Rolling Hard Rock 2008 Thread

New Brain Police album on Tee Pee is pretty sweet. Tight,hard boogie rock action. Nothing you or anyone else hasn't heard before. But they are good at it. New Puny Human on Tee Pee is likewise fairly standard stoner stuff. A little rougher around the edges. Bot albums very groove/jam oriented. Both are not great/pretty good.

I saw the Brain Police CD and was wondering about it.

Caught up with the Black Keys' most recent over the holidays primarily because I was looking for something to satisfy a hankering for fuzztone. The guitarist really delivers on that, much better than from ThickFreakness, which was were I was last on the bus. For a band with a good blues singer, they certainly don't do much, if anything, on the newest one that's catchy. As fuzztone jams go, it's right on the money.

Just got an advance of a straight-to-DVD documentary about Seattle's greatest band, TAD. I fucking loved Tad. They should have been huge. (Insert fat joke here.) I got to see them once, in Trenton, NJ, opening for Primus, right around the time of Salt Lick.

Since you've the DVD, what happened to Tad? Is the guy still in occasional action?

Well, he's alive, and seems to have lost, oh, maybe ten or twenty pounds since the band's heyday. Haven't gotten to the end, but Wikipedia says he had a band called Hog Molly in 2001 that put out a single CD, Kung Fu Cocktail Grip, and is currently leading the band Hoof, which has not yet recorded.

There's also this...

http://www.myspace.com/tadrocks

i saw tad open for gwar! late 80's. what a show.

I saw Mudhoney open for Gwar in '88 or so.

i think i might have had a boot of that show at one time. was it at shitty gardens? i even had a boot of the show i was at. at revival in philly. that place was waaaaaaaay too small for gwar. the pyro was seriously scary.

from the lost and found department:

seriously LOVING the 1975 major label debut by the U.K.'s Tiger. I have their 2nd album and it never thrilled me that much. i should actually pull it out and play it again. given how much i love the debut, i might have given the 2nd album short shrift. session guitarist big jim sullivan makes tiger tick. GAWD, what friggin' amazing shredding on this album. The solos are unreal. NWOBHM bands HAVE to have been listening to Tiger. Serious hard-ass blues rock for serious hard-asses. if you see it for a dollar, pick it up!

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/292297.jpg

trivia buffs might wanna know that Big Jim was featured in an episode of Space:1999 doing his thang:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/02/Space1999_01.jpg

>i think i might have had a boot of that show at one time. was it at shitty gardens?

Yep, that was the one. It was a few days before Halloween, so the club had a costume contest, and the winner was a guy dressed as Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman.

got a new album by donita sparks in the mail! i know, right. when was the last time you played an L7 album? probably a long time ago. anyway, this is her solo thing. not bad. not exactly hard-rocking, but every song is based on one of those slow & low & slinky & simple L7 riffs and the beats are pretty cool. i actually like it more than i thought i might.

horrible cheapo album cover though. and horrible title *Transmiticate*. not doing herself any favors if she wants people to hear this. even the font on the front cover smells like a future dollar bin. i'm here to help, folks!

By the way, I have a pile of albums I want to talk about on this thread (including Bigelf and Toilet Boys, both of which I like -- also new Reds; a few CDs by the Kings from the past couple decades; Starz reissues; some unknown CDbaby bands); just trying to find a window of time to do it; will soon, I promise.

For now, some links to some bands I've been liking:

Reds:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/redsmusic

Kings:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/thekings3

Starz:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/starz4

Viceroy:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/viceroyband

Stonecrash:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/stonecrash1

Truth Squad:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/truthsquad

Finn and the Sharks:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/finnsharks4

Atomic Bitch

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=3619977

HorrorPops:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=6058446

Never understood the appeal of Tad, though, I gotta say; seemed really tuneless and oafish, even as far as Seattle bands at the time went. Hit me like a bad novelty act. But maybe I'll relisten someday.

"New Wave of Los Angeles Heavy Metal" (along with my favorite new band of 2007 Trigger Renegade, though I gather these bands might both be defunct already. Check out the embedded links to youtube vids though):

Jet Fuel:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=192418358

Night After Night:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=3287506

Hey, I get my semi-decade opportunity to talk about "Piss Party." Saw Starz in Reading, PA, at the Astor for one of the kick-off dates of the Violation tour. In a mid-sized theatre, there must have been -- max -- twenty people in the place. However, they didn't cancel shows for such measly sales back then and Starz went on, backline completely blocked by Marshalls. Played about half of "Piss Party" before stopping, someone in the band saying Capitol was getting on their case about it. Lyrics were what you might think, stemming -- if memory serves -- from ML Smith's reading of some paperback novel of filth. One assumes the record company people weren't listening very closely when he sang about coming like a milkshake, having his girlfriend play with his balls and throwing people onto the third rail of a subway.

Last time I checked Richie Ranno, who was often spied doing time in a vendor booth at the annual Allentown Fair, was selling CD-Rs of Starz' back catalog as well as a large collection of boots of their shows, some good quality, some bad.

Live in Louisville seemed to be the one that was most popular, although it's not quite as hammerdown as the live anthology issued by MegaBlade many years ago.

Metal Blade, rather.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/helix.jpg

If you're going to name your album "The Power of Rock and Roll" in 2007-2008, it better deliver. And this one does.

Helix is only Helix insofar that Brian Vollmer was the throat and focus of the band. Axeman Too Loud McLeod died awhile ago, I think, but he'd be proud of this.

Helix were always Canadians on undercards in the US hinterlands. Saw 'em a bunch at the Airport Music Hall and they were always good. Their Wild In the Streets album is great mid-Eighties party rock, capable of competing with the vibe given off by Mutt Lange Def Leppard.

This album is more punch your face. The delivery is still 80's party rock but the production is old school. Gone is the shine and gated reverb, replaced by mid-70's semi-rawness and blooz-oidy. The title track is, naturally, top fuel. I don't think anything's below 110 beats/minute.

The most remarkable thing about the record is that its eleven songs clock in at just over half an hour. Each one is 2:30-3:30 of direct rock and roll. No fussing around with trying to prove something or messages more than a chorus long. "Eat My Dust," "Get Up," "Living Life Large," "Fill Your Head with Rock" -- gives you the general idea. Do what you know best and Brian Vollmer does. He and his band of ringers aren't giving up on the Canadian hockey barn crowd.

For what was desired, a perfect CD.

I saw Helix a couple times in the mid-80s, they were huge here in Canada. Fun band. I knew Vollmer was still plugging away with a bunch of fill-ins, but I didn't know he had an album coming out. I'm definitely interested now!

Actually, the late Too Loud McLeod was in Headpins, not Helix (another great, underrated Canadian hard rock outfit). Chilliwack, too. Paul Hackman was the Helix guitarist who died, when their van rolled out on the Coquihalla highway in BC.

Yeah, I need to check out that Helix record too, now! (My younger sister, now a math teacher in Michigan, had at least one cassette by them back in the day, though I bet she doesn't remember it. But mostly she was a Bryan Adams and John Cougar fan.)

So. Bigelf. Yeah, Magical Mystery Metal -- far less so-what stoner-rock and more harmonizing than I'd expected, and good for them. Enuf Z'Nuf comparison makes a lot of sense, though I actually hear a lot of King's X in there too, I think. And "Sunshine Suicide" sounds to me like "Buick Makane" by T. Rex (maybe the GnR version), for some reason. I'm going to conjecture that the most Crack The Sky-like tracks (since George didn't name them) are "Falling Bombs" and "Bats In The Belfry," the latter of which has all this weird post-Zappa fusion math going on.

Toilet Boys album wore on me; they always hit me as kind of okay, but I've yet to ever connect with any of their albums for more than a week, I don't think. George's pick hit "Astrological" sounds glam-fruity enough, but always makes me wish I was hearing Alice Cooper's "Long Way To Go" instead, since that's what its chorus is. "Nothing to Lose" and the Ramones cover are at least passable too, but "Sex Music" (with the request-line intro from Debbie Harry) reminds me of Adam and the Ants but not as good, and the remixes (which the album could really have done without, thus making it a decent enough EP) remind me of A.R.E. Weapons but not as good. I really hate that "poppers poppers poppers" pop-in thing interjected to the end of the "Drug Of Choice" remix; find it totally irritating. So I'm still on their side; just never wind up liking the Toilet Boys as much as I want to, frontshemale or no.

'08 Rock from bottom of Rolling Country '07 thread:

FINN AND THE SHARKS -- Weirdly, the the last song on Breakfast Special, an apparent gospel singalong apparently called "Down to the Well" or something, opens up with guitar chords from "Cover of A Rolling Stone," but then it always lets me down by not being "Cover Of A Rolling Stone." "Rhythm and Ruin," meanwhile, opens with guitar chords from "Smokin' In the Boys Room," so I guess these seeming Teddy Boys actually grew up on '70s AM radio (I bet Fonzie and Sha Na Na were inspirations, too). Also, some of the better tracks ("Tell Your Mama," especially, and "Growing Up Evil") are really more dark sleazy AOR blues-rock than rockabilly, and "I Don't Want To Die Unknown" has a monster hard rock riff and reminds me of the MC5, and "Drugstore Cutie" sounds like a '70s hard rock band going new wave in 1979, always a good thing. But some of the more obvious greaser-jitterbug revival stuff ("Rockabilly Bop," gawd) is more so-what, and "Every Day" annoys me even more by reminding me of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies/Royal Crown Revue '90s swing revival (which reminded me a little of the Blasters itself, so that kinda makes sense.) Still, more hard stuff ("Fed Up" is another fast tough one) than wussy stuff here, and the Led Zeppelin cover kills.

-- xhuxk, Thursday, 27 December 2007 14:25

ATOMIC BITCH -- Tuneful self-released La.-via-L.A. band, led by a strong-voiced gal named Ursulla, plenty of glammy '80s Cali pop and glammy '80s Cali rock color in their sound (I liked the EP they put out in '06 too); not a lot of country on Promnite, but one of the best songs (at least partially about lemon merengue pie and getting tied up) is called "Hillbilly Swing," and it has a bit of a twang to it (along with some Bowie glam in the high notes), so that's a way in. I also like "Suspicious Hair Dryer," which is a good fuzzy dancey song (with some Blur or Pavement in its woo-hoos but not in a bad way) about a household appliance (possibly used as a weapon), with brand names (Maytag, Sunbeam) and pink hair curlers adding speficity. And in another song Ursulla shares a leather jacket with a boy, and in "Easy There Tiger" she tells a boy to slow down. And "Rock'n'Roll High School" is not a Ramones cover but that's okay, as is the fact that the hooks might pop out more if they were more slickly produced.

-- xhuxk, Thursday, 27 December 2007

I've also been wanting to proclaim my love, or at least like, here for the upcoming early '08 album by the Horror Pops, lady-led Eurogothskasurfabillies on Hellcat; as with labelmates Tiger Army earlier this year, they'd never hit me before but somehow seem to have finally come into their own. Good glam-rumble bottom underneath, and the singer (sorry, don't have her name in front of me) does a good Lene Lovich hiccup on top, and she likes exciting movies (as evidenced by the excellently surf-guitared "Thelma and Louise" and the somewhat torch-kitsched but still real good big ballad "Hitchcock Starlet" as in "tonight I'll die in black and white like a Hitchock starlet") and other tales of girls living or at least driving fast and dying young ("Highway 55," probably my favorite), and "Missfit" has cool Madness "Our House" quotes and "Boot To Boot" has cool oi! shouts and "Horrorbeach Part 2" has cool Link Wray style guitars and "Kiss Kiss Kill Kill" has a cute '80s modern-rock melody, and the schtick dates way back to the Cramps at least but all told I sure don't recall No Doubt ever being this much fun. (Qualifies for thge country thread thanks of course to the rockabilly element, which No Doubt lacked.)

...Apparently the singer's name is Patricia Day; HorrorPops is only one word; they are from Denmark but currently based in L.A.; and have Warp Toured.

-- xhuxk, Sunday, December 30, 2007

Bigelf's Falling Bombs, yeah, that's the CTSky I hear. Still hear a lot of Pink Floyd in them and maybe xhuxk doesn't because he never had his nose rubbed in 'em the way I did in grad school since they were the favorite act of one of my lab assistants, whose name was actually Lloyd (rhymed with Floyd!)

xp And yeah, Richie Ranno sent me a pile of Starz CD-Rs, which I've been working my way through. I never heard the Ryko reissues of the studio albums, but I assume that's what this Starz, Violation and Coliseum (all of which include bonus tracks, the best I've noticed so far being the debut's surprisingly Skynyrdish "Sweet Jeremiah") are; Ranno also sent Live in Cleveland, which is really good, on par I suppose with the Starz' Greatest Hits Live that came out on GNR Records in '99 but I only just heard last summer. I'd forgotten (if I'd ever truly noticed before) how great the Coliseum tracks "It's A Riot" (a way better shotgun wedding song than Billy Idol's) and (jailbaited) "So Young So Bad" are. Still don't know if I entirely follow the plot of the eternal classic "Rock Six Times" -- still seems to me that it's the only song ever written about shoplifting an old vinkyl record (which may or may not be called "Walk This Way", which makes no sense) from a thrift store (though Starz call it a "welfare store"); George, are you any clearer on this issue than I am? Also not entirely clear on why the protagonist of "Subway Terror" is wearing a suit. Also noticed a direct rip of Marvin Gaye's (or okay maybe Grand Funk's) "Some Kind of Wonderful" a few tracks into Violation (my notes say in "Cherry Baby," their only Top 40 hit, but that can't be right -- "Violation" itself, more likely.) Vaguely '50s-ish Violation bonus track "Rock This Town" makes me wonder whether the Stray Cats (from Long Island, right?) were Starz fans growing up. All in all, an stellar supply of sweathog-rock!

Also wonder when "Subway Terror" (from '77) came out in relation to the Son of Sam murders and citywide blackout; seems somehow thematically linked, I bet.

And the remixes from the Toilet Boys' <i>Sex Music</i> are completely unnecessary padding. On the other hand, Helix' "The Power of Rock and Roll" started life a couple months earlier as an EP, "Get Up," which was successfully expanded to the above-mentioned. One of those exceptions to the rule where the padding actually makes a good thing even better.

The Toilet Boys rec got me interested in them again so I found a couple Miss Guy interviews on the net. They were taken around as opening act on a bunch of prime tours, most notably as opener for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Still, it didn't get them the major label deal they could have used, if only for the additional money to take the recorded presentation a little further. Miss Guy really is marginal as a singer but integral in the front slot and a glam producer in the Seventies, even a Bob Ezrin, could have made something more compelling of it.

Plus, they set fire to the London Astoria with their stage show around the time Great White burned clubgoers to death in New England. At which point, it was said, Toilet Boys gave up their unauthorized stage pyro for obvious reasons...

Her's is a good story and it deserved a couple more better written chapters.

Re Starz, I always saw Subway Terror as a simple rape, torture and kill song. I don't hear "Some Kinda Wonderful" in "Cherry Baby," just the 12-string guitar which was probably the producer's suggestion. I'd have to cue up "Violation" again to check for it there although the song was about a future where rock 'n' roll was outlawed, so maybe they put a quote into it. Not on the main chourus, though, which was basic he-man rock.

I bought CD-Rs of some of the stuff off Ranno years ago. He used subpar recordables they developed read errors and died within two years. For two of them, I was able to resurrect the data on a PC and burn them out fresh to better media. I have CD-Rs from lots of other sources and have almost never had that happen.

Ah, I presume he didn't send you Attention Shoppers! which ate it if you were a fan of the first two. Feeble record company-mandated attempt to transform into a power pop band for the sake of radio. Pretty much a momentum killer. My brother and I were big fans after seeing them live and there was considerable dismay and gnashing of teeth after the shrinkwrap came off of that one.

