Mike Mettler

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The S&V Interview
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Surrenders to Cheap Trick
Mike Mettler  |  Apr 06, 2016
Looks like they’re finally wanted enough. This Friday, April 8, Cheap Trick will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame alongside Chicago, Deep Purple, Steve Miller, and N.W.A at the 31st Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. “Well, like they say — it’s better than getting a sharp stick in the eye,” jokes Cheap Trick’s ever-jovial guitarist Rick Nielsen. “But, yeah, it’s quite an honor.”Not only that, but Cheap Trick have also just released their 17th studio album, Bang Zoom Crazy... Hello (Big Machine), and, as the saying goes, it’s all killer and no filler. Nielsen, 67, and I got on the horn to discuss the sound design of Bang Zoom, working with George Martin, and how it feels to finally get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsMusic Reviews
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus - Limited Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Aug 23, 2019
Performance
Sound
The rock and roll circus was coming to town. In 1968, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, The Who's guitar wizard Pete Townshend, and Small Faces bassist Ronnie Lane had collectively decided to organize a perpetual traveling show that would consist of equal parts live performance, grand spectacle, and mobile art installation, all rolled into one never-ending carnival bacchanal.
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Music Reviews
The Rolling Stones: Goats Head Soup Super Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Mar 05, 2021
Performance
Sound
Show of hands, please—how many of you rate August 1973's Goats Head Soup as your favorite Rolling Stones album? Anyone? No? Can't say I blame you. Any record following The Stones' May 1972 career-defining double-album masterpiece Exile on Main St. would have an impossibly high bar to overcome, no matter what made the final cut. Fact is, Goats Head Soup had a master chef's menu stacked against it from the outset. And time has very much not been on its side, as Goats Head Soup has long served as a relatively underappreciated entry in The Rolling Stones' somewhat uneven mid-1970s studio-album canon.
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Music Reviews
The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers—Super Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Aug 07, 2015
Performance
Sound
The Rolling Stones are at it again. The world’s greatest band has rolled out the big guns for its 15-date North American stadium run that’s been dubbed the ZIP CODE Tour, a 19-song walk, stomp ’n romp through a half-century of impeccably unimpeachable classics. That taut live set places an emphasis on digging deeper into cuts culled from the perpetually seminal 1971 album Sticky Fingers, which has just been given the Super Deluxe box-set treatment by Polydor/UMe. A club gig at The Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles on May 20 saw The Stones rip that joint up 16 times, including their first stabs at Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Gotta Move” since 1976 and the dreamily soothing “Moonlight Mile” since 1999, both Sticky tracks having since made their way into regular rotation as part of the stadium set lists. (Longtime fans like yours truly feel The Stones should do intimate clubs gig like the Fonda outing more often, as it helps loosen up the vibe of songs that often become broader and less adventuresome in stadium settings.)
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Other Tech
The S+V Interview: Billy Corgan
Mike Mettler  |  Feb 17, 2011

Some things you know right away in your rock & roll bones. When I first met Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins in 1991, we bonded over the contents of a suitcase he carried with him wherever he went: an ever-growing mountain of live Jimi Hendrix cassettes (some authorized, some not). As the Pumpkins’ trippily punishing debut album, Gish, had just begun melting the ears of the alt-rock cognoscenti, Corgan was already cocksure of where he was going in the world.

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The S+V Interview: Chris Robinson
Mike Mettler  |  Jan 25, 2011

Get a pair of passionate record collectors together in a dressing room a few hours before a gig, and rest assured that the scheduled show-time is instantly in jeopardy.

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Music ReviewsOther Tech
The S+V Interview: John McCrea of Cake
Mike Mettler  |  Jan 20, 2011

So I've been basking in the sounds of Cake's new chart-topping album Showroom of Compassion (Upbeat Records; cakemusic.com), and have to say that I'm really loving it.
Oh good. That would be horrible if it was a nightmare for you. [chuckles]

And it's a great album to listen to on vinyl. The bass lines on "Got to Move" and "What's Now Is Now" have real impact.

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Other TechMusic Reviews
The S+V Interview: Ozzy Osbourne
Mike Mettler  |  Dec 07, 2010

And in an instant, lo, a hole in the sky appeared, and then it hit me like (bang bang) Maxwell's Silver Hammer when "Get Back," the Beatles? 1969 classic song to roller-coast by, cued up on my iPod during one morning's commute. As Paul McCartney's lead vocal embraced the song's galloping melody line, a great revelation emerged: I can sing Black Sabbath?s "Paranoid" to the same tune! Black Sabbath, the dark lords of melody . . . revealed!

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Music Reviews
The S+V Interview: Van Halen’s David Lee Roth
Mike Mettler  |  Feb 07, 2012

In honor of today’s release of A Different Kind of Truth, the first album from Van Halen with David Lee Roth as lead vocalist since 1984, we’re proud to present an interview I did with the inimitable Mr. Roth back in 2003. Our chat was ostensibly centered around his covers-oriented solo album Diamond Dave, but we quickly went into, well, a different universe. “As far as learning the alphabet of music goes,” opined the ever-quotable Dave, “I always tell young musicians, ‘Last I looked, the Bible was written in the exact same alphabet as my favorite pornography. So I guess the choice is yours, son.’” As the song says, might as well jump. . .

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Audio Video News
The Speakers Remain the Same!
Mike Mettler  |  May 03, 2011

The next leg of Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience tour is officially underway, and I highly recommend you check it out. Dates and info are here.

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