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Deborah Frost

Deborah Frost

Deborah Frost (pictured with ex-husband Albert Bouchard) was a teenage drummer when she walked out of the pre-punk Flaming Youth (described by one New York daily as the female Dolls) and began scribbling about the music she loved. For the next twenty-five odd years she contributed to Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Creem, The Boston Phoenix, and countless daily, weekly and monthly publications to which she could not say no until she started up the Brain Surgeons with Blue Öyster Cult founder Bouchard, released a bunch of CDs, toured the world’s shitholes and re-discovered her passion.

Deborah on the RBP Podcast

61 articles

List of articles in the library

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Rush: A Canadian Rush

Interview by Deborah Frost, Circus, 14 February 1977

A SUBTERRANEAN VOICE growls across the phone wires, hesitates, and growls again – this time more softly. Canadian telephone service might be different, but it's ...

Deep Purple: Deeper Shades of Purple

Report and Interview by Deborah Frost, Circus, 12 May 1977

DEEP PURPLE. The name itself was synonymous with the rock genre it perfected; Deep Purple was heavy metal. Unleashing waves of relentless decibels upon worshippers ...

David Bowie: Boston Garden, Boston

Live Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 16 May 1978

DAVID BOWIE borrows identities and musical ideas the way teenage girls borrow their best friends' clothes. But no matter whose duds Bowie puts on, with ...

Television: Knock, Knock, Knocking: Television's Adventure

Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 6 June 1978

HE'S THE KID in the back of every high school classroom - the one you never thought could talk. The one you try to remember ...

Sniff 'n' the Tears: Fickle Heart

Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 11 September 1979

BACK BRISTLING, fangs bared, the black cat on the cover of Fickle Heart stares into the cold blue of the gun that's just wasted its ...

Bob Seger: Against The Wind

Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 15 April 1980

DEAR BOB: It's about your album. A funny thing happened to you on the way to the pantheon. You forgot you wrote most of the ...

Split Enz: True Colours

Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 21 October 1980

ALL A friend remembers about the Split Enz gig at Paul's Mall a couple of years back was the sign announcing the coming attraction: Tom ...

Journey: Escape **

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 29 October 1981

'WHO'S CRYING Now', the hit single off Journey's hit LP, isn't super hip, super deep or even real, real hooky. But it does sound good. ...

Billy Squier: Don't Say No (Capitol) **

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 12 November 1981

BOOMPH OMPH Bdumph dumbph ouch. That's the sound of Billy Squier's 'The Stroke' clanking mercilessly through the summer. Like a construction site beneath your window ...

The Roches: Keep On Doing

Review by Deborah Frost, Creem, February 1983

IT'S TAKEN ME four years and three albums to find two good words for the Roches. What immediately endeared this nouveau folkie family to most ...

Divinyls: As Big As Vegemite

Interview by Deborah Frost, Record, August 1983

NEW YORK — In their native Australia, where their first album (Desperate)has gone platinum and their notoriety landed them a part in the film Monkey ...

Def Leppard: What's 'New'?

Comment by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 1 November 1983

DEF LEPPARD is a band that's been greeted with total indifference by everyone except the four million and counting people who bought their third album. ...

John Mellencamp: The Kid's Alright

Profile and Interview by Deborah Frost, Record, December 1983

Beneath all the bluster, John Cougar turns out to be an average Joe trying to make a living and have a good time — neither ...

ZZ Top: Top This

Report and Interview by Deborah Frost, Record, June 1984

One prayed to be square, one prays for good odds in Vegas and one worships at the shrine of Howard Hughes. Welcome to the eccentric ...

The Beatles, Paul McCartney: Paul McCartney: "Once There Was Away To Get Back Homeward..."

Interview by Deborah Frost, Record, September 1984

LONDON. IN A city where nearly every kid on the street looks like he's rushing off to audition for Duran Duran, Paul McCartney, dressed for ...

Accept, Dio, Lita Ford, Great White, Quiet Riot, Ratt, Twisted Sister: Heavy Metal Rears Its Ugly Head Again

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 27 September 1984

A new generation of bands is dominating the charts ...

Deep Purple: Perfect Strangers

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 28 February 1985

The title track comes blasting out of nowhere, like an I'm-alive-and-well message from an old friend you'd given up for dead. With its steamy vocal ...

Eric Clapton, The Firm: Eric Clapton: Behind the Sun (Warner Bros.); The Firm: The Firm (Atlantic)

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 11 April 1985

NOBODY EVER said it was easy being God. Nobody ever said it was a gig Eric Clapton even asked for. The man has spent most ...

Mötley Crüe: White Noise: How Heavy Metal Rules

Essay by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 18 June 1985

IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT at L'Amour, Rock Capital of Brooklyn (well, that's what it says on the awning). The smell is smoke and damp, black lipstick ...

John Mellencamp: John Cougar Mellencamp: Scarecrow (PolyGram)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 3 September 1985

NOW IS PROBABLY not the time for all good men to sing about their country. That's because most good men are bound to come up ...

ZZ Top: Afterburner (Warner Bros.)

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 5 December 1985

THE SOURCE of ZZ Top's appeal was never any secret to the beer drinkers and hell raisers who worshiped them the instant the band began ...

Daryl Hall & John Oates, Daryl Hall: Daryl Hall: I Gotta Be Me!

Interview by Deborah Frost, Creem, January 1987

...Sez Ex Philly Teen Oddball ...

The Pretenders: Chrissie Hynde: Without Cruelty To Animals

Interview by Deborah Frost, Creem, April 1987

THERE WAS THE time, in 1975, Blue Oyster Cult was trying to have a peaceful dinner in Paris and this chick walked across the tables ...

Scandal featuring Patty Smyth, Patty Smyth: Patty Smyth: Enough Is Enough

Profile and Interview by Deborah Frost, Creem, July 1987

THERE'S A firetruck parked outside the building containing the office of Patty Smyth's management. The lobby is filled with firemen trying to determine whether the ...

Robyn Hitchcock: Guitar Poet

Interview by Deborah Frost, Guitar World, July 1987

LIKE LOU Reed, Bob Dylan and John Lennon, to whom he has been compared, Robyn Hitchcock's lyrics are so brilliant they tend to obscure everything ...

Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons: The E Street Man: Clarence Clemons

Interview by Deborah Frost, Elle, August 1987

CLARENCE DEMONS is so big it's hard to imagine him standing in anyone's shadow. ...

The Cure: Taking The Cure With Robert

Interview by Deborah Frost, Creem, 1 October 1987

"I put make-up on when I wake up. Some times, if I'm go-ing shopping, depend-ing upon what shop I'm going to, I wear it. If ...

Aerosmith: Permanent Vacation (Geffen)

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 22 October 1987

ALTHOUGH AEROSMITH was slagged for nearly two decades as sloppy Stones seconds, the band was finally given hip vindication last year by Run-D.M.C. And what ...

Curiosity Killed The Cat: Meowing For Dollars

Profile and Interview by Deborah Frost, Creem, November 1987

ENGLAND MIGHT have never lost the Empire if she'd only listened to her taxi drivers. Here it is, 5 a.m., my time. I've just stumbled ...

Girlschool: Nightmare at Maple Cross (GWR)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 17 November 1987

MOST ALL-GIRL BANDS are pretty stupid And not always for the same reasons most all-guy bands are – too much attitude, too little attitude, too ...

Buster Poindexter: Buster Poindexter (RCA)

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 19 November 1987

THE GREAT irony of Buster Poindexter is that it finds David Johansen, who launched his career as a New York Doll by threatening to live ...

Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses: Def Leppard: Hysteria (Polygram); Guns N' Roses: Appetite For Destruction (Geffen)

Review by Deborah Frost, Creem, December 1987

WAS IT REALLY worth the wait? Four years and nearly two million dollars later, Def Leppard has finally unveiled their new "masterpiece." What Hysteria's constipated ...

David Lee Roth: Skyscraper (Warner Bros.)

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 24 March 1988

PART BORSCH Belt, part Baryshnikov, David Lee Roth is hard rock's greatest entertainer. Man, myth, mountain climber — he's created a frontman fantasy that makes ...

Van Halen: OU812

Comment by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 28 June 1988

VAN HALEN'S resident virtuoso launched a zillion whammy bars and charted heavy guitar's course for the '80s. The band's high-concept ex-vocalist sent a nation out ...

Adele Bertei: Little Lives (Chrysalis) ***

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 23 March 1989

AT LAST A woman who proves that dance music and bimbo are not necessarily synonymous. Unlike the faceless, pitchless one-hit material-girl wonders, Bertei, on her ...

King's X: Gretchen Goes To Nebraska (Megaforce)

Review by Deborah Frost, Spin, October 1989

VERNON REID loves them. Billy Sheehan loves them. The British heavy metal bible Kerrang! voted their debut "Best Album of 1988." But if King's X's ...

Phranc: I Enjoy Being a Girl (Island)

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 5 October 1989

'FOLKSINGER', THE opening cut on I Enjoy Being a Girl, instantly encapsulates everything that is right — as well as everything that is wrong — ...

David Bowie: Sound + Vision

Review by Deborah Frost, Newsday, 1 November 1989

Golden Years ...

Poison, Warrant, Winger: Poison: Flesh & Blood (Enigma)/Winger: In the Heart of the Young (Atlantic)/Warrant: Cherry Pie (Columbia)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 18 September 1990

KIP WINGER is a hunk. And what a perfect hunk he is. With his Harlequin hero name, decepticon logo, and carefully exposed nipple, he's engineered ...

Judas Priest: Touch the Hem of His Garment

Comment by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 1 January 1991

I TOUCHED Rob Halford's hem. It happened, if you must know, on a gray afternoon in a Marina Del Rey condo owned by the man ...

Guns N' Roses: Guns N’ Roses: Wimps ‘R’ Us

Essay by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 1 October 1991

SMART BOYS DON'T talk about anarchy; stupid boys don't know about it. It's hard to imagine, say, Emma Goldman (who, true, was not really a ...

Hole: Pretty On The Inside

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 4 February 1992

COURTNEY LOVE is scary. Much scarier than the witches old (Macbeth's, say) and new (Lydia Lunch, say) whom she occasionally sounds like and whom she ...

Genesis: Giants Stadium, New Jersey

Live Review by Deborah Frost, Newsday, 4 June 1992

"DRUMMER SENSITIVE to acoustic music" read the want ad Genesis once placed in an English music paper. Its ironieshave never been more apparent or more ...

PJ Harvey: Dry (Indigo)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 7 July 1992

"SHOW US YER TITS!" is still the rule of thumb for yobbos throughout the global village whenever a woman dares open her mouth a little ...

Joan Armatrading: Square the Circle (A&M)

Review by Deborah Frost, Newsday, 12 July 1992

WHEN BONO interrupted a recent arena performance to sing a few bars of Joan Armatrading's minor '70s hit, ‘Love & Affection’, he struck the one ...

Mick Jagger: Wandering Spirit

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 2 March 1993

HE MAY BE a wandering spirit, but Mick Jagger sure doesn't travel light. This simple fact of life informs both the major tragedies and minor ...

Poison: Native Tongue (Capitol) **½

Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 18 March 1993

"OH, NO, NO," moans Bret Michaels during the final, crashing chords of the newly reconstituted Poison's attempt to reestablish its lacquered toehold on the bubble-metal ...

Living Colour: Stain (Epic)

Review by Deborah Frost, Musician, April 1993

BASS LOVERS of the world, this one's for you. Every track on Stain, Living Colour's third record, is a journey to the deepest ends of ...

PJ Harvey: Primed and Ticking

Interview by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 19 August 1993

PJ Harvey beat the sophomore jinx and get their mojo workin' with an American tour and their powerful new album, Rid of Me. ...

The Breeders: The Breeders' Last Splash (Elektra)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 24 August 1993

ANALYZING THE BREEDERS may be as useful as deconstructing a good fuck, or for those less carnally inclined, a strawberry shortcake. When it works, you ...

Robert Plant: Last of the Red-Hot Rock Stars

Report and Interview by Deborah Frost, Spin, September 1993

"CAMION! CAMION!" comes the cry from the front seat of the rented Mercedes wagon. "I don't have time to die!" ...

Nirvana: Coliseum, New York NY

Live Review by Deborah Frost, New York Daily News, 16 November 1993

Nirvana Reaches Nirvana ...

Alice in Chains: Jar of Flies (Columbia)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 15 March 1994

THE NEAT TRICK Alice in Chains pulled off a coupla weeks ago when their third EP Jar of Flies (Columbia) zipped to the No. 1 ...

Sonic Youth: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (DGC)

Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 17 May 1994

EXPERIMENTAL JET Set, Trash and No Star (DGC) is not the most experimental, jettiest, or trashiest record Sonic Youth or anyone else, for that matter, ...

Luscious Jackson: Natural Ingredients (Grand Royal)

Review by Deborah Frost, Musician, September 1994

IF BLONDIE had met the Beastie Boys, Deborah Harry might still be the leader of the pack. And Natural Ingredients may be almost preternaturally accessible ...

Liz Phair: Whip-Smart

Review by Deborah Frost, Musician, October 1994

IF EXILE IN GUYVILLE was Liz Phair's response to Exile on Main Street, Whip-Smart may well be her answer to Smell the Glove. As if ...

Marianne Faithfull Springs Eternal

Interview by Deborah Frost, BAM, 7 October 1994

"Since AIDS, I've changed my attitude. Now I'm honored. I want to be part of the gay community and I am." ...

Jimmy Page/Robert Plant: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: Been A Long Time

Interview by Deborah Frost, Spin, January 1995

Led Zeppelin's chapter in the history of rock'n'roll has long been secure. So why have Robert Plant and Jimmy Page decided to rewrite the ending? ...

Black Sabbath

Profile by Deborah Frost, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 13 March 2006

BLACK SABBATH never intended to appeal to, never mind be understood by, rock critics. Nor were they designed for screaming teens, swooning debs, your mom, ...

Van Halen

Retrospective by Deborah Frost, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 12 March 2007

THE NATIONAL Weather Service labels a blizzard as severe when winds reach 45 miles her hour, snowfall is dense, and the temperature drops to ten ...

Metallica

Retrospective by Deborah Frost, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, April 2009

HAPPY FAMILIES, Leo Tolstoy noted, are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. That goes double, if not quadruple, for bands, ...

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