Also got four CDs (courtesy guitarist Mister Zero) by Toronto hard-new-wave-rock legends the Kings (who hit #43 in the U.S. with "Switchin to Glide"/"This Beat Goes On" in 1980). Haven't yet put on the CD reissue of their classic Bob Ezrin-produced debut The Kings Are Here, which has four inticing bonus tracks tacked on; thought Party Live in '85 was pretty darn inaudible, though I'll come back to it; most recent album (circa 2004/2005) Because Of You seemed fairly watered down, but I'll eventually come back to that, too. Been really liking 1993's Unstoppable, though -- lots of good soul-based toga-party rock, possibly most energized in "I Got the Lovin'," and there's a slight pop-country bent to some of it, notably "Shoulda Been Me," which maybe Billy Ray Cyrus shoulda sued them for (sounds a lot like his '92 "Could've Been Me"), so it's probably a good thing he didn't hear it. And "If We Don't Belong Together" is very tasty post-Hall-and-Oates blue-eyed soul yacht-rock; reminds me a bit of "Black Coffee In Bed" by Squeeze, possibly in part because coffee is mentioned in the first verse.

But the out-of-the-blue old-new-wave revival that really caught me by surprise, as I earlier implied on the metal thread, was the Reds. I'd assumed they'd fallen off the face of the earth decades ago -- Great debut album on A&M in 1979 (same year as Joe Jackson and the Police debuted on the same label) that somehow beat Joy Division and Killing Joke and maybe Birthday Party to their dark grooves while rocking harder than any of them (got just a smidgen of AOR play in Detroit with "Self Reduction," which was as much Iron Butterfly or Deep Purple as new wave); cool 10-inch A&M EP the same year which I dumby got rid of (they covered the Doors' "Break On Through" on that); second and third albums Fatal Slide and Stronger Silence (from '81 and '82) put out on tiny indies or in Canada (thought the band were Pennsylvanians) if at all (those two were combined on an Italian CD reissue on Helter-Skelter Records a decade or so ago), then pffftt, I thought. Though poking around on their website now I see a '84-or-so EP called Shake Appeal that spurs my memory; maybe I saw it in a used store in Europe back when I was in the Army.

But even that one would've been nearly a quarter-century ago; I had no idea they'd put out a really good album called Cry Tomorrow (produced by Mike Thorne) in 1992. Somewhere along the line, though, they'd become just a duo, Rick Shaffer on guitar and vocals and Bruce Cohen on keyboards (and now apparently sometimes bass and percussion as well). And now as of last November there's now a new duo record, Fugitives From the Laughing House.

I like the '92 one (which has a cover of the Stones' "Last Time" and more dub parts but also a more substantial chunkiness in general) better than the new one (which trudges more), I think, but they're both good. Favorite on the new album -- the one that makes the creepy-crawling churn sound the toughest and most compact -- is probably "Big Town," then perhaps "Little Cisco" or "Gunn's Suicide".

thought the band were Pennsylvanians =
though the band were Pennsylvanians, I meant

'03 cdbaby album from Illinois band Viceroy linked above is just really quality no-bullshit hard-pop/hard-rock, period; don't think the Stone Temple Pilots ever made an album this consistent; and I'd be extremely surprised if the Foo-Fighters never made one anywhere near this rocking; and even when Urge Overkill were making albums this good, they were being way more tongue-in-cheek about it (which worked sometimes better than other times). Just about ever melody kicks in within a couple listens; favorite is probably the Aerosmith circa Rocks rip "Better Dance"; "I Want To See You Shine" is an excellent STP/Who hybrid; the rest ranges from Sex Pistols (riff opening "Rock n Roll Poster") to early Babys ("You're Going to Have to Yell It." "Girlz" and "Makeout" also pretty much kill. (Cdbaby page lists their influences as Cheap Trick, UFO, Thin Lizzy, and AC/DC, none of which I hear directly, but I still hear where that's coming from.)

(Oops-- '06 album, I meant, not '03.)

really liking 1993's Unstoppable, though

Actually, I'm enjoying this '93 Kings album less, the more I play it. Given the competence-but-not-much-more-than-that of its grooves/lyrics/singing/ melodies, the soul-pop really needs more rock in it; as is, it's unfortunately mostly kind of bleh. A couple cuts sound pretty good, still. But the Kings' debut will be replacing it in the CD changer soon.

George, the "Some Kind of Wonderful" rip on Violation is basically in the melody of Michael Lee Smith singing the line "do it like you need it" in "All Night Long." (What had confused me before is that that's track #6 on the actual CD-R I was sent, where the cover lists track #6 as "Cherry Baby" -- the song order is completely different; how weird.)

"Cool One" comes next: farfisafied bubble-rock about a handjob at a movie: "She reached over and grabbed on my rocks/I lost it all in the popcorn box," ha.

Also, it should be stated here that I don't hate Attention Shoppers as much as George does -- yeah, weak first side, but the second side is okay, especially "Johnny All Alone" and "Good Ale We Seek."
(But right, Richie Ranno didn't send me a reissue.)

(Bonus Demo version of "Cool One," Smith's vocal goes in a brief but blatant Elvis imitation toward the end, clearly another '50-rock'n'roll-within-'70s-hard-rock move.)

Late '80s/Early '90s post-GnR/Cult Hard Rockin Shit special -- which of these bands were the best ones?

Royal Court of China

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EbLXxtGIkHY

Salty Dog

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UpeveNqlXoM

Circus of Power

http://youtube.com/watch?v=v8vTaPgKFn4

Dangerous Toys

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LmXM5jpyTS8

Junkyard

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SLovmg6I3tQ

Rock City Angels

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_0DkrApDSMs

Electric Angels

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Imp5KWu24dg

Johnny Crash

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FqNrlBKdD-o

Sea Hags

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1fMvsJRga_8

Raging Slab

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A8XaCWmu3tU

In a piece I wrote for the Voice in March 1990 (called "Boogie Blunderland"), all of these bands (except Rock City Angels, whose album was already a couple years old) apparently looked to have as much chance of "making it" as the Black Crowes, who were also included in the article. (As did Company Of Wolves and Law And Order, who are impossible to search on youtube, unfortunately but understandably.)

Royal Court of China and Circus of Power were true barrel-scrapings. Most of these were, actually.

The guitarist from the Sea Hags died about a month after their album came out. Salty Dog became American Dog. I don't know what happened to Law and Order. The Highway Kings played with 'em once and they weren't bad. I was always a Raging Slab fan but their third -- or "art" album -- was patience-shredding.

These were all part of a major label fad that was going to bring back the authenticity and street feel to hard rock. Do you remember King of Kings? Or The Lost, a Lisa Robinson discovery? The Lost were lost pretty quick. And then one cannot forget Life Sex & Death. It seems there ought to be some YouTube footage of "Stanley," their alleged homeless man/frontman.

Can't forget the goyls. The Cycle Sluts from Hell were part of this wave of signings. One album and Columbia shitcanned them, unfairly I thought. The cover art was the worst I'd seen in a long time. Someone lost their mind and made it look like a still from a gay porn movie which, in stores, tromped right over the line in terms of what their projected audience would be seen carrying up to the cash register. One of the Sluts is Gretyl in H&G. Another is the leader of the She-Wolves.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/sluts.jpg
In the past, they wished you were a beer

The Four Horsemen figured into this, too.

and the four horsemen were cult-related, no? it's kinda hard to remember now just how huge the cult were in the u.s.! were they the last u.k. hard rock band to sell 2 million records in the states? (okay, def leppard, i guess, who else?)

out of all of those above, raging slab seem to be the only ones with any kind of lasting legacy. at least in stoner rock land anyway. i think i have a dangerous toys tape that i like.

wait, weren't royal court of china more of a jangle-rock band like 54/40 or drivin' & cryin' or something.

Xpost. I bought that debut Kings CD a while ago from a Canadian friend. What drives me a little crazy about it is that my memory of Glide/Beat (one of my favorite songs when it was on the radio, though I thought it was by the Kinks at the time) (I was 11) is a faster tempo than what's on the CD. As far as I can tell, I'm just wrong, but does anyone know if there was a single mix or something that made it on the radio in the US?

The first Dangerous Toys album is a lot of fun. Not necessarily "good," but there are some really catchy songs on there.

as a hardcore kid i was supposed to hate junkyard cuz it was brian baker's sell-out move. but i never hated them. they were no minor threat, but they weren't bad. plus, the dude from the big boys started the band! i love the big boys!

this is the tape that i like even more than my dangerous toys tape:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/3b/ba/f964c6da8da00c4c53e22110.L.jpg

this album rocks!

Shadows Fall covered a Dangerous Toys song, so they had some sort of influence on metalcore? Maybe?

I liked Junkyard!

Speaking of hardcore (from Virginia -- close to DC, right?), God's Will were one of the first bands I ever wrote about in the Voice -- a 250-word "lick" back in October 1984. I haven't thought about them (or heard any music by them) for at least 23 years, but they fit here since they did anti-hard rock songs, e.g. "Rock Jam" and "Lynyrd Skinhead"; in my review, I compared them to the Pop-O-Pies, Meatmen, Devo, early Sabbath, and the Meat Puppets:

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cch223/usa/godswill_main.html

that johnny crash video is awesome. tokyo blade were cool! how come i don't have any tokyo blade albums???

does gorge remember my fave brother cane song:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BZ6vageQo4w

Glad to see the Four Horsemen mentioned...they were the best of that lot. Vancouver punk institution Dimwit was their drummer.

yah, of subhumans and pointed sticks fame.

four hoursemen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKv_YYzdI2w

beat that, brian baker!

while we are at it:

War Babies:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lHFkWVysn3s

Electric Boys:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=S1yn-x_WTuA

Saints & Sinners:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RLtNSHVrHek

Sleeze Beez:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xny0opSPD1M

Southgang:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=42u6THtPEew

Roxy Blue:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mnT0Jjrx15k

Pretty Maids:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WAaeD4CFzK4

Holy Soldier:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cEZFRib-ykQ

Wildside:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8cQjmGB-YfE

Love/Hate:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xolgNdwQX2M

Babylon A.D.:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kNyaj-9IrIg

Big Bang Babies (sorry, bad sound):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rzOjSkAVvMU

Von Groove:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VcUFmFz4hJE

Rox Diamond:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aMfEeNbCQ6g

Bangalore Choir:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BjwBgiLlHhI

sorry, got carried away. but all from the early 90's i think.

I have that Electric Boys album! Pretty mediocre, but a few decent tracks. I also have a Love/Hate CD from 1995 called I'm Not Happy that's pretty embarrassing. Also, it has a cover of "I Am the Walrus."

Babylon A.D.:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kNyaj-9IrIg

There's a good, underrated band from the last days of pop metal. Great song.

For your next assignment, dig up Havana Black doing their Bad Company-style one hit video wonder...Actually, they had two albums, one of which I still have and like. Right alongside my War Babies CD, the one and only Brad Tinsel or Sinsel from TKO. And if you don't have TKO's In Your Face and Up Your Ass, the Metallic KO of Seventies drunken swine Seattle hard rock, your collection is still incomplete.

i saw tad open for gwar! late 80's. what a show.

-- scott seward, Wednesday, January 9, 2008 2:43 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Link

I was at that show, too! it was great cos when gwar came out they had the smoke machines going full blast, but when they started playing their backline malfunctioned and the guitars cut out. so all you heard was bass, drums, and the vocalist gurgling, and all you saw was ominous giant shapes moving in the mist.

also remember being in the crowd before gwar came on and slowly realizing that the cute girl standing next to me was slymenstra sans makeup...

The Hangmen were in the xhuxk bunch, too. Signed by David Geffen for a fortune, it all went into becoming heroin addicts. When the money was gone and they'd had some years to dry out, they made a couple of decent indie records on Acetate in the late Nineties. One studio, one live -- at least. Saw them a bunch of times at the Garage, a bona fide dump on edge of Hollywood, where they always delivered.

And if you don't have TKO's In Your Face and Up Your Ass, the Metallic KO of Seventies drunken swine Seattle hard rock, your collection is still incomplete.

The only TKO I know is In Your Face, which was pretty solid way back when. One of the more memorably misogynist album covers of the early 80s...

http://www.spirit-of-metal.com/les%20goupes/T/TKO/In%20Your%20face/In%20Your%20face.jpg

In Your Face & Up Your Ass -- I should scan some pics from it -- was an extra to the original, put out on CD a few years ago. It had a live gig, their self-made singles and the songs recorded by another version of the band. There was some grumbling that the originals were sacked by the label or something...I'll have to check. Both were entertaining pieces.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/sheely.jpg

Hilarious booklet image from In Your Face & Up Your Ass although it doesn't come near to topping the cover from original major label release. This was an archival edition, one of those things always alleged to set the record straight, giving listeners the "right version" of the album, the one so callously consigned to the trash by the major label who insisted the original band members were too wretched to put on the new production. For the archival, the band featured Adam Bomb Brenner, who had his own shots at the big time, none of which went anywhere.

This is a fairly amusing record. In between the raw bursts of drunken sod hard rock bar band rage aimed at the women who consented to be dancers/strippers at their gigs, the packaging is laugh out loud funny. Contains a couple tracks from self-released 7-inchers which accidentally get into Raw Power Iggy & the Stooges territory, which happens more often than ya'd think when you mix shrill slashing guitar with over the top aggression/frustration.

"Run Outta Town," "Working Girl," "Danger City" -- truth in advertising titles. Read 'em and you know what you're getting straight off. "Danger City" is the exceptional cut. Two disc set, one of which contains falling off the stage intoxicated gig in which Sinsel spews the goon squad shtick on the audience.

Drummmer quote, highlighted in booklet: "we really sucked..."

Just got Pig Iron's The Law and the Road are One and started listening, plunking the laser down on "Biker Lord." Surprises! Band has a good blooz harmonica player and knows right where to stick the fills to wind up the riffing. And they have a singer, too, not just a he-man shouter. A promising start to something that looked like stock stoner shtick on the outside.

Pig Iron's <i>The Law and the Road are One<i> -- after much listening -- is a standout. Someone furnishes truly blistering blooz raunch harp in competition with the guitar for half of it. Works great on "Biker Lord" and "Lord, Can't Stand the Pain" which is southern rock on the hard obscure side of the genre -- think Hydra, Blackfoot, etc.

"The Pentagram" is seven minutes long, the last two which break into a harmony guitar charge. Not doom or standard stoner rock.

There's arrangement, dynamics and a glowing B3 Hammond on parts of this record. Someone went to the trouble of ensuring the band didn't lapse into shtick and stodge. "Lord, Can't Stand the Pain" is a song which could actually work on classic rock radio if it were still an open format. Plenty of heavy metal moves also on tap throughout the record which comes in -- like the new Helix one -- at just about a neat and exciting half hour. Gone before leaving any stink.

Glad to hear that about Pig Iron. I read a review of them, sounded promising. I'm a huge Blackfoot fan, so glad to hear that.

Earth -- <i>The Bees Made Honey In the Lion's Skull</i> -- not unfavorably disposed. First track, "Omens and Portents 1," sounds like Seventies Pink Floyd in the latter's instro parts. First fifteen minutes captures a good Seventies Floyd art-rock vibe. I'd like it even a bit more if it hadn't been put through the louderizer. As a result there's some noticeable clipping on it that can't be dialed out by backing down on the volume. Since I like some of this it must mean most of the usual fans of it won't. "Engine Rule" starts off with a very nice evening piano jazz theme. Bill Frisell does the guitar on it so the tone's pretty rich.

Hey, Earth is even to vintage tremolo guitar on the title track. And they put on sitar or Coral sitar guitar into it for you psych-ee-delic music fans.

