Michael Monroe – LIVE! – Finland, Mar. 27, 2011, Japan benefit

I'm not sure what else I can say to convince the planet that this is its greatest currently functioning rock band, so I'll just let the music do the talking instead. Click here for 40 minute set from Japan benefit show. Could have used a little more Ginger and Sami in the broadcast mix, but other than …

Michael Monroe – LIVE! – acoustic studio set

When will the world awaken to the greatness in its midst? Seriously. Most bands couldn't rock like this even plugged in if you gave them 1,000 years to figure out how to do it. Why is this? Because you can't figure out how to rock. Call it the 'x-factor, call it 'it'. Call it whatever …

Michael Monroe – ‘Sensory Overdrive’ album cover

New Michael Monroe single – ’78’

  \'78\' - Michael Monroe Pulled from the forthcoming Jack Douglas-produced album 'Sensory Overdrive,' recorded last fall in L.A. Michael Monroe - vox/sax, Sami Yaffa - bass, Steve Conte - gtr, Ginger - gtr, Karl Rockfist - drums The band is on tour in Finland March 2011 and the UK in April. US dates TBA (hopefully).

Dead, Jail, or Rock n’ Roll!

I've been carrying on for a while now about all thing's Michael Monroe, ever since my March sighting of the new band melted my brain while at the same time instantly making order out of decades of personal history. I've been carrying on so much I'd even begun to wonder if maybe I wasn't crazy. Maybe I …

The Thunders Conundrum…

….is an affliction that doesn’t seem to be suffered by many, but I’ve got it bad. It goes a little something like this. Given Johnny Thunders’ fame and reputed influence on so much of the music I love, I’m pretty much obliged to address his role at some point or another. But how exactly to …

Sami, the Vibrators, and Stiff Little Fingers

In 1984, shortly after Hanoi Rocks moved from Stockholm (where they’d already resettled from their hometown of Helsinki) to London, Sami Yaffa, Nasty Suicide, and Razzle recorded with Knox, singer/songwriter of the Vibrators, as Fallen Angels. Mike Monroe and Andy McCoy also guested on the record, credited as Cosmic Ted and the Psychedelic Kid. Knox, …

Sami Yaffa, New York Dolls: Then and Now

Most recently before rejoining Michael Monroe in his current band, bassist Sami Yaffa was standing in for the late Arthur "Killer" Kane in the reconstituted New York Dolls. The musical crossover could not be more fitting, much of the Dolls catalogue clearly having a direct influence on Hanoi Rocks and the song featured below lending its name to Sami' s …

Geekdom reborn: Rev. Monroe presiding

A long time ago, on a shoreline far far away there lived a boy who liked nothing more than rifling through his parents’ record collections, putting the headphones on, and disappearing to a place even further away. Particular favorites included: ‘Sgt. Pepper’s,’ ‘Apostrophe,’ ‘Cruisin’ With Ruben and the Jets,’ and ‘Out Of The Blue.’ The …