on March 16 | in Blog | by James Hursthouse | with Comments Off

As the great sage once said, “life’s not only computer games and whiskey”, and today is one of those days where I agree wholeheartedly. Tipping my hat to the one and only “Rock CEO” (Mr Satoshi Kanematsu of Valhalla Game Studios – check out his great ‘You Gotta Hear This’ Series on the Valhalla Blog) I’m going to abuse my ability to post to the Roadhouse site with my own series of commentaries and random musings on the music that moves me. As always, the opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author and have now’t to do with Roadhouse or whatever… and I think for the sake of no better reason, I’ll continue the series from time to time.

Anyhow, after a busy day in Seoul, we were winding down in the ‘Dublin Irish Pub’ of all places – and on the stereo, in between random hip hop nonsense, on comes ‘Go Faster’ – side one track one (if such a thing still exists), of the Black Crowes’ 1999 terribly underrated ‘By Your Side’ opus. This is one of the things I love about Asia, the odd bit of random awesomeness showing up for no apparent reason amongst the dross.

For me, By Your Side ranks as a total return to form for the Crowes after thesomewhat lackluster Three Snakes and One Charm. The album was recorded after guitarist Marc Ford (previously in the awesome and overlooked Burning Tree) had left the band in 1997. Audley Freed (another favorite of mine from the days of the three piece Cry of Love) was hired as the new guitarist, although Rich Robinson played all the guitar parts on the album.

Produced by Kevin Shirley (Iron Maiden, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Joe Bonamassa) By Your Side starts off fast mean and bluesy and continues mean and bluesy all the way. Great album.

About the Author: James Hursthouse

James Hursthouse has over ten years of proven games industry and entrepreneurial success primarily in online games infrastructure, technology and operations. His introduction to the industry came in Tokyo through work with an early incarnation of Nexon, the company responsible for the world’s first graphical MMO, The Kingdom of the Winds and has since been responsible for companies focused on game infrastructure and technology in both Asia and North America.

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