Okay, catching up: The Kings Unstoppable from '93 is at least a marginal keeper after all, even though you have to get to the last three songs ("Cosmic Groove" which asks where did all the hippies go, "Shook Me Loose" which has some hard J. Geils/Iron City Houserockers blues-rock to it, and especially closer "I Got the Lovin," which turns out to sound very Cougar circa '82 especially in its drums) before the thing really starts rocking; there is one tough pop-metal tune earlier though ("To Be In Love"), and I still like "Shoulda Been Me"'s achy-breaky pop-country and "If We Don't Belong Together" (more, I dunno, Paul Young or solo Paul Carrack or somebody than Squeeze it turns out) blue-eyed saxed pop-soul. (Worth noting is that this album reprises three of the five bonus cuts from the expanded CD version of Kings Are Here, though I've yet to absorb that disc otherwise. Not sure whether there were fast and slow versions of "This Beat Goes On"/"Switchin To Glide" or not. "Run Shoes Run" on Are Here is blatant Glass Houses Billy Joel fake new wave, though, which cracks me up.)

An unexpected surprise was the CD-R reissue of Starz' Coliseum Rock I was sent; Martin Popoff really underrates this one, I think, and so had I up to this point. Some highlights: hard power ballad "My Sweet Child" (yo Axl?); Bryan Adams style rocker "Outfit" about the short skirt she wore to rehearsal the other night (maybe or maybe not better than Drive By Truckers song of the same name); proto-(post-'80s-hair-metal)-'00s-country-rock tune "Last Night I Wrote A Letter"; aforementioned shotgun wedding "It's a Riot"; hard hard heavy metal "Where Will It End"; good bonus cut "Vidi O.D."--kick ass.

Also got another pile of American Beat CD reissues; damn I love that label. What a weird selection of B-and-C-level '70s and '80s stuff they issue, though. So far, I'd say Sammy Hagar's VOA sucks dead donkey dicks; Blue Oyster Cult's Imaginos seems to have some potentially interesting tunes buried somewhere way beneath its (live-album-like, Popoff accurately said) muffle, but I doubt I'll have the energy to dig them out of there; and Billy Squier's Signs Of Life is surprisingly good for an album released after I'd assumed he'd pretty much shot his wad (in '84); a good science-fiction a rocker (with Brian May guitar) about 1984 (see also: Bowie, Warrant's "April 2031"), but so far the standout cut is "Take A Look Behind Ya," just real classy hard studio powerpop with a real funky rhythm (drums, bass, cowbell), which is a sub-genre Billy basically owned. Obviously old-school hip-hoppers were listening to him (i.e., "The Big Beat"), but by 1984, I wonder whether the reverse was true, too?

Actually, though, track 5 of Imaginos was just on -- "The Siege and Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle of Weisseria"!! -- and the prog sounded real good. So who knows, maybe that album just needs more listening time to kick in. Curious to hear George's viewpoint; he's the expert. Popoff says it was originally a Bouchard solo joint.

But man, the two American Beat reissues that are really killing me are Donnie Iris's weirdassed two-albums-on-one-disc Back On The Streets/King Cool and ESPECIALLY, holy effing shit, Artful Dodger's Honor Among Thieves, which -- correct me if you disagree, George -- sounds like one of the great hard-pop albums ever. They were Virginians, right? Raspberries era. Bicentennial. I still have the self-titled debut on vinyl, but I don't remember it being this good. Who does Billy Paliselli sing like -- the guy from Streetheart, maybe? Somebody really cool. But the album opener/title track has him yelping Steve Tyler style, and he's excellent in proto-Babys/Bryan Adams high-register midtempo mode (both album and single versions of "Scream" here). And "Hey Boys" is great hard glam bubblegum, and they do a killer hard rock version of Little Richard's "Keep A Knockin." I think George said once that, live, they could rock as hard as the Dolls, but I never heard that myself.

Okay, Donnie Iris notes some other time, I guess...

Hmmm....Hagar's "Swept Away" is very tasty post-Zep AOR pomp, with time changes about Spanish eyes. So...I can't write that album off yet, either.

the Earth album is really good.

From the remaster thread last night, when someone asked about Imaginos

"plus has anyone ever heard imaginos? how is it?"

It has it's moments. First side is fairly strong. Ya takes yer chances the rest of the way. "The Seige and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria" works because of the over-the-top guest vocal by Joey Cerisano who had a considerably better voice than Buck Dharma and Eric Bloom. He was big in Jersey bar bands and is on a Silver Condor record I have, a not bad but not great slice of mid-Eighties guitar rock. "Del Rio's Song" is another thing from that sounds akin to many of the poppier things BOC liked to do.

I have a CD copy of it but they seem rare. Or were the last time I looked. I actually interviewed Buck Dharma for CREEM magazine at the time of the release of Imaginos. It wasn't a bad record but no one, including the record label, was very enthusiastic about it. It was a different time, BOC were old hat. When I was at Columbia for the interview they were pumping Britny Fox and a said to be upcoming just-signed artist from my neck of the woods in PA, Tommy Conwell, hard. So that was the zeitgeist.
======
Didn't know it was reissued. I actually dragged it out to relisten and the first side is good. That's the first five songs, after which it flops. "Astronomy," "Blue Oyster Cult" (a rewrite of "The Subhuman") and the title cut are all tricked out in dance/Miami Vice theme music tone and it doesn't work at all. A friend of mine cynically commented back in 1988 that BOC had released a "disco version" of "Astronomy."

The album reflects the confusion and disarray of BOC at the time. Imaginos was Albert Bouchard's solo album and while Columbia was interested, they logically wanted it as a BOC album. Except Albert and BOC weren't getting along. He wanted to be back in the band and they didn't want him.

In effect, the album has been recorded by Bouchard with a host of sidemen. He doesn't play drums, they were left to Tommy Price of the Joan Jett band and Patti Smyth's Scandal. Joe Satriani plays solo guitar on "Weisseria." Kenny Aaronsen, Pat Benatar, plays bass. Plus many more.

So it sounds like Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma were brought in to add some vocals and other things, substantially being a BOC album in which they were only sidemen. Nevertheless, the first side was good and if there'd been one or two numbers like "Weisseria" on the second side, it would have been flattening.

I A/B'd it with Britny Fox's debut -- which was being flogged on the floor at Columbia when I went up for the interview -- and that has considerably more excitement and enthusiasm to it. Hair metal hadn't yet crashed and burned and Columbia seemed to think BF were going places, born out by some success on MTV of videos for "Girlschool" and "Long Way to Love." If you don't listen to the lyrics -- which are so stupid they're painful -- it's a fair to good debut album. Your pet cat could have written a better libretto.

On the other hand, the "story" of Imaginos was an impenetrable gobble compared to a simple tune about being a panty sniffer of the products of the "Girlschool."

"Carpe diem!" is a choral exclamation in "Weisseria."

"Seven-seven-seven-seven-seven" is tied to a sequencer on "Les Invisibles." Perhaps someone wanted to get after the Beatles for the "number 9...number 9...number 9" thing in the Sixties.

"A drug called world without end!" is sung over and over in another song. If you can figure out what it meant without a cheat sheet you're a better man than I.

Artful Dodger has been reissued? How about the first s/t LP? That's the one I liked best. Honor Among Thieves was just fine, though. My brother was especially fond of it.

They were a regular opening act on hard rock bills at the Harrisburg Farm Show arena, so we saw them a bunch of times. They were always good. The highpoint of their set was a turn at "(There's Gonna Be A)Showdown" which was a lot better than the Dolls' rendition. It never made it to vinyl as far as I know. And, yeah, I thought they were from Virginia.

I A/B'd it with Britny Fox's debut

Also reissued late last year by American Beat, by the way...how weird. I like it. But yeah, as my Stairway to Hell review makes clear, it has some of the stupidest lyrics in human history. (Not sure why I say in that book that they mainly sound like Kiss, though -- they're much closer to AC/DC, and sometimes even to Slade or Nazareth, both of which bands they covered songs by, the former here and the latter later. Or okay, they sound like the first Cinderella album, only better. And the completely retarded "Save The Weak" sounds a lot like "Patience" by GnR, I realized in retrospect.)

i wish i still had a copy of the artful dodger debut. i'll find one eventually. i never heard the other three albums except here and there. youtube has lots of songs from honor among thieves on it. and the first song they recorded when they were brat. (before they re-recorded it)

So yeah, that Hagar album just really doesn't have the tunes, at all, to make his macho he-man bluster amusing rather than aggravating; to hell with him. I hate "I Can't Drive 55" even more than I expected to. "Voice of America" itself is pretty ridiculous.

Squier album is an iffier sort of mixed bag than I'd thought; still not sure if it'll make the cut. But I like how the talked parts in "Fall For Love" remind me of both Golden Earring's "Twilight Zone" and Tom Petty's "Here Comes My Girl" -- and that song, among others, has good Robert Plant-gone-pop potential.

Imaginos seems to be slowly growing on me. I like the "hey hey hey" gang shouts and quasi-disco rhythm of the version of "Astronomy." (Can't recall whether those are alterations from earlier versions.)

And I guess I need to dig back out Artful Dodger's debut LP, if George says it's even better than the followup...

I've never heard Imaginos.

I heard the reason Al got kicked out of BOC was totally stupid, like he didn't say good morning to Roeser's wife or something. Dumb move, they sucked after he left. He was definitely more than your average drummer.

quasi-disco rhythm of the version of "Astronomy." (Can't recall whether those are alterations from earlier versions.)

Actually, George already answered this - duh.

>>So yeah, that Hagar album just really doesn't have the tunes

I'm surprised no one has thought of reissuing his Capitol output. Those were his original meat-and-potatoes records. At one point in the early Nineties, they were on CD, but I haven't seen 'em in awhile. It's where Rick Springfield's "I've Done Everything for You" came from. Everyone has to have a copy of "Red." "Red, red, I like red, c'mon to bed!"

"Cruisin' & Boozin'" -- one of the great songs advocating drunk driving, and "Rock 'n' Roll Weekend" beat "I Can't Drive 55," easy.

Because of short mention on Thud Rock thread, I went and dug up Crushed Butler's Uncrushed. It certainly merits more love.

Tight Brit rock and roll trio with caveman drumming that drives surprisingly catchy tunes. The band really bites down on the material from Bo Diddley beat opener, "It's My Life," to another, "My Son's Alive," which emits smoke and flames. If they could deliver that in a club they must have been something to hear. "Love is All Around Me" seemed delivered to appeal to the then new glitter/glam style.

This is a short record -- 20 minutes -- and almost perfect for it. Has half a foot in music hall under-class glam stomp and loud R&B combo pub rock. Never went anywhere. The same style sort of cropped up in the Hammersmith Gorillas, fronted by the same guy who led this band. I'll have to dig out my Gorillas CD later although it never hit me like this stuff.

Crushed Butler is right up xhuxk's alley.

Crushed Butler at CD Baby.

"Imaginos" title track (the part from the beginning, anyway) sounds weirdly like the weird prog-disco break from Tim McGraw's '90s dance-country debut hit "Indian Outlaw".

I don't think the Squier Signs Of Life album is going to cut it after all. "Rock Me Tonite," its top 20 hit, really is a marked decline into innocuousness from his earlier hits (and not as good as "Love Is the Hero," I think it was, from a couple years later.) And the idea of doing a sci-fi song about 1984 (if that indeed is what it is) in, uh, 1984 is pretty dumb. Not sure why I called it good above; guess that Brian May guitar temporarily blinded me. So: Not an awful album, but not worth the dollar or more it would cost you in a used bin.

Dug out the Gorillas' <I>Message to the World</A> and don't quite know why I'd not played it for years. Jesse Hector recycles a couple songs from Crushed Butler with better production. They're not as animalistic as <i>Uncrushed</i> but the singing's better. You can hear lots of love for rockabilly and Marc Bolan/T. Rex on "Going Fishing" and "New York Groover." "I'm Seventeen" has Elvis hiccuping; "Outa My Brain" cops a popular melody from contemporaneous Status Quo. Hector gets away with a good version of "Foxey Lady" which takes a bit of nerve to kick off your album with.

You can A/B it with Crushed Butler and tell it's some of the same blokes. Came out on Chiswick just after The Count Bishops. They could've shared a bill, both playing tough blue collar rock aspiring to greater things but stuck in English toilets. Going down, as it was, during punk there's some audacity to it as they had much of the flair of glitter bands.

New album streaming from Norwegian rock band Animal Alpha - they remind me of 1990s band Whale

MySpace.com - Animal Alpha - New album jan.28 ! - Rock / Punk / Metal - www.myspace.com/animalalpha

I had a good time reintroducing myself to Toronto, classic 80's rock Canadian band, over the weekend. Didn't make much of a dent in the US but judging by their sound, could have with the right muscle. Somehwere between Heart and Pat Benatar. Actually, they sound just like 1994. Apparently did have one tune which Heart turned into a hit, "What About Love," which was never put on an album until reissues in the age of CD. The Toronto version is almost indistinguishable from Heart's.

Toronto was a band that to my ears got steadily better through four albums. Head On and Get It On Credit sound the best to me. By the last two they were really into that big grandiose big rock sound that dominated radio in the early Eighties. Plus there's a Pat Benatar cover, "You Better Run," on their debut, Lookin for Trouble. On the title song the singer bemoans seeing her boyfriend in handcuffs if he doesn't stay away from the life of crime.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/getitoncredit.jpg

GRUNTRUCK/SKIN YARD Singer BEN MCMILLAN Loses Battle With Diabetes -
Jan. 28, 2008

Not sure if this is the right right thread for this or not. Saw this at
Blabbermouth

Toronto was pretty cool. "Your Daddy Don't Know" is a Can-rock staple, and was covered rather brilliantly (sans irony) by the New Pornographers for the FUBAR soundtrack.

Airbourne's Runnin' Wild was getting the endcap $10 push at BestBuy along with the new Louis XiV, so I bit on the former. AC/DC for when there is no AC/DC is the push. Doesn't Australia send one of these bands over every two years. Last one was The Casanovas and before that was Jet. Casanovas did nothing. Jet sold half a million copies of the first and disappeared upon the second.

As for this one, on the first spin it didn't start getting my attention until the last part -- "Cheap Wine & Cheaper Women" and "Heartbreaker." It's not very differentiated which sets it apart from real AC/DC albums in which all the songs don't sound the same. Part of it is the mix and production which is so compressed the dynamics are obliterated. I'm sure this would have worked better if they'd backed off on the louderizer.

There are a good number of people doing AC/DC and one more's always welcome. It's adequate but the Rhino Bucket archival releases last year were better.

Was playing Airbourne back to back with The Black Keys' last two. Magic Potion made me go and get Rubber Factory, one I'd formerly passed on. Both have a brutality and rawness you can only get by using a fuzztone liberally and turning up the spring reverb every so often. There's just something to that basic combination with these guys that works from the two man band fad that just never pulled me in with the White Stripes.

Because of production differences, The Black Keys actually sound heavier on record than Airbourne when the latter actually puts up a fuller wall of noise.

A couple extra minus points for Airbourne's label using an irritating copy protection scheme disguised as a web portal to access special exclusive content. Comes with the Orwellian name OpenDisc, actually meaning the opposite, as in ClosedDisc.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/nomorepeassmall.JPG

Please Daddy, tell teenagers to stop stealing teh music!

There's an official, licensed & remastered LP reissue of the RAVEN LP. Private ohio fucked up, single-minded blues rock. Biker junkie scuzz groove galore.

OM's latest is the first CD I've heard from them. Now they break up. Ah well, I'll probably be digging this one out from the pile in a few minutes to listen again.
=========
Om is continuing forward with a new drummer and working on a new recording. Please check the band's website and myspace page for updates.

A live vinyl only LP "Om - Live at Jerusalem" will be forthcoming. This is Chris Hakius' final release with the group.

