Author: Steve Schnee

AMPED™ FEATURED ALBUM OF THE WEEK: HALLOWEEN OST (Expanded Edition)


John Carpenter is a renaissance man. Best known as a director, Carpenter is an equally talented screenwriter and composer. He’s had a hand in many projects over the years. From TV movies, theatrical motion pictures, and comic books, John Carpenter is a man who has a passion for the arts. He is also a man who has a unique vision and it comes through in every project he is involved with. Operating outside any industry formulas, Carpenter has written his own rules along the way. Unsurprisingly, there have been many imitators along the way but none of them have matched the master himself.

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AMPED™ FEATURED ALBUM OF THE WEEK: WATERPARKS/FANDOM


Celebrating their 25th Anniversary this year, California-based label Hopeless Records has been at the forefront of the modern Punk movement since their inception in 1994. With a host of Pop Punk, Hardcore, and Post-Punk acts on their roster, the label has been one of the most influential on the scene. With releases by All Time Low, Sum 41, Neck Deep, Avenged Sevenfold, Thrice, Yellowcard, Anarbor, Taking Back Sunday, Silverstein, We Are The In Crowd, Bayside, The Used, The Wonder Years, The Human Abstract and Enter Shikari, Hopeless has always embraced the energy of modern Punk and releasing albums that have helped shape the genre. Through it all, the label has earned the respect of the Punk Pop/Emo kids and that is what is most important.

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RED BOX/Chase The Setting Sun reviewed!


It’s not the size of your catalog that matters, it’s how you use it…

Years before it became a name for a mobile video rental service, Red Box was a band. To be more precise, British Pop outfit Red Box released their debut single – “Chenko” – in 1983. Since then, they’ve only managed to release four albums, but what they lack in quantity, they certainly make up for in quality. Red Box is a staggeringly original outfit that mixes everything from classic Pop to Native American chants, from World Music rhythms to winsome sing-along melodies. Whether the song is bright and upbeat or slow and somber, there’s always a feeling of pure passion that inhabits Red Box recordings.

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AMPED™ FEATURED ALBUM OF THE WEEK: THE MENZINGERS/HELLO EXILE


Regardless of what the Billboard charts might insinuate, Pop Punk – AKA Punk Pop – was not born in the mid- ‘90s. The roots of the genre first came to prominence in the late ‘70s thanks to bands like Ramones, Buzzcocks, The Dickies, and The Undertones. The blending of the raw power of Punk Rock and soaring, sing-a-long melodies reignited the Indie scene and made Punk more -for lack of a better term – consumer-friendly. The term ‘Pop Punk’ wasn’t widely used until bands like The Offspring, Green Day, Rancid, and Blink-182 brought the genre to the mainstream, selling millions of albums in the process. MTV and radio embraced this new movement that was as hook-filled as it was loud and aggressive. It is hard to tell whether Pop Punk was a reaction against the slick Pop and smooth R&B that filled the charts at the time or a full-on musical revolution but whatever happened, happened.

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SPYRO GYRA: An EXLUSIVE Q&A!

STEPHEN SPAZ SCHNEE: VINYL TAP has just been released.  How are you feeling about the album and the reaction to it so far?
JAY BECKENSTEIN: I have felt great about this record since the days when we first started rehearsing it. The band responded to the challenge of doing alternative covers, really, I think quite brilliantly, and I’m really proud of this record. Reactions have been excellent. I think that people really responded to us doing some material other than ours. I also think that they responded to how much we changed the material and how the material was inspiration for more creativity.

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DARTS – THE ALBUMS 1977-81 (4CD Box) reviewed


Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the U.S. charts very rarely embraced blatantly retro bands like the U.K. did. Sometimes, a band like The Stray Cats would defy the odds and connect with a large commercial audience in the States but that was a rarity. Bands like Sha Na Na were considered a novelty act by the critics and would generally be ignored. At that time in America, the ‘oldies’ were so in the past…

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A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS: ASCENSION and INFLIGHT reviewed!

Nearly 40 years after the release of their debut album, Liverpudlian quartet A Flock Of Seagulls is still best remembered for Mike Score’s aviation-approved hairstyle. While it earned the band plenty of attention back in the heady days of MTV, it ended up hurting their musical legacy in the long run. And THAT is a shame because for a few years there, AFOS was one of the finest Pop bands of the era. Mixing mood-inducing synth work with delay-laden guitar licks, A Flock Of Seagulls straddled the line between the cool coldness of early OMD and the bold bravado of U2, bringing both worlds together while adding a bit of sci-fi imagery and immediate commercial pop hooks. When the single “I Ran” was released (before Score’s hair grew wings), the timing was perfect and AFOS’ career began to soar. But apart from that big hit, did the band have much else to offer? Oh, yeah. Much, much more. With their self-titled album, Mike, his brother Ali Score (drums), Frank Maudsley (bass) and Paul Reynolds (guitar) set the bar extremely high, both for themselves and for their contemporaries. The band may have been lumped into the ‘Synth Pop’ category, but Reynolds’ guitar work was just as important to their sound as the keyboards and Score’s voice and futuristic lyrics. Take a listen to the glorious “Space Age Love Song”, for example. It’s a guitar and synth instrumental that just happens to have vocals. These four musicians created their own musical world and for a few years, they were untouchable. Oh, and did I mention that they won a Best Rock Instrumental Performance Grammy for “DNA” from their debut album?

AMPED™ FEATURED ALBUM OF THE WEEK: DEAD KENNEDYS/IGUANA STUDIOS REHEARSAL TAPE – SAN FRANCISCO 1978


When Punk Rock raised its mischievous head in 1976, the Rock ‘n’ Roll landscape was forever changed. Just as important as the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the ‘50s (Elvis, Buddy, Chuck, Jerry, etc.) and the rise of The Beatles, the Punk Rock movement deconstructed the myth of Rock music and built something new and raw from its foundation. While the movement had a definite ‘look,’ it was really a movement driven by emotion. It was rebellion with feeling. Fueled by frustration and anger, the music came with a message. From overtly political to painfully personal, the Punk Rock classes of 1976 and ’77 – Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, etc. – inspired a new generation of musicians to form bands and make their passions and presence known. One of those bands was San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys.

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