Starship song. In several "worst song ever" polls I've seen We Built This City come in at number one and rightfully so.

Agreed. They sound like a real assmonkey. If I go into a Borders or Barnes & Noble it is usually to look for books and magazines (B & N is also where I scored the Rolling Stone Cover To Cover collection a few weeks ago for $25 [it normally goes for $125]). That's not say I never peruse the music selections there either as you can sometimes find some stuff on sale but if I'm in a city big enough to have a B & N or a Borders that sometimes mean they're also big enough to have an indie store so I prefer to shop there. The exception being the new Tift Merritt which was offered as an "exclusive" (meaning it came with a bonus disc you can't find anywhere else) at B & N when it first came out.

Another thing I forgot to mention about indie stores (at least the one closest to me) is that you can often find advance promos of CDs and/or used copies of CDs that just came out. The advances are usually only a dollar or so and are a good way of checking out an album to see if you like it. If I do, I'll go ahead and buy an actual copy of it. It's also a good point that the folks that work in indie stores are usually much more knowledgeable about the music than anyone you're likely to find in any of the big box chain stores who are usually totally fucking clueless at best.

I guess it's different in every town but it's been my experience that prices are also low at indie stores especially if it's something that just came out that week and/or if it's a local artist. As for your clerk being a "prick", yeah, you may sometimes run into that at independent stores but in my opinion it beats the shit out of the "help" at the big box stores who have to look everything up on a computer to be able to assist you (that is, if you can even find someone to help you to start with). I remember once mentioning Keith Richards to a wet behind the ears cashier at a Circuit City who said they didn't know who Keith Richards was. I didn't hesitate to laugh in their fuckin' face. How in the hell do you get a job in the music department if you don't know who in the hell Keith Richards is?