I personally apologize to east coast fans who planned on coming out to the shows. Please know that Om will be back in your area later in 08.

Thank you to all of you. Live dates resume in late spring. There is a LOT of new material on its way.
Shrinebuilder is also forging ahead.

See you all soon." - Al/Om
===========

so i got this spam about Sabbat reissues and i was like put your money where your mouth is send me some damn sabbat reissues for pete's sake! so they did, and also the RULING Wishbone Ash First Light sessions cd. I've never heard these recordings. The first recordings! this was the actual first album they recorded that the label thought was too raw. it sounds amazing. ALSO they sent me a NEW wishbone ash album. *The Power Of Eternity*. i'm a little scared, but what the hell, it might be good. AND they sent me a reissue of a Hanoi Rocks album that came out in 2003(!) chuck and gorge probably have that one. *twelve shots on the rocks*. AND they sent me a deluxe double disc reissue of Chris Squire's first solo album *fish out of water*. AND the new orange goblin album. and a cd by M3 which is three dudes from Whitesnake doing old Whitesnake songs. bernie marsden, micky moody, and neil murray.

BUT IF YOU HAVE EVER LOVED WISHBONE ASH - at least the first 3 or 4 records - YOU REALLY NEED THIS FIRST LIGHT DISC. just so you know.

oh and i got two sabbat reissues. see, it pays to ask for stuff sometimes.

The three dudes from Whitesnake have been doing old Whitesnake for a few years. Used to be called Company of Snakes and I had a live CD by 'em that sounded just like old Whitesnake. I'm a big fan of old Whitesnake as it was Deep Purple when there was no DP. I've even been known to get out the old Live at Hammersmith Whitesnake LP (Jap CD remaster) and like it.

I actually like Coverdale's US session super hack Whitesnake but for completely different reasons.

"AND they sent me a deluxe double disc reissue of Chris Squire's first solo album *fish out of water*..."

Worth getting?

I never thought <I>Fish Out of Water</i> was indispensable. Squire used to play some of it during his solo spot during Yes shows on tour in the Seventies. I was never sure what the fish thing was with him. Was he a Pisces?

The story was that he took a long time in the shower so it was his nickname. Seriously.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7226757.stm

Hey George (or anybody): What are your thoughts on Legs Diamond? I got sent 12 (!!??) reissue CDs by them in the mail yesterday, and I have no idea where to start. (Well, actually, I'm starting with the debut, self-titled one, which sounds really great.) Any thoughts on which other ones to go for, and which ones to ignore? I'm clueless on the subject.

Otherwise, there are lots of recent CDs (mainly by no-name cdbaby bands) I want to post about here eventually, and I will, sooner or later, I promise.

Meanwhile, from the country thread:

LEFT LANE CRUISER -- Mentioned this Fort Wayne, Indiana blues-sludge-stomp duo upthread and linked to their myspace page. Anyway, I'd say I like Bring Yo' Ass To The Table better than most any Black Keys album I've heard (just seems to have more personality and actual songs that seem like songs not just riffs), though I don't know if actual guitar players will agree with me. Also seems better than anything I ever heard by Railroad Jerk, if not the Gibson Bros (the mid '80s Don Howland blues-punk ones not the late '70s Euro Caribbean disco ones). Anyway, funky enough with a good thick Billy Gibbons style tone and convincing ZZ haw-haw-haws at points, I'd say, and my favorite songs are the ones where they talk about pork'n'beans and mashed potatoes and the one where Amy's in the kitchen (which has the closest thing to a memorable melody, plus a good Dr. John style grumble in the voice.) Actually, there are mashed potatoes in "Big Mama," too, so I guess they like food. Also like the one where they drive to Wisconsin to meet Mr. Johnson. Good record, though probably a bit too monochromatic in its vamps to listen to it all the way through, from beginning to end. An EP could have sufficed, but that's fine.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=25297276

Also wound up liking the new Earth album (are all those Link Wray-sounding parts coming from Bill Frissell?) and, with more reservations, the late '07 Monster Magnet album -- the latter of which mostly for its more Hawkwindish space-rock parts ("Cyclone," "Freeze and Pixielate," maybe "2000 Light Years From Home") and, a little less so, it's "Wild Thing"ish garage-rock parts ("Solid Gold," maybe "Blow Your Mind"). "Slap In The Face" has a pretty cool, swinging riff, but an iffy chorus, I thought. Title track "4 Way Diablo" is almost a frantic kind of new wave. Closer "Little Bag of Droom" is an irritating kind of lounge croon, though maybe it'd sink in if I gave it more of a chance. Almost no stoner-metal, fine with me I guess.

Speaking of frantic new wave, I had hopes for these Jerseyites (especially since they were smart enough to limit themselves to an EP), but I thought they did too much Primusy prog-funk and Pixies nonsense, when I wanted more crazed surf-punk or something; vocals are clumsy, so more instrumentals or just plain funny songs could have helped a lot, I think:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/meltdowns

Interesting. My Joel Whitburn guide says that Legs Diamond never placed a single album even in the Top 200 in the States. But Jasper and Oliver's International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal calls them "undoubtedly the best 'undiscovered' group featured in this volume...an amalgam of American melody firmly entrenched with early 1970s British aggression...could easily be described as the North American alternative to Deep Purple. Unfortunatley, bad deals and bad finance led to their downfall."

Martin Popoff, though, basically says they started stinking after the first two albums. He gives the '77 debut a 7; '77 followup A Diamond Is a Hard Rock an 8; and then he likes just a couple cuts on Fire Power from '78, and he gives that 6, and Land of the Gun from '86 a 2. (That's in The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal; I don't have his '70s guide handy, though sometimes he does upgrade his position on certain '70s rock albums in that one.)

are all those Link Wray-sounding parts coming from Bill Frissell

Yeah, more or less.

Johnny Winter's Live Bootleg Series, Vol. 1 is an archival thing of him with his Texas trio, sounding like a bit prior to Johnny Winter And and his Johnny Winter Live arena-busting stuff.

Always at his best when rocking/interpreting others, a couple of gutbusters are "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Bony Maronie," and "It's All Over Now."

JW always clubs you over the head with his guitar rock mastery, so if you like that, you like this. Rhythm section, by definition, must always be ticking, able to lay it down like it's always on fire. Well and truly oiled and Texan with a capital T. Anyone doing retro in 2008 who hasn't figured out the necessity of boogie needs to listen to "It's All Over Now" from this.

=====
The first Legs Diamond album was the best. It has some killer material on it. "Stage Fright," "Satin Peacock," etc. Never liked the second one much. Fire Power was fair and had a Righteous Brothers covers I liked OK, predating soppy LA metal balladry.

Twelve Legs Diamond LP's though?! That's really pushing it. They were pretty much done after three everywhere except San Antone.

new deluxe street survivors coming out:

Ronnie Van Zant considered Street Survivors Lynyrd Skynyrd's greatest achievement. A year in the making, the album was recorded twice. Now, on the two-CD Street Survivors - Deluxe Edition - 30th Anniversary (Geffen/UMe), released March 4, 2008, the previously unreleased first version debuts alongside the incendiary final studio album from the original Lynyrd Skynyrd issued in 1977.

The package also features the never-before-issued last known recordings of the band, five songs performed live at a Fresno, CA concert less than two months before the group's famously tragic plane crash.

By 1977, the Jacksonville, FL band--singer Van Zant, guitarists Allen Collins and Gary Rossington, keyboardist Billy Powell, bassist Leon Wilkeson, and drummer Artimus Pyle--had scored four hit albums and become one of America's top concert draws. There was a new member, guitarist Steve Gaines, and the group could take its time with a new album. The first version was recorded at Miami's Criteria Studios in winter 1976 and spring 1977 with renowned producer Tom Dowd. But, dissatisfied with the results, Skynyrd returned that summer to Studio One in Atlanta, where "Free Bird" and "Sweet Home Alabama" had been recorded, and produced the released version themselves.

On Street Survivors - Deluxe Edition - 30th Anniversary, both versions are heard of "You Got That Right," "I Never Dreamed" and "Ain't No Good Life" (the original with background vocals by the Honkettes); three versions of "That Smell" (including a never-before-heard extended guitar jam); a previously unreleased "What's Your Name," and a song dropped from the album, "Sweet Little Missy," as a demo and a master of the also axed "Georgia Peaches." Replacing the two two deleted songs were "One More Time," a newly overdubbed track from six years earlier, and Merle Haggard's "Honky Tonk Night Time Man." A Deluxe Edition bonus is Van Zant's autobiographical rewrite titled "Jacksonville Kid," the last song he wrote and recorded.

from country thread; applies here too "Double Barrel" is a 1970 ska-talk hit from Dave and Ansil Collins):

Ross Johnson's Make It Stop! The Most Of is my album of the year so far, and I've decided (at least until I change my mind, if I do) that 10 2007 copyrights and four more 2004 or 2005 copyrights out of 24 definitely makes it an "album," not a "reissue." Maybe I'll go into more detail someday about why it's so great, maybe I won't, but suffice it to say that his acknowledgement of a hundred strains of '50-'70s pop and rock (Hasil Adkins rips, ZZ Top via Slim Harpo riff vamps, "Mr. Blue," "When The Saints Go Marching In"/"Dixie" [okay, that's pre '50s I guess] "Keep On Dancing" by Gentrys," "Pretty Flamingo," "Farmer John," "Double Barrel" as mentioned above) as wild dance music is pretty much the way I see things, and the hilarious inebriated shaggy-dog spiels and more than a few really gorgeous guitar workouts ("Last Date," "Theme From a Summer Place," "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying," "Senior Stroll") are free lunches full of gravy. I'm not even an Alex Chilton fan, never really have been (though maybe I should investigate his new wave era solo stuff more? Is that when he did "Bangkok," which I've always loved the Nomads version of?) But I totally love this thing. And the jokes about starting a new family before you've even finished with the first one you started are great.

(Favorite cut may or may not be the "Keep On Dancing" cover, with the talkover where the sockhop DJ voice starts asking the audience whether they've ever been beaten up, and that he has, and they might be, so they should keep on dancing but keep on looking over their shoulder. Then again, I always like songs where fights break out on dancefloors.)

Good stuff about Ross looking at nudie mags when he was a kid, too, and about how a nude party might be happening somewhere near you right now. Guy has a very funny dirty mind. And his medley of "Saints"/"Dixie" rocks like Chuck Berry's "30 Days."

Ross's myspace:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=275644278

Funny how The Gentrys keep getting mentioned on ILM. Everytime that happens I think of Jimmy Hart as the guy who used to feud with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. That was when pro wrestling was on Saturday afternoon local, the low-rent bottom-out-of-sight advertising slot. Back in the good old days when wrestlers made joke records instead of serious and semi-serious ones and being associated with them or the agecny was a kiss of death. He managed Randy Savage and Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart!

F-----' ay!

More from country thread"

Finally, I like some of the rockabilly stuff ("Midlife Crisis, Midnight Flight" -- amusing song), guitar jam stuff ("Stop Drinking," eight minutes, possibly about going on the wagon), soul-ish stuff ("Must Be Karma") and stuff where the guitars groove like "Midnight Rider" by the Allman Brothers ("Troubled Dreams") on this Alligator Records blues album Blood Brothers by Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King. Much of the rest of the album just sounds like stodgy old Alligator Records blues, who cares. But it might have enough cuts I like to pass.

No new-album songs on myspace yet, but still:

http://www.myspace.com/SmokinJoeKubekMusic

http://www.dickdestiny.com/bitchinsmall.JPG

Best seat in the house?

Missed The Donna's "Bitchin'" late last year. Picked it up on firesale and they sound like they took good advice after the last two records of fiddling with a major label. Skip trying to be girly-girl in packaging and proceed directly to the embrace of your inner lumpy leather dirtbag. Girlschool took a similar tack. Lumpy leather dirtbags first, then took seriously label guidance and looking girly, something they couldn't do, and back to dirtbag for the closeout albums of the career.

"Bitchin'" is a fairly good one. Lots of anthemic rock music with groove, handclaps and 'na-na-na's. Guys don't drum in bands doing this stuff as well as the gal in The Donnas. If "Here for the Party" telegraphs with the title, is it evil? Not if you actually bring the party and they do. "Save Me" is worth a bullet point. It exactly captures the hit sound of Def Leppard. Before the singing comes in, you can't tell it's not them for the recreation of the patented arena-rock-in-a-box riff. Best song in the set, too.

Rockman Eighties hit parade sound explained here at my blog.

Witch -- <i>Paralyzed</i> Lots of tinny paper-on-comb/kazoo-like fuzztone guitar playing and twee through-nose singing. Describing it makes it sounds a bit worse than it is when on the receiving end. "Mutated" and "1000 MPH" sound like snotty '78 punk rock, someone imitating the Plasmatics or the Dead Boys. "Psychotic Rock" is the big snap-out number. The second half of it is taken over by a flanging effect that obliterates everything except a little bit of drum and bass, presumably the sound of someone being psychotically rocking.

Nah, too arch for me. But if the tinny and screeching fuzztone rock sound floats your boat there might be much for you to enjoy here.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/dictatorssmall.JPG
Big pro wrestling fans when it was on local cable and no one wanted to buy advertising. Ross the Boss (far left) is smirking because he knew he was laying down the best electric guitar in show business, buddy boy!

The Dictators' Every Day is Saturday rewards the nutty rock and roll fans who actually heard the jokes on the band's debut, Go Girl Crazy, and liked them. Thirty-three years ago.

It packages up the demo made under for CBS/Epic before The Dictators had played one live show. It clinched a record deal and under the guidance (and the term's used loosely) of Blue Oyster Cult's management, the band went into the studio and cut Go Girl Crazy, a flop of still astounding proportion.

The cover of Go Girl Crazy was a scene DD knew well -- locker room in a dingy and beat-up high-school with some shmuck, "secret weapon" Handsome Dick Manitoba, showing off an old-timey wrestling uniform. Yes, kids and adults, we did wear uniforms that looked THAT awful. The only thing we didn't have was the piece of brownish paper, the one with "Maricon!" scribbled on it, tacked on the wall.

Inspirational lyrics, from "Master Race Rock" -- remember this is 1974 and such songs just weren't done, classic rock being business of the most serious kind: We're the members of the master race! Got no tact and we got no grace. First you put your sneakers on, goin' outside to have some fun! Don't forget to wipe your ass, oh no! Set to a guitar riff that kills.

Mirrored

http://www.dickdestiny.com/mojolesschinesebluesharpsmall.JPG

A blooz harp story

http://www.dickdestiny.com/mountainravenreissuesmall.JPG

Picked this up a couple days ago as a reissue. Store proprietor, older white man behind counter, recommended it: "Raven has been issuing very good things."

If you're a fan of the crushing guitar of Leslie West, these are where the mark is made. Both albums charted, Nantucket Sleighride getting the highest. Climbing has "Mississippi Queen" as the kickoff track. Essentially the best of Mountain, missing only "Blood of the Sun" which next to "Mississippi Queen" and "Never In My Life" was their third most pulverizing track.

Bonus material is the title track from "Flowers of Evil" and a folk psych redo of "Travellin' In the Dark" by Bo Grumpus, whose vinyl debut I'd wager Scott must have.

Awesome.

I need to pick up those Mountain albums. I have Flowers Of Evil around here somewhere, along with the West Bruce & Laing album.

Got two good South American hard rock albums today - new stuff: El Cuy and Obskuria. On the German label World In Sound, but mine were mailed from Brooklyn. Wrote about them on the blog.

King Crimson archival live set, "The Great Deceiver," out of print since 1992. Covers the band's '73-'74 line-up, which was David Cross, John Wetton, Fripp and Bill Bruford. Very much a hard rock act crossing into loud and crashing prog metal, it outdoes most of the Crimson studio albums up until Red which was the only non-live thing that approached the band's stage power. In the US Crimson released USA which is from the same period and also pretty good. If you're at all a fan, the reissue of the latter a few years back was also noteworthy.

I'm listening to a show from Providence right now and "Larks, Pt. 2" is massive. Wetton's bass is very powerful and crunching, a fact remarked upon by Fripp in the journal and liner notes included with the package. Cross furnishes violin and mellotron and was fired after the tour, seemingly because he became irritable over the fact that the guitar, bass and drums walked over his contribution. That's not so apparent on the live recordings, which are very good, but it is fair to say that part of the instrumentation was secondary next to the trio of Fripp, Bruford and Wetton. In fact, one notices that on a lot of this Wetton actually outshines Fripp, his use of the bass fuzz-wah being particularly effective. Plus he was a good lead singer. He left Crimson in 1974 to join Uriah Heep for that band's Return to Fantasy which even fans must admit is a dismal record. At the time it must have seemed like smart move, Heep being a much bigger seller than Crimson.
Listening to this material in 2008, it's hard to figure out why Crimson weren't more successful in '73-'74 than they were.

Anyway, great package.

Half way in through the Providence show, KC begin to dig a major hole in the air. "Easy Money," a long improv called "Providence," and an electronically shrieking "Fracture" at which point Bruford yells, "Last round, keep going!" and they begin "Starless."

Spooky Tooth -- Nomad Poets Reunion gig live stuff from Germany where they wisely remain fans of the genre. Of course, no Greg Ridley, he being dead. And Luther Grosvenor also apparently decided to sit it out.

But that leaves Gary Wright, Mike Kellie and Mike Harrison which, being the lead voices and such, makes it sound exactly like the early Seventies from which the entire set is taken.

"Waitin' For the Wind," "Better By You, Better Than Me," "Tobacco Road" and "Evil Woman" all had substantial pre-AOR FM radio currency. Wright's voice is immediately recognizable and he stays away from making the band do "Dream Weaver," or it's not included. Lots of heavy B3 and assorted vintage keyboard sound and the guitarist is not undermixed. "Better By You" is Judas Priest's old lawsuit song in which two dipso American fans decided to shoot themselves in the head after allegedly being told by the song to "do it." One succeeded, the other turned himself into a horrid-looking jawless ghoul.

The heavy slowed-down attack of Spooky Tooth is preserved. All the songs are about being loused up, depression and dieing slow. Spooky Tooth were no sunshine boys. "I despise yooooo! But I love you because you're my home," they sing on "Tobacco Road." Invigorating, they haven't lost a step even though they all look like duffers who sit on park benches and throw scraps to pigeons.

Archival reissue -- Derringer's Live and If You Weren't So Romantic, I'd Shoot You on BGO.

After charting #1 in the Sixties with the McCoys and "Hang on Sloopy," Derringer wouldn't do like numbers again until his first solo album. Part of the Blue Sky Mafia, he must have been on most every record by Edgar and Johnny Winter up until 1972. Struck out in hard rock act of same name, featuring an ex-Dust man, Kenny Aaronson and Vinnie Appice on drums. The studio records, of which there two until he changed personnel, didn't sell. Lack of success interpeted to rise of punk rock and New Wave, although I'm not buying it. They just didn't get any radio play.

Live was a different matter and the recording of it included on this was their highest charting LP, prob'ly selling to many who'd seen on tour and been sold on the spot. The first fifteen minutes are without mercy, pumping bombast mixed with Derringer's tunes which tended to be fairly full of hook. "Across the Universe" is the exception, an extended guitar and drums blurt in which everyone tries to outrace and outplay each other.

Mike Chapman produced Romantic which went toward for a punk rock vibe, tunes being shorter and faster, although played by the usual slew of session aces. Picked up Myron Grombacher on drums, replacing Appice who went into Axis ("It's a Circus World and I'm an Animal") and later Black Sabbath. Songwriting co-credits to Alice Cooper, Patti Smith and Dan Hartman. Almost a power pop album although it's too guitar loud to fit the bill for most fans of the genre. Sounds a lot like what Pat Benatar would do on her first album, perhaps because she inherited Grombacher, Kenny Aaronson and Neil Geraldo who, while not on the album, went out on tour with Derringer to support it.

Features worst interpretation of "Lawyers, Guns & Money," ever. Rick wasn't good at being subtle or wry.

Best tune is "EZ Action" -- "Does your daddy know you're hot? Has he noticed what you got? Does your teacher know you're cool? Does he keep you after school? With a just glance his way, you'll get yourself an A" In his mid-thirties, at least, when he wrote that.

After the Derringer albums had run their string, he went to work producing and playing for Weird Al. That worked out pretty good.

Dutch reissue of UFO's first for Chrysalis, Phenomenon Comes with bonus track and booklet explaining -- in depth -- the transition from "space rock" band on Decca, big only in Germany and Japan and nowhere else to acquisition of Michael Schenker during a Deutsch date with the Scorpions.

Bernie Marsden was guitarist slated for the album but he didn't mesh with the band, being bluesier than fit the gang's taste. They went to Rockfield with Marsden and recorded some tracks which were discarded after they'd hooked up with Schenker. This disc includes two of them, "Sixteen" as well as "Oh My," later re-recorded with Schenker.

Lengthy notes includes quixotic reviews and comment.

"The singles didn't seriously trouble the charts..." it reads. In the USA ... Phenomenon received unexpectedly glowing praise in Rolling Stone... Billboard, too, was effusive: 'Phil Mogg may well be one of the best straight rock singers to have come out of Britain since the initial musical invasion a decade ago...'"

Review from Sounds 1974: "Don't listen to the first two tracks on this album, they're awful. But if you do hear them, don't let them put you off the album cause it's quite good and shows promising flickers of what the band could develop into. This band have changed line up quite a few times since they were 'the first band to break in Japan.'" What can I say about them, they're just a tight little heavy rock unit. It's so boring writing about rock groups because you keep having to repeat superlatives like 'terrif' and 'amazing' but that's neither here nor there..."

The bonus cuts constitute about one old-style album side and are all good, making this a reissue to get if you're a fan of Phenomenon

i just got a new UFO dvd in the mail. didn't watch it. i have been listening to rick derringer lately though. did my hero bobby caldwell play on that live album? i think i used to have a copy, but not anymore.

came home and BLASTED deep purple's made in europe today during my lunch break and all was right with the world. what a fuckin' album. coverdale haters be damned.

No, Vinnie Appice's on the live Derringer CD. Bobby Caldwell, Rick and Chuck Ruff, too, are on Johnny & Edgar Winter Together which also got the deluxe treatment from BGO in 2007.

The 2007 Euro Chrysalis/EMI reissue of UFO's No Heavy Petting is also plush. Half an LP worth of outtakes, most of which are good, a cover of the Small Faces' "All Or Nothing" which is not something they should have covered. The album didn't chart in the US but it's one of those you have if you're a big fan. The songs and hard rock dynamic are virtually perfect. Rich in lyric, Phil Mogg is at the top of his game and Schenker doing his best to take it to the next level. They cover Frankie Miller -- "A Fool in Love" -- which comes out as something Bad Company should have had the brains to do. Miller's "Have You Seen Me Lately Joan" is in the extras and I wasn't familiar with it. Sounded good in UFO's hands, though.

Danny Peyronel's "Martian Landscape" closes the record, an ode to his homeland, Argentina. You wouldn't know it unless told. It's one of those things that would have been a mediocre folkie coffeehouse tune but Schenker takes it over. His guitar arrangement makes it orchestral and anthemic.

The clippings are a hoot, including one from Sounds in which the critic gripes UFO were too LOUD, adding they dressed in American football pads onstage. Entertaining but hard to believe. No press photos of bands in football pads although Schenker did wear thigh-high white leather girl boots just like Overend Watts used to in Mott the Hoople.

new limited-edition popoff book looks cool. wish i could afford these things. hopefully, someone will compile them all when he's done with the 70's. cutting and pasting from his e-mail:

Ye Olde Metal: 1976

This is the follow-up to Ye Olde Metal: 1973 To 1975 and Ye Olde Metal: 1968 To 1972. Like those, it’s also limited to 1,000 copies, signed by me, and it’s numbered.

Dudes, this one is occasionally pretty controversial, and damn it, this is my era – I loved talking to these guys, writing this thing.

For those not in the loop yet, what I’m doing with this is detailed examinations of classic old albums, using new interviews with guys in the bands, maybe a little available press here and there. These are looks at these albums that are way more exhaustive than any commercially viable (!) book would ever dare. You know me, I just love getting the stories, no matter how many people care anymore. We’ve got more photos than last time as well, plus some 45 sleeves and cool old original ads etc. The book is 241 pages, full trade 6” x 9” dimension, and stuffed with trivia folks ain’t never heard before – I guarantee it.

The chapters this time (less of them but they are quite a bit longer)

Max Webster – Max Webster: my fave Canadian band of all time. Amazing album – I got Kim in here, and Terry and the band’s mysterious lyricist Pye Dubois

Scorpions – Virgin Killer: I talked to Klaus, Rudy and Uli about this record, the blasphemous German cover art etc., the concept of a “virgin killer”

Point Blank – Point Blank: Rusty, John and Philip talk about being Bill Ham’s second banana ZZ Top

Angel – Helluva Band: one of the greatest albums of all time; amazing stories about the business muscle behind the signing of the band. Frank and Mickie dish the goods

Rex – Rex: OK, Rex is one of the most entertaining guys I’ve ever talked to. His stories about the mob and singing on the lunch room tables… funniest thing I’ve heard in years. A lot of Leber and Krebs in here too

Moxy – II: Buddy and Earl on struggling in Canada and then saying, screw it, and playing heavy next time

Teaze – Teaze: heaviest Canadian album of the ‘70s – bloody ‘ell, you should know about it

Lone Star – Lone Star: What happens when your whole band becomes scientologists? Plus you’ll love Kenny’s Peter Grant/Led Zeppelin story

Starz – Starz: OK, Rex is the best, but his brother Michael Lee is pretty funny too. Cool Kiss/Sean Delaney crossover stuff here

Ted Nugent – Free For All: OK, the best story in here, bar none. I talk to the whole band on one of the most cherished albums of my youth. I’m jaded, so it doesn’t matter, but I hope this 16,000 word expose doesn’t destroy your faith in the Tedinator

Boston – Boston: I had the privilege of talking to Brad Delp at length about this album before his shocking suicide. Tom provides some great stuff as well. As tribute, Brad is on the cover of the book

Foghat – Nightshift: bloody LOVE this album, and Roger and Craig do it justice

Kansas – Leftoverture: talked to Steve, Kerry, Phil and Robbie here. Good overview of what Kansas was getting at, and Steve let’s us get a good look at his state of mind

So yeah, he next one in the series will cover 1977, and it’s well along, actually. Then, 1978 and 1979, one per year likely well into the ‘80s, at least. But yeah, the idea is that this is a pretty strange, obscure thing to try, and the hope is that people will “collect ‘em all,” the whole thing making a l’il heavy metal encyclopedia set as they show up, a series, a cool bunch of collectible books.

All right, listening to Howlin' Rain's Magnificent Fiend is a jump-on-the-grenade-and-I-threw-my-money-away-on-a-spec-buy-for-this moment.

Hey, 54 seconds of Chicago opens this one! Then it's "Dancers at the Endof Time" with a fuzz guitar that places it for fans of the Amboy Dukes prior to Tooth, Fang & Claw and Call of the Wild and who thought Ted Nugent was really messing things up.

If it's retro, some of it sounds like the Moody Blues records you didn't buy, some of it like Humble Pie, that version of the Pie that spent half their sets playing folk rock before they realized they were getting shelled in the US for not plugging in the electric guitars and turning it up. Some Firefall, without the guys who could sing harmony. Some Little Feat without as much funk, no slide or songwriting.

Not much, if any, bringing of the rock.

"Howlin' Rain's newest album, Magnificent Fiend, seems to present this question with its combination of psychedelia, blues, funk and classic 1970s arena rock," writes someone from the University of Wisconsin school newspaper in Madison. Leave out the arena rock (unless, naturally, your idea of arena rock in the 70's is the Doobie Bros. without hit singles or hooks) and most of the blues part, any you're a lot closer to the nut of it.

"Howlin Rain harks back to the classic rock of the Grateful Dead, Traffic and the Band," writes someone from the Palo Alto Daily News. And that's a sensible thing to put to paper.

Strong Cali-hippie vibe and the don't listen to the lyrics or you'll be in that laff riot area inhabited by second and third tier bands from the late Sixties who'd stick enthusiastic faux gospel and soulman singing onto their tracks.

I totally get why Rick Rubin likes this. Ah well, I tried. Maybe it'll grow on me.

For those with tastes exactly opposite mine, apply the 360 rule and you'll find much to like on this, I'm positive.

Famous rockstar won't send advance copy But it was in BestBuy!

maybe you can get your money back!

i still like that record. and i think it has hooks!

frampton was the one who put the folk in the pie. which is why he left. cuz steve wanted to rock out with his you know what out. thank god for that.

oops, that was me, scott. not maria.

Not a big loss. There's way worse stuff in the scratch pile than a pastoral Cali-fried hippie record. I will say the guy on keys really glues the performances together. When the sidemen on horns come in, Howlin Rain almost passes for Chicago. Of course, then the guy sings.

He wishes we all live well on the back sleeve. I think we can all get behind that.

Anyway, speaking of California, I think I'm going to pull out the first two Spirit records and play "Fresh Garbage" and "Dark-Eyed Woman" a couple times.

okay, fine, no howlin rain for you, but i think you'll dig the new album by Gideon Smith & the Dixie Damned on Small Stone. South Side Of The Moon. Chuck would like it too. Even has Jeff Clayton of Antiseen playing washboard on one track.

The Best of the A's marks the first incidence of the late Seventies-early-Eighties Philly band on CD.

If you're from southeast Pennsy and remember them fondly, it's definitely for you, available through Nukefizz. One of their regional trademarks on posters and album art was saddle shoes, if I remember correctly. The singer made the mistake of wearing them for one set of promo shots which are included in the CD booklet.

Has all of the first album, which was the very best of the lot, except for "Parasite" and "Teenage Jerkoff." I would've preferred they kept the latter in favor of stuff from the final EP in '82. The debut was and remains and exceptional record. The writing is stellar.

Now lumped in with power pop, the A's weren't a good fit for the genre. The first album was taut, on sulfate in a good way and very hooky, but rather more into hard rock than the standard example. "Who's Gonna Save the World" was one natural climax, sounding a lot like something Queen might do. They also stuffed "Twist and Shout," with their own words, into the middle of a song called "Grounded."

"After Last Night" has the singer failing at "bedroom politics," a euphemism for a fuss and inability to perform. So he gives his book to his girlfriend but she falls asleep "cuz the writing's too deep."
Some of this material is on YouTube including a Beeb Whistletest vid performance of them doing "Who's Gonna Save the World," intro'd by MMR's Michael Tearson, a name remembered by anyone who was in two hundred miles of Philly radio.

Second record was short and had a glammy vibe. Mott the Hoople "All the Way from Memphis" pianner on "Johnny Silent." "I'll Pretend She's You" was one of their best songs and they even took good stabs at jangle rock for "Electricity" and Mellencamp/Springsteen on "Heart of America." The latter had a snide quality too it if you listened close: "We have our dreams/But they're never realized." So they can't wait to watch "America on TV."

Third record, an EP, they were hardened rock pros and it sounds big and early Eighties, which meant sort of Miami Vice-y and polyphonic synths, which their keyboardist had kept to a minimum in favor of piano and B3 on the first two records. It might've worked for someone like Phil Collins or Daryl Hall, but not them. And that was the end of it.

Live they were really good. However, I never saw them anywhere but in concert bars, not infrequently at at the Jersey shore. Guitarist went on into Patti Smyth and Scandal's biggest record, The Warrior, and played for the Jagger and other celebs.

They were a bit early in terms of what became successful nationally out of Philly. The Hooters had a couple of hooky pop & hard rock numbers which were reminiscent of the A's.

Ian Hunter Behind the Shades Recorded live in London 2004 with Mick Ralphs on axe. As close to Mott the Hoople as you can get sans the platforms and Seventies physiques. Mott's live albums tended toward major classic rock guitar throwdown. This is no exception. The riffs are bludgeoning, particularly on "The Truth, the Whole Truth & Nothing But the Truth" which, incidentally, is off Hunter's first solo album.

Opens with "Once Bitten" which eclipsed "Dudes" and "Memphis," also included. And how 'bout the riff from "Rock 'n' Roll Queen"? If you didn't have much of Mott's stuff in your collection, this wouldn't be a bad place to start. Hunter also popularized those big black sunglasses that old people with macular degeneration wear, so now that he's old, he's right in style. No pics included, so you can't tell what anyone looks like.

If you had a choice to make between a UFO live CD by the new band and this one, you'd pick this. If you had a choice between this and Leslie West doing a good live performance in 2008, you'd pick this. If you had to choose between this and the Dics archival release upthread, you might be inclined to go with this. Close in terms of impact, but the Dictators never had anything like "Dudes" which Hunter can still bite down on without winking at the audience.

"Cleveland Rocks" in no way sucks and it raises a smile imagining it stomped into the floor in front of an audience in London. Must've also made him a fair pile after attachment to Drew Carey. Sounds like everyone got their old Marshalls and Tonebender fuzzes out of mothballs as the performance crackles with the tones of them all the way through.

That sounds fantastic

It's fairly ruling and substantial. Didn't expect much since it came in a truly nondescript cover. There's not a moment of phoning it in on the performance.

I mentioned on the metal thread that the new Ted Nugent live album, Sweden Rocks, is a great roaring power trio album, and (because it's recorded in Sweden) offers an hour of pure rockin' and a minimum of Tedly between-song bullshit.

That is, absolutely zero political content. Plus a 90-second run through "Soul Man" that's kinda amusing, and a very nice eight-minute take on "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang." Only two songs ("Raw Dogs & War Hogs" and "Still Raising Hell") from Craveman, and otherwise nothing post-1980.

It's been delightful having a used record store in walking distance of the house -- Penny Lane across from Pasadena City College. It caters to the PCC and Caltech students. And it's mostly major label, classic rock, punk and some metal. But the bread and butter is Tower Records style but with ten to twelve dollars knocked off the asking price. I can walk down to it a few times a month and browse and almost always find things I'd like to revisit.

Yesterday's:

Girlschool Play Dirty The reissue copy with two "new" recordings done before the death of Kelly Johnson. This was the album they recorded before she left and was produced by Noddy Holder and Jimmy Lea of Slade.
They gave it a glam sheen along with drums recorded ala Def Leppard. It's blaring and has a number of songs fans always enjoyed although it didn't do well. They had fans although not enough to continue buying deep into the catalog. And they were less successful domestically although they had a great word-of-mouth rep as a live night out.

"Breaking All the Rules," "Play Dirty," "Surrender," a cover of "20th Century Boy," and "Breakout" -- they liked shouting variations on the word break. Girlschool were always interested in breaking something.

Bonus stuff is the single "1234 Rock n Roll," which they didn't like but which sounds just like The Sirens, or rather The Sirens version of it sounds just like theirs. The redone numbers are "Tush" and "Don't Call It Love" and they don't stink compared with the vintage performances.
It's an easy record to listen to in entirety.

Rory Gallagher Tattoo One of his "must haves." You have to hear "Cradle Rock" as an example of how to turn a power shuffle that mostly is a continuous vamp gets turned into an actual song rather than a jam. Gallagher had a gift for turning R&B figures into gruff hummable tunes limned by guitar explosions. He lined his albums with them, set off by ragtime pieces and folk stuff that always got out of there before you got sick of it. "Just a Little Bit" is a bonus cut from a recent reissue, a live in the studio for a few friends while on US tour that is another extended vamp where Gallagher runs through his considerable catalog of boogie licks old bluesman lyrics at 100 MPH.

If you see this record and like stuff in the white boy blooz (except there's not actually any slow blooz on "Tatto") genre, you should buy it. It refuses to disappoint.

Mudcrutch s/t TP indicated in recent bookend articles in the NY Times/LA Times (hey, lessee how much we can make our articles look like they're joined at the hip from press junket!) that Mudcrutch songs were written real fast. Sometimes in an afternoon. And while that's sometimes OK, in this case it sounds it.

"This is a Good Street" -- 1:34 of TP and pals singin' how it's a good street. (Eyes roll.) Coulda been "This is a Good Sandwich" except two syllables make it hard to fit into the metre.

A lot of it sounds like an old Outlaws record which is OK, too, except no "Green Grass & High Tides." "Crystal River" doesn't really qualify.

"Six Days on the Road" is lightweight Georgia Satellites or bad Faces depending on your age and POV.

Much of this doesn't rock nearly as hard as you would have expected a bar band in Florida to have rocked in the early Seventies. "Lover of the Bayou" works at it a bit.

Major problem is TP phoning it in even when he doesn't realize he's phoning it in. Being as it has Mike Campbell and some other Heartbreaker aces on it, the sounds are ace but the lyrics -- tripe. How many times has Tom done his "I Won't Back Down" shtick? On this it's for "Scare Easy" cuz Tom's "a loser at the top of his game" and y'know, he won't scare easy. One wishes he would break into "y'know it don't come easy" and a cheerful song by Ringo Starr but it's just not gonna happen.

It's all very amiable and laidback summertime, so maybe "Shady Grove" -- which sounds like the Outlaws from their second or third albums -- will be the hit that guarantees he'll do another couple of these. Naturally, it's recorded very classic and gorgeous and no one born doesn't like Mike Campbell on guitar.

"Bootleg Flyer" is the most Heartbreakers-like from the vintage era of the band.

"Ahh, ladies give a drunkard a chance," sings Tom on the last song on the CD. Nope, nope, nope, no girls partying in Florida these days are gonna do that, especially listening to this.

Why, oh why, did I buy this?

PS -- It's not really that awful. It just isn't anything except TP and buds being hayseeds which they probably were definitely determined not to be back when they actually were Mudcrutch. If you liked Pure Prairie League or Asleep at the Wheel records in the 70s-80s, maybe you'd really like Mudcrutch. If you like Shooter Jennings on his most recent, I suppose this is same kind of stuff without the Dire Straits cover.

I'll grant "This is a Good Street" might be a fumbled stab at something drily humorous.

Sheesh, if want someone doing angry hayseed, get the Ian Hunter thing upstream and listen to the songs not mentioned, which are his Bob Dylan imitations.

Sheffield overjoyed to hear new Def Leppard album, <I>Songs from the Sparkle Lounge</I> -- now in stores and lads aren't looking bad in booklet photos.

Now for the bad news.

It's hard to listen to and kicks off with one number which guarantees those of low patience will immediately shitcan it. "Go" is shturm and drang and annoying bass sample and edgy melody, one to make you anxious, anxious for it to be over.

"C'mon C'mon" has glammy handclaps and a Gary Glitter stomp and it still is only meh.

"Cruise Control" is another modern annoyance. Some crap thing made to sound slinky like Prince (except they've no business sounding like Prince and sticking a vocalizing mama into the middle of this for no reason other than they can) and psychedelic in other places or a Steve Stevens solo album, something like that. Awesome wah-wah solo but no one listens to four minutes of this style for such a thing. Hey, wait, it's growing on me....naw, just said that to trick ya.

"Hallucinate" sounds like Def Leppard ought to sound which is like the Donnas sounded on the LP upthread. There's the Rockman arena guitar sound and an honest-to-God obvious hook, the first one on the record at cut number seven. Did the band go into the studio determined not to write songs? Or did they surmise there were too many good songs on their last album of cover versions and they owed their fans a break?

"Only the Good Die Young" has the lads trying to do John Lennon hair metal, which a lot of people like (cf. "Rockford" Cheap Trick) to do and hear. So, generously, this is Enuff 'Z' Nuff and fair.

"Bad Actress" is old-fashioned NWOBHM bludgeon riffola DL-style but there's only two songs left when it finally deigns to arrive.

"Come Undone" is more John Lennon hair metal only now they've overdone it. Def Lep seem to know instinctively when the song is duff because that's when Phil Collen is called upon to stick in an incinerating wah-wah solo that almost saves it. If you listen a couple times and gain familiarity, it does save it. But you gotta like incinerating wah solos for that to happen.

More wah-wah on "Gotta Let It Go" and gratuitous sequenced Trash-80 drum track. Eh. It's art and drama.

Better than Mudcrutch but it's an apples and oranges comparison.

"Love" -- one track I forgot to mention. It's ELO! Or Queen! Or something in between.

Power of Rock and Roll write-up by xhuxk. Is that a good album or what! When Vollmer goes Googling, he'll now probably see it higher. You still need to hear Wild in the Streets -- their best Eighties album.

Dick Destiny & the Highway Kings me -- on YouTube from way back in '89 in a Bethlehem slum.

Phil's exactly right on Nuge's live set in Sweden. Good trio, excellently mastered -- not too hot so it distorts unnaturally. Much reminiscent of the trio that played on Tooth, Fang & Claw. Best tunes are "Snakeskin Cowboy" -- its sinister riff is superbly turned in. Rendition of yelping "Hey Baby" with someone imitating Dereck St. Holmes.
And the band evens put the vintage background vocals back into "Stranglehold." Ted's bread and butter is live work so as compared to his last live one, Full Bluntal Nugity, this is shorter but not inferior. FBN has the Ted's Michigainiac in the US shtick, the latter doesn't except for the man telling the Swedes they must have a bit of Detroit in them.

And the 2007 reissue of Robin Trower's Bridge of Sighs is worthy if you need a remaster. Includes a BBC recording of the band with two superb cuts -- "Confessin' Midnight" and "Gonna Be More Suspicious" -- which are as funky as heavy Seventies hard rock ever got. This was one of Trowers specialties, perhaps a carryover from The Paramounts, his old R&B band. Can't say enough about those two tunes outside of the excellence of the original album as a whole. It's his best made better by addition of some history.

Plus, the singer -- Jimmy Dewar. He could have been singing a phone book and it would have sounded cool.

Ha, that Dick Destiny clips rules, George.

As does Nantucket's Long Way To The Top, from 1979, which I bought for $1 or two last year and only just finally got around to concentrating on this week. Weird that they opened the album with a cover of a three-year-old AC/DC song, and even named the album after it. Maybe they were banking on U.S. fans not knowing it was a cover -- had High Voltage even come out in the States at that point? It never charted; Let There Be Rock went to #154, Powerage #133, and by '79, of course, AC/DC were picking up Stateside steam after Highway to Hell went #17. Nantucket never wound up charting an album themselves, though, which surprises me; I swear I remember them getting some late '70s AOR airplay in Detroit, though maybe I'm confusing them with the band New England. (Weirdly, Nantucket apparently were based in North Carolina, even despite the lobster-fishing theme of the LP cover -- at least, that's what their address on the LP is.) Second side gives me a sort of first-Loverboy album vibe -- some hard pop-rock, some tentative hints at reggae rhythms that don't cut into the rock, freebie hidden acapella closing cut.

Definitely liking Nantucket more than the double best-of Rainbow LP I bought for $1 over the weekend, though maybe they just need to grow on me. Good guitar parts, obviously, plenty of skill involved, but they still sound cold and clinical and stupid. Probably I just need to spend more time with it.

Puhdys' 10 Wilde Jahre -- Metal Mike sent me this a year or two ago, and didn't play it until this week. George had pointed out on another thread that they're in that Jasper/Oliver book. Anyway, judging from this (best of?) LP, they definitely had their own sound -- fairly hard-rocking, intermittently pompish, German schlager music, or something. Though, for all I know, there were lots of German bands doing the same thing in the '70s, and I've just never heard them. Weirdly, the other Pudhys LP Metal Mike sent me, Rock n Roll Music, is all blue-jeaned, English language cover of not remotely obscure '50s rock'n'roll classics -- not sure yet how much asskick they get out of those, whether they wanted to be Stackwaddy (who, um, I'm still not sure I've ever heard) or just Sha Na Na.

Now, my Billboard review of the new White Lion:

WHITE LION
Return of the Pride
Producers: Mike Tramp, Claus Langeskov
Airline
Release Date: Apr. 29
Toward the tail-end of the ‘80s, the calmly cracking campfire tone of singer Mike Tramp – born in Denmark, and brandishing a blond mane worthy of his band’s name – set White Lion apart from the hair-metal pack. Back now with a new, keyboard-augmented lineup, Tramp’s best when he’s most ambitious-- “Battle of Little Big Horn” and the eight-minute “Sangre De Cristo” are complex compositions, exuding a spooky history-book buzz. “Live Your Life,” “Gonna Do It My Way,” and “Finally See The Light” are pristine hard pop, made anthemic with Thin Lizzy changes and choruses hooked like the Who or Bay City Rollers. Jamie Law’s powerchords thrash loud enough to compensate for intermittent moments of mush. And while live reprises of a pair of 20-year-old hits feel extraneous, the Bad Company riff opening “When The Children Cry” is a neat touch. As hair-metal comebacks this spring go, more fun than Whitesnake’s for sure. (C.E.)

New Night Ranger CD ends with two acoustic updates of their old hits, too, a sort of Zep-folked "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" being more useful than "Sister Christian," oddly enough. Rest of the album has some good metal and pop-rock on it; not sure how much.

It's spelled "Puhdys," by the way, and they're apparently from EastGermany. (And they're more a rock band than schlager band, if I wasn't clear. Like, hard rock with schlager rhythms maybe. Though maybe that just comes from singing in German. I bet lots of bier was consumed at their shows.)

(Wait, did Stackwaddy actually do '50s covers, or am I confusing them with Showaddywaddy or somebody?)

Stackwaddy tended to do covers of tunes by Jethro Tull, Jeff Beck and blues/R&B men although I also did "The Girl from Ipanema." They also tended to retitle them like the totally awesome "Meat Pies Have Come but the Band Ain't Here Yet." Showaddydaddy did the 50's rockabilly Sha-Na-Na-like thing. Stylistically, the bands were polar opposites. Showaddydaddy had hits. The Stackwaddies were a John Peel discovery and didn't.

Nantucket's lobster thing was amusing, having more to do with their noreaster whaler name. Long Way to the Top was all right. The album just before it was better, having a more natural less produced southern pop and boogie sound. Recall I reviewed the reissue for the Voice with Ten Benson's release of a few years ago. They had a song called "Girl You Blew A Good Thing" which backed off on an obvious opportunity to go on about oral sex which, naturally, a southern band of more gravity -- like Blackfoot, would have taken fully by the horns.

Hah, ERROR! Stackwaddy did "The Girl from Ipanema," I only had it on 45. I think everyone had a copy of it at the time. Like "Sukiyaki" and "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport," it was one of the most popular songs in America during its time period.

And any band, like Stackwaddy, which entitle an album Bugger Off! in the early Seventies -- well, you know what they sound like. Umproduced brutal, sometimes clumsy but always entertaining, hard rock for drunken louts.

Funnily enough, there's a song on the new Montgomery Gentry album where they use "The Girl of Ipanema" (mentioned by name, not referenced musically) as the sort of the music that would be played at some pretentious, prissy wine-and-cheese-and-crackers party where they wouldn't want to go. So they leave and head where they can hear some Skynyrd instead.

(And I still have my own "Girl From Ipanema" 45 regardless, though. I'm not much of a wine drinker, but I have nothing against cheese and crackers.)

Damn, the Grand Funk Railroad Live 1971 Tour cd that came out a couple of years back is awesome. I just got it. This is NOT the same band that did Some Kind of Wonderful and shit like that. Mel Shacher is an absolute monster on bass, and reels Farner back in when he's about to fall off the stage (figuratively) which happens quite often. What I would have given to have been sitting on the dugout for that Shea show. But I was only one year old.

Yeah, I bought that when it first came out, having only heard a few of their songs on the radio. GFR seem to have been underrated at the time, and are mostly ignored now, but I like 'em a lot.

Well Bill, you'd really dig the original Grand Funk Live Album CD, too. The two are similar, done about a year apart.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/funk.JPG

From my blog a couple years ago:

Funk's success sent Dave Marsh of CREEM magazine into an apoplectic rage in its December 1970 issue. In a now notorious rant about "Live Album," Marsh wrote "Are [Grand Funk] as slow and doped out of their wits as their audience?"

In another paragraph, Marsh growls that Funk were first popular in the South, "down in the very heartland of honk." His objection seems to be that Funk were little more than copyists of Cream, and the southerners didn't like Cream but were fans of Grand Funk because they were of like minds -- stupid and blowing their brains out on marijuana.

But others had proclaimed Funk monsters, most notably Metal Mike Saunders, who would continue to do so in print through the early '70's. In a long review ("A Brief Survey of the State of Metal Music Today") in a 1973 issue of Phonograph Record Magazine, Saunders stated a "risible chasm" had opened up between what was considered Good Music -- the stuff pumped by the rock critic mainstream -- "and what the kids were actually listening to." It was obvious, he wrote, with regards to Grand Funk and Black Sabbath.

Live Album, which reached number five in the States with no obvious airplay, showed Funk at its metallic best and worst, said Saunders. For Phonograph Record, it was fifty percent good, fifty percent "awful." In Fusion in '72, "The entire first side [of the four-sided double LP] is crass, energetic and rocking, until the very end of 'In Need'. "

======
Always been a favorite of mind. It's raw and has amusing stuff like TNUC (spell it backwards, haw-haw-haw). It blares and shrieks and thuds, often all at the same time.

Live Album and Phoenix are the only two Grand Funk discs between On Time and We're An American Band that I don't have.

The critical swipes at GFR are kind of hilarious, and mostly wrong. I don't understand Marsh's criticism "slow and doped out". The live stuff is incredibly energetic, and songs like some of their songs like "Rock and Roll Soul" and "Footstompin Music" get your blood pumping, big time. There's almost a motown influence, but amped up on steroids.

I love Live Album too. Great band.

I hate to keep bringin up relics from the '70s, but I've been listening, after a long time, to Montrose's first album. What a fucking killer this is.

True. Followed by one of the most baffling fall-offs in hard rock, perhaps caused by Ronnie Montrose's assorted idiosyncracies. Sammy left, then Bill Church, and it just wasn't the same band.

Some of the later stuff collected on the Very Best of Montrose is pretty good.

Gorge, that BOC bootleg cited above, with the Yardbirds in the title, is that available anywhere?

New DVD in this morning's mail: ZZ Top - Live From Texas. Recorded last year, which doesn't matter a bit because I saw them on the NYC stop of that tour and they tore the walls down. Set list: "Got Me Under Pressure," "Waitin' For The Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago," "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide," "Pin Cushion," "Cheap Sunglasses," "Pearl Necklace," "Heard It On The X," "Just Got Paid," "Rough Boy," "Blue Jean Blues," "Gimme All Your Lovin'," "Sharp Dressed Man," "Legs," "Tube Snake Boogie," "La Grange," "Tush." Other than the two back-to-back slow ones, you can't fuck with that at all.

It appears to be out of print. Also called "Live 1972," people want 50 bucks for it used on Amazon.

Thanks Gorge.

Great looking ZZ Top DVD, that set list is killer.

Steve Stevens solo album, Memory Crash is fair to good. Bought it after reading an interview with him in the new Guitar Player which is about the only music journalism rag that hasn't succumbed to fads and a relentless publish-according-to-the-pr-sked practices employed by everyone else. They don't review many records per issue but when they do the choices are as likely to have been out for weeks or months as advances. 'Course, it's a trade mag but it doesn't put heavy metal guitarists on the cover every issue like its rival, Guitar World, which now comes in a plastic bag so that you have to buy the CD of promotional crapware they include with it. Refreshingly, Guitar Player is sort of like Mojo in that it hews to classic rock, jazz and roots music, so one can read about Wes Montgomery alongside Steve Howe.

Anyway, Stevens' record is rock instrumental, except for two tunes, a cover of Trower's "Day of the Eagle" and one his own compositions. Doug Pinnick furnishes vocals for the former and he's just OK, no Jimmy Dewar, not even close. Stevens can do Trower, though. "Hellcats Take the Highway" slips into an old Yardbirdsy-riff and about half of the rest of it doesn't make you reach for the eject. A good batting average for a limited appeal rock record.

That natural caveat applies in that it sounds like a band waiting for the singer to take the stage. Because the singer fails to show isn't always a bad thing, particularly in this case.

I interviewed Stevens for the current issue of Metal Edge talking about that record. He talked about his interest in flamenco, which shows up in some of the pieces on the disc.

His flamenco guitar work on the Juno Reactor song "Pistolero" is pretty great, totally makes that song. And I actually really liked Memory Crash. I don't usually bother with instrumental wank albums, but I do like that Stevens actually wrote songs and not just solos. I've even revisited it after I turned in my review.

I promise I'm done discussing 70s hard rock acts, but Mott the Hoople came out with something last year called "Fairfield Halls 1970" and it simply has to be heard to be believed. It's apparently two concerts were they were the opening act (one in England in '70, one in Sweden in '71) but I imagine whoever the headliner was for these shows probably felt like packing it in after hearing Mott completely annihilate the audience for these two shows. These sound like they were recorded yesterday, and are about as heavy as you can get. Two simply ferocious performances from pre-glam Mott.

In Croydon, it was Free. Actually, Free -- I think -- turned the Croydon show into a live album, too. The original domestic release of Free Live wasn't that hot but the Free box set included the entire show with a bit of a hotter mix. It was a good show, too, but Mott and Free were a genuine mismatch, no matter how one likes Paul Rodgers and Koss. There just isn't any comparison in terms of attack and velocity.

i need those mott shows. i need all live mott. damn, i'm poor though. well, it'll be around. i have a great vinyl boot of a mott show from 73. i think it's 73. live in amerikkka somewhere. when i'm drunk i want mott the hoople tattoos. although i could totally dig a free tattoo too.

Yeah, those Mott shows sound like they'd be awesome.

I got that ZZ Top DVD in the mail, too, but given my history of never getting around to watching promising music DVDs that came in the mail even five years ago, I'm not sure when I'll actually see it.

To bring this thread more up to date, here are some hard-rockish albums I've liked this year that I don't think anybody has mentioned; good chance I'll get around to writing about lots of them somewhere eventually; if not, maybe I'll say more sometime:

Legless – Finding Mr. Perfect (leglesstheband.com)
The Tonic Rays – The Tonic Rays (thetonicrays.com ’07)
Teacher’s Pet – Teacher’s Pet (Smog Veil)
Crash Street Kids – Transatlantic Suicide (Hot City Recording Company)
Black Diamond Heavies – A Touch Of Someone Else’s Class (Alive)
Other Fools – 12 More Lies (Of)
Home Blitz – Home Blitz (Gulcher ’07)
Killola – I Am The Messer (Killola/Our)
Jet Fuel – Give It Hell/Straight For 88/Dynamite Rock Machine (unlabeled CD-R)
The Donnas – Bitchin’ (Purple Feather/Redeye Incorporated ’07)
The Backsliders – You’re Welcome (backsliders.com)
Reckless Kelly – Bulletproof (Yep Roc)
The Mother Truckers – Let’s All Go To Bed (Funzao)
Montgomery Gentry – Back When I Knew It All (Columbia)
Legless – 13 Killer Tracks (leglesstheband.com ’06)
The Jacknives – Cobra Combat Boots (myspace.com/thejacknives ‘07)
The Architects – Vice (Anodyne)
6 FtHick -- On The Rocks (Spooky)
Night After Night – Unreleased Album (unlabeled CD-R)

reissues
The A’s – The Best Of The A’s (Young Philadelphians Music) [mentioned by George above, actually)
Skafish – What’s This?: 1976-1979 (289)
Silver Apples – Silver Apples (Phoenix)
Donnie Iris – Back On The Streets/King Cool (American Beat ’07)
Demian – Demian (Fallout)
Continental Crawler – The Anthology 1977-79: Cars, Cards And Questionable Women (Not Aloud)

(Actually, that Teacher's Pet album is older stuff too -- late '70s Ohio punk rock -- but only a couple songs on it ever actually got released before.)

And here's what I wrote about the new LOcal H album in Spin (before any editing that might've happened):

Local H
12 Angry Months
Shout! Factory
3 stars

A dozen years and one drummer removed from their copacetic Nirvanabee nugget “Bound For The Floor,” Scott Lucas’s Illinois-bred bubblegrunge duo are still loudest and prettiest when hitching powerchords to powerpop. This time, though, there’s a concept: One title per month, all revolving around an ugly breakup. The song cycle kicks off spaghetti Zepstern and winds down to eight grandiose minutes under the milky way. You start out rooting for Lucas when his ex keeps his Pretenders album. But the more mean-spirited he gets, the more his melodies fail him.

(Siver Apples -- late '60s proto-Suicide synth duo -- not really hard-rockish; didn't mean to include them. Still kinda like it though. And it's on vinyl!)

And the Backsliders' website (hard-pop Pretenders-like Dallas band w/ girl who used to be in Vibrolux, who I never heard, is actually at the link below):

http://thebacksliders.com/

The only one on your list I've heard is the Donnas album. The publicist for Local H kept trying to get me to put them in Metal Edge, without success.

"i need those mott shows. i need all live mott. damn, i'm poor though."

I'm more than happy to burn.

Excellent reissue of Mahogany Rush's IV and World Anthem LPs on double-CD. Frank Marino was like Robin Trower, only somewhat less successful. Sold less records but had bigger clout in management -- Leber/Krebs -- which put MR on all the mid-70's big arena tours with Ted Nugent and Aerosmith.

Trower's more of a straight blues and R&B man. Marino was slightly more psychedelic, spacey and hippie. He had a thing about peace and love, writing World Anthem to be sung at the Olympic Games in different languages, a bunch of which the lyrics are printed in.

The funk raises its head on IV. "Jive Baby" sounds like Graham Central Station (so do a couple other tunes on this, namely "Moonwalk") but "The Answer" sounds like a song left off Trower's For Earth Below and that's a compliment. "Dragonfly" is also sinuous and hard at the same time. "Little Sexy Annie," a guitar explosion and double speed sounds like the basis for Rick Derringer's "Across the Universe." They were in the arenas at the same time, so it's a possibility. Frank Marino was never much of a singer, though, often sounding like the "cool cats" you heard on the tracks selected for blaxploitation B-movies. However, then the heavy wah-wah guitar would come down, hence the big Hendrix comparisons.

Not much of a pop songwriter, to the regret of his bandmates who wish in liner notes he would have written more glitzy material.

Mahogany Rush now almost always an acquired taste although lots knew who they were in the mid-Seventies.

Before the live album, which came after these two, IV was probably Mahogany Rush's best LP.

Ya gotta hear the guy shouting "Moonwalk! Funky!" -- all the lyrics apparently thought necessary for the tune of the same. Plus a mini-opera, "IV (The Emperor)" is included.

Weed's [i]Weed</>! This is one I'm sure skott has on old Brain vinyl. SPV reissue, part of "revisiting Krautrock" part of catalog.

Ken Hensley stiffening up a Kraut four-piece and lo if it doesn't sound a bit like the first Uriah Heep LP, even down to David Byron-esque vocals. "Slowin' Down" is Uriah Heep-shuffle boogie, only a hair slower with Hensley on slide.

"Weed" is seven minute instrumental spazz-out (even includes loving cop from "Moby Dick"), the kind every band had to have in 70 or so. The band's name doesn't get over how hard it sounds, crashing and crunching on half the tunes, including one Heep-ish ballad and a more glossy piece, "Before I Die," to show they weren't entirely cavemen.

If you'd just bought Heep's first album and you snagged this because of the cover, you wouldn't be disappointed by your spec buy once you got home. But that would've been in 1970. All bets off now.

I like that Donnas album! But then, I've liked all their albums. I wholeheartedly support their desire to become Def Leppard, though.

Speaking of Def Leppard, the Man Raze album (Phil Collen w/ his former bandmate in early '80s NWOBHM glamsters Girl Simon Laffey plus Pistol Paul Cook on drums) is way better than I expected it to be. (I'd say more, but I've got an assignment to review it. I still never heard this year's actual Def Lep album, but judging from George's comments above, I can't imagine that this thing isn't a whole lot better.)

New Night Ranger still rocking me too, by the way.

If there's one thing I want from Def Leppard, its sparkle.

"Demian – Demian (Fallout)"

why does the only label in the world that i am actively boycotting have to friggin' put this out!!! still want a vinyl copy though. i'm just too cheap to pay the 100+ ebay price for it.

i could go for a demian/bubble puppy tattoo too.

here is a picture of two of my favorite hard rock bands together in the same room:

http://home.austin.rr.com/david709/parlament.jpg

http://www.dickdestiny.com/bitchinsmall.JPG
Still on my list of 2008 plays. Better than Goddo, even. (Obscure joke for the old-timers.)

http://www.dickdestiny.com/weedsmall.JPG

Actually, an even better album than I indicated upthread. A good amount of thud and when they have nothing to sing, they don't. Better'n Head Over Heels, Bull Angus, Black Pearl. Maybe about even with Bang's first album. Not really ahead of its time, just right on time. If you remember Heavy Equipment or Leaf Hound or Toad from the old thud rock threads, and liked them, you'd probably like Weed.

Saw Heavy Load doc on IMC. If you don't have cable this may mean nothing to you. Unless you're from England.

Heavy Load = punk rock quintet with three mentally handicapped members. They do covers. At the beginning of the doc, they sounded like Half Japanese. By the end of ninety minutes, a span that covered the filmmaker's two years with the band, they put on a steady performance where one could actually recognize the songs. Covered Kylie Minogue for a B-side of their "Stay Up Late" single/campaign combo. Background: Single made to change the habit of support workers for the handicapped who leave duty early in the evening mandating that the handicapped always have to go home and to bed at 9:30. Disruptive of Heavy Load gigs in which half the audience would leave mid-set because the support care said it was time to go home.

Recommended by Wreckless Eric who thought their lead singer had charisma. True, to an extent which is an acquired taste. You have to have an enthusiasm for senseless random cursing as a vocal style.

A charming film, with everybody very warm-hearted and sincere.

Picked up recent Japanese paper sleeve mini-double LP reissue of John Lennon's Sometime in New York City from '72. Didn't much like it in '72 when I bought the vinyl expecting something middle of the road. I was listening to Foghat's debut and, well...

Anyway, it's a decent old-timey hard rock record. Studio side has Lennon and Yoko Ono singing songs of socialism to backing by Elephant's Memory, who were kind of retro in a classic Sha-Na-Na's backing band type of way, complete with a sax player. Yoko One sings a couple solo cuts, easily skippable. She does actually try to sing on the studio side.

She does backing on Lennon's track which are rock 'n' roll. "New York City" and "Attica State" are fair examples. The former is the best with Lennon going on about his local view of Manhattan with John Peel singing about the Pope smoking dope. Must have been about the time Lennon had something to do with Peel's "The Pope Smoke Dope" record, too. "John Sinclair" is country blues on national steel, demanding the subject be set free. Plus there's a really boring tune about Angela Davis.

Live side is from two gigs, one at the Lyceum and at one at the Fillmore East. Lyceum date includes eight great minutes of "Cold Turkey" and 16 horrible ones of Ono screaming on "Don't Worry Kyoko."

For the Fillmore East tunes, Lennon and Ono are joined by Frank Zappa and the Mothers. According to one of my Zappa biographies, Lennon and Zappa had made a gentlemen's agreement over dinner to get together for this, record it and have equal claim to the royalties. Lennon put it out as "Live Jam" -- the second "free" LP with "Sometime." It starts with the Mothers backing him on "Well (Baby Please Don't Go)" which is advertised as raw rock and roll, ala Cavern Club Beatles. Ono starts screaming during it but it's mixed a bit low so it sounds sort of like a nutty fan. Zappa delivers a great solo.

Then the Mothers go into the instrumental meat of "King Kong." Lennon and Ono renamed this as "Jamrag" and "Scumbag" for the NYC album. The playing is par for the course Mothers, pretty fierce hard jazzy R&B rock fusion. Ono screams through all of it. Only now it sounds like an insane fan more than the savage annoyance most took it for decades ago. It's amusing and even Zappa must have thought so during the performance as he intrpoduces "Scumbag" as a song which the audience can sing along to. What's on the record is Lennon singing "Scumbag" while the Mothers trade licks. It rocks OK. Phil Spector, who produced "Sometime" for Lennon mixed out the Mothers singing "Put Yoko in the scumbag" during the performance. Zappa restored it in 1992 for his "Playground Psychotics" regard, when he finally took the opportunity to re-release the Fillmore East performance.

Then there's eight minutes of Yoko screaming again at the end, which can be skipped, being what Zappa puckishly called "A Small Eternity with Yoko Ono."

The Apple remaster from a couple years ago remove "Scumbag" and "Jamrag," probably out of courtesy to the Zappa estate. If you see this on vinyl cheap, it's worth a spec buy. I'm more than happy with it.

The other thing I've been listening to a lot is Illimite by Telephone, a thirty year retrospec issue of the best of the band with one live disc. Telephone was France's best-selling rock 'n' roll band from the late Seventies to the mid-Eighties. The band sang everything in France and never made a dent anywhere but in their home country. The live work is crushing, taken from a variety of gigs. Two very good, very Stone-sy guitar players and a hot rhythm section who definitely could lay down the backbeat. Maybe more later, definitely a high point of summer listening ...

Actually, Telephone sang everything in French -- haw (?!) --rather than just in France, which they did, too. And Frank Zappa did a funny song called "In France," featuring his standard mix of toilet and sex humor.

Teachers Pet review:

http://www.emusic.com/album/Teachers-Pet-Teachers-Pet-MP3-Download/11213172.html

Issue #1 (June 08) of Blurt magazine downloadable at link; I have a bunch of reviews starting on page 58, including these two:

http://www.blurt-online.com/

LEGLESS Finding Mr. Perfect (leglesstheband.com)

Life isn’t pretty, so Schoolgirl Amanda, Policewoman Shazza, Nurse Ra, and Virgin Bride Imaj dress up like zombies while offering their tonic for the Aussie Army troops: a heavily accented, glam-rumbling, Girlschool-reminiscent concoction that jokes and drinks as hard as it rocks. They invent a dance called the “Hip Thrust” that sounds more like “the head butt” but which they promise is nothing like the Y.M.C.A. or chicken dance or twist or Monster Mash (which rhymes with the Clash); they tell you to look at their eyes not their chest while they steal fake Asian notes from the Vapors’ “Turning Japanese”; they celebrate foolish nutters and falling knickers; they rap like rockabillies and goth like hippies and close with a speedy marsupial folk madrigal. And though on their earlier 13 Killer Tracks they were already begging to be bitten while initiating fights between Freddy and Jason, this one’s got the riffs to bring old stiff Bon Scott back from the dead.

OTHER FOOLS 12 More Lies (Of)

Titles like “Asshole City” and “Guns Down Or Go Down” betray an obligatory Turbonegro influence, but where these Swiss blisterers truly earn their leather is “Cruisin’” and the unexpectedly moving ballad “How To Forget You,” steeped in the sleazily Eurotrashed homoerotic passion of Turbonegro’s unjustly forgotten ’80s Swede forebears, Leather Nun. Opening balls-to-the-wall biker blasts “Too Late” and “Baby Radio” – the former about missing the bus, the latter about scoring a hit – are closer to bubblegum Motörhead; closing theme tune “Other Fools” quotes both “Whole Lotta Rosie” and “Highway To Hell” outright.

Hmmm, that first one sounds like charity case crap. I'm out-of-gas on the zombie rockabilly shtick/fetish. What's the root of that, anyway? It's an image that needs to be taken behind the shed and put down.

Astonishingly, Yoko Ono's "We're All Water" does not totally suck on Sometime in New York City -- probably because Lennon and Elephant's Memory are doing a pub rock vamp behind the "singing".

Nah, Legless not a charity case. I could do without the Halloween costumes, sure, but they don't really impinge on the music much. George, I suspect you'd at least like their most Girlschoolish tunes "G.I.A. (Girls In Action)" and maybe "Drinking Tonight" -- Aussie accents make the rowdiness even catchier, not unlike Leanne Kingwell. Other favorites are probably "Pet Hate" (the one with the stolen Vapors hook, despite the song having nothing to do being Japanese, plus the amusing line "Stare at my eyes, not at my tits/You know that gives me the shits") and the closing folk-dance-rhythmed thing "Advance Australian Fair." (Sounds Irish jiggy to me; not sure if there are actual Australian fair bands who play that kinda stuff or not.) They could probably benefit from the Donnas' production budget (or, okay, the Donnas' guitar player too), and two slow songs is probably at least one too many, but the whole thing only lasts 28 minutes for 10 songs, about right in my book. So, one of my favorite albums of the year so far; definitely prefer it to Other Fools (who I need to relisten to, regardless.)

zombie rockabilly shtick/fetish. What's the root of that, anyway?

Good question. Never had any use for that idiotic shtick, not 30 years ago when the Cramps (I assume) invented it and not now, but strangely enough, it often seems to come (even now) with energetic music attached. (The "good question," though, is how rockabilly first became associated with zombies and monster movies -- where did the Cramps get that from in the first place? It's not like early rockabilly was especially horror-obsessed, was it? Hasil Adkins, maybe? Screamin' Jay Hawkins never rockabillied, right? How 'bout Screaming Lord Sutch?)

Also know very little about marsupial military culture, though there's something amusing about Aussie soldiers apparently being Legless's primary audience. They even link to the "Department of Defence media room" from their website. And at least one of their other fans sure does look a lot like Angry Anderson from Rose Tattoo, if you ask me:

http://www.leglesstheband.com/fanpic14.htm

By the way, Martin Popoff seems to be a fan of that Weed album, too; in his '70s book, he gave it a "5" for heaviness, and an "8" for overall quality.

Other hard rock stuff I've been liking in recent weeks: Rags Rags (Dolls-like '70s NYC unknowns; eight songs, actually released on CD in 2006); Archer Doom$day Profit$ (closest thing to a metal album I've remotely given a shit about lately); Boss Martians Pressure In the Sodo.

I always thought the Cramps got their look from the Munsters TV show which I don't recall featuring zombies. They also had someone who looked a little like Lurch from the Addams Family. I never thought Lurch was a zombie. The Cramps did not have the irritating speed-addict jitterbugging quality that most of them bring now.

Screaming Lord Sutch was copying Hawkins but that was only for part of his second record and may have actually been recorded at a Halloween show, so I'd have to check. Since he was backed up by members of Deep Purple and Mott the Hoople on that record, there was no rockabilly. With Blackmore on guitar, it sounded like DP, like the first Sutch record sounded like Zeppelin was the backing band, which it was -- sort of.

The reality TV show that featured the American band run-off last year had at least two acts of zombie rockabilly. Both of 'em were bounced quick as they were identical: paint-on make-up and play like there are ants in your pants. In some 'burgs there must now be a way to make barband money off the novelty of looking like zombie rockbillies

Yep, that's Angry Anderson.

about Aussie soldiers apparently being Legless's primary audience

Deprived men drink until paralyzation while girls/dames perform a rock show. Seems logical to me.

Relicking guitars Will that be one or two Rory Gallaghers, sir?

Recommended: the new Stephen Pearcy album, out in two weeks or so. Eleven songs in 33 minutes, including only one ballad and a closing redo of "Round & Round" with the Donnas as backing band, including Brett "Donna A." Anderson duetting on lead vocals. Guitar solos possibly better than the original. A stripped-down hard rock record reminiscent (to me anyway) of the last two Nugent offerings, with a little less lyrical Neanderthal-ism. Pearcy's voice is so shot and sneery he almost sounds like he's imitating Johnny Thunders sometimes, but the band kicks.

Gorge-

Great stuff on your blog. The article about Liz Phair and nerds is priceless, I agree with you completely

I finally heard Live Peace In Toronto, which was sooo fucking boring and snoozin to the oldies (were Claptone and Lennon more on junk or carbs), until Yoko finally CUT OOOOSE and I was so glad (mind you, it was much shorter than Sometime in New York City, which I still haven't heard)(although I've heard a fair amount of her later stuff, which christgau.com does a pretty good job of sorting out, although I don't know that he's gotten to the remakes/remixes of the past few years, like "Death Of Samantha" with Porcupine Tree, which made my P&J/J' P Top Ten) This week I've been watching the DVD of The Gits doc, real unusual talk/music balance, and Mia's awesome; wish they'd talked to the guitarists about how they got their sound (the mysteries of punk minimalism, how does playing the same stuff fit so well with diff words and melodies, although the melodies are *seemingly* all coming from the voice). of course like almost all music docs it leaves out more stuff than most book editors would stand for. (Joan Jett's shown performing with Evil Stig briefly; I think I remember only liking the unlisted bonus stuff on their CD; she just didn't seem to fit, although wasn't Kathleen Hanna on there too, seems like she was better)

"...leaves out more stuff than most book editors would stand for leaving out," I meant.

Clapton and Harrison play guitar on "Cold Turkey" recorded at the Lyceum, the cuts that kicks off the "Live Jam" freebie from Sometime in NYC. Course, it's no longer free but the guitars are pretty gouging on the signature riff. "Don't Worry Kyoko" builds off a simple vamp for about half its duration, the rest is feedback. Actually, pretty mild feedback. "Well (Baby Please Don't Go)" is the best straight cut on the side. It's FZ and the Mothers who snap to attention after the first verse/chorus and they "get" the changes. Don Preston (?) is on drums and between him and the bass player, the turnarounds are pretty hot in a terse R&B rock way. The Jamrag/Scumbag cop off "King Kong" is good, as said upstream. Then there's a bit of feedback and Yoko screaming for eight minutes, which is where I usually hit the eject. Usually. For feedback and screaming, it's not really alienating. More just a snooze.

Yoko singing on "We're All Water" from the studio part is like a pub rock song. Probably because of Elephant's Memory, the backing band.

I received a ton of promo e-mail crap on the Gits doc. Of course, no review copy, par for the course. Consequently, the blurbs and hype were utterly wasted. Never was interested in the Evil Stig record.

Hotcha, two more deluxe UFO reissues -- Lights Out and Obsession picked up at BestBuy. The Hold Steady's newest was getting the push on the front table at reduced price, reviewed favorably in the LAT. But I passed right on by. Maybe next week.

Both albums produced by Ron Nevison who was ascending to big name hard rock producer at the same time. Albums are about equivalent -- classy hard rock built solidly on catchy tunes and riffs, all anchored by killing guitar from Schenker. All the solos on Lights Out were cut through a Pignose, the mini-amp that everyone who's played guitar has bought at least once. Nevison had string arrangements added to some of the more introspective numbers giving UFO a big deal well-arranged sound. The solo in "Gettin' Ready" sounds like it was taken lock, stock and barrel from a Pink Floyd session.

Obsession is my favorite UFO record. Regal in parts, it projects superiority. "Only You Can Rock Me" was custom-made for American audiences, meant to have a stadium riff to compete with Kiss and Ted Nugent. UFO never made that kind of draw, though. Lights Out charted to the high twenties but Obsession didn't do the same business although more was hoped for it. Schenker sticks in pretty interludes -- "Arbory Hill," "Looking Out for No. 1" used as a thematic reminder through the record. "Cherry" fiddles around with the Bruce Springsteen-love singer Phil Mogg occasionally brought to the band. It would come out even more on the next studio album -- Nowhere to Run -- produced by George Martin.

Make no mistake, though, these aren't mellow records at all. No way when Schenker's in the guitar chair, someone who always recognized that if you're going to play a memorable guitar solo, instead of thinking about shred, compose it so the audience finds it easy to hum. ("Only You Can Rock Me's" middle break really illustrates it.)

The two albums contain UFO signatures: "Lights Out," "Too Hot to Handle," "Rock Me" and a Love cover, "Along Again Or..."

Schenker left after Obsession. UFO then tossed in their live ace-in-the-hole Strangers In the Night, put Paul Chapman in at guitar and went to Montserrat to record with George Martin.

Both UFO records are about at the state-of-the-art of mid-Seventies hard rock/metal. Heck, they are state-of-the-art. You could legitimately pick AC/DC -- Let there Be Rock and Powerage.
They were coming into power. Kiss Love Gun and
Alive II?? The latter don't compare. They're just crappy records.

The reissues benefit from packaging, clippings and history organized by Oliver of Jasper & Oliver's Encyclopedia fame.

New Foreigner two-disc anthology, No End in Sight, is a Foreigner two-disc anthology.

I got a UFO best-of not long ago that I haven't made it all the way through yet, but I like what I've managed to listen to so far.

The place to start with UFO is one of the reissues of Strangers In the Night. There's a new one in stores with Obsession and Lights Out. Its their live album from '78 and acts as a best of from the strongest part of the catalog, the LPs done with Schenker.

It crunches from start to finish and has the anthems -- "Too Hot To Handle," "Only You Can Rock Me," "Doctor Doctor" and Schenker's showpiece number, "Rock Bottom." Biographical booklet that comes with the new edition exaggerates their draw in the US a bit, imagining they were an arena headliner. Well, only if they were on the bill with an actual headliner, which they were in '78 with BOC and Molly Hatchet. I saw them at the time on a double with the Outlaws. They were better than the Outlaws by a few leagues, very tight, powerful as well as melodic, things the former didn't have much of onstage. The Outlaws were drunks and live they dragged numbers out into twenty minute jams. I remember their set closer, "Green Grass and High Tides" seeming to last about a half hour as bikers threw bottles of Jack Daniels up in the air.

However, UFO never had a number that broke through at AOR FM and as a consequence their LPs would only last a few weeks in the charts, never getting much above the forties. The music never let them down. The albums are very strong; Chrysalis just couldn't break them. The music on the live record is regal and powerful. Live, they were at full power, oozing superiority. Problem with Schenker when he left after this album was that he was never in a band that wrote with him as well again.

The Hold Steady's Stay Positive -- sounds sort of like something from the Jersey shore in the Eighties, only with lots louder guitar. So I guess I get were Springsteen comparisons come from. Makes me think of Wilco in some parts, too. Title cut sounds like the high point with "wo-ho-ho's" and breathless Finn doing a Springsteen chant over a single crunching guitar before the organ and band crashes back in. Makes 'em sound like they wanna be big in the arenas. Are they?

"Lord, I'm Discouraged" has the achetypal big and emotionally crushing lead guitar solo in the middle of the introspective tune. Great playing, break out the glow sticks and the arms moving from side to side in waves.

"Sequestered in Memphis" has the laugh out loud