Joe Cummings.com: Joe and The Tonic Rays

Joe Cummings plays lead guitar for Thailand-based The Tonic Rays, who have performed in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pai, Pattaya and Ko Phi Phi and are currently working on their debut CD. The Tonic Rays formed in Pai in 2005, and are co-led by Marie Dance, a gifted singer/songwriter/rrrrocker and Joe's main musical collaborator & inspiration. Joe regularly plays acoustic gigs with Marie as well.

The Tonic Rays have a full-length CD featuring 10 original songs packaged in a seriously attractive six-panel digipak, and you can buy one right here for US$13 plus $2 shipping and handling worldwide, using PayPal:

Joe occasionally backs up such visiting artists as Mason Ruffner and Mitch Woods. In 2005 Joe recorded lead guitar tracks for Home, a CD/DVD produced by Kai Wingenfelder of Fury in the Slaughterhouse, 'Germany's Rolling Stones'. Recording took place at a studio specially built for the project outside Chiang Mai, and proceeds for all sales go the the School for Life.

December 15, 2008

CHUCK EDDY

Billboard contributor

Top 10 albums of 2008

1. Jamey Johnson, "That Lonesome Song" (Mercury).

2. Ross Johnson, "Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson" (Goner).

3. Rose Tattoo, "Blood Brothers" (Wacken).

4. Rick Springfield," Venus in Overdrive" (New Door/UMe).

5. The Knux, "Remind Me in 3 Days..." (Interscope).

6. The Tonic Rays, "The Tonic Rays" (thetonicrays.com).

7. Woodbox Gang, "Drunk As Dragons" (Alternative Tentacles).

8. Carter's Chord, "Carter's Chord" (Show Dog Nashville).

9. Phil Vassar, "Prayer of a Common Man" (Universal).

10. New Bloods, "The Secret Life" (Kill Rock Stars).

American music journalist Chuck Eddy was born in Detroit, Michigan. After starting his journalism career with The Village Voice and Creem, where he published one of the first national interviews with the Beastie Boys in the mid-1980s, Eddy then wrote for Rolling Stone, Spin, Entertainment Weekly and other national and local publications. He also authored two books: Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe, and The Accidental Evolution of Rock and Roll.

In 1999 he was hired as the music editor at The Village Voice, where he served for seven years. After leaving the The Village Voice in 2006, he briefly wrote a thrice-weekly heavy metal blog for MTV Urge and a monthly page of capsule CD reviews in a Harp magazine called The Last Roundup. He recently worked as a senior editor for Billboard magazine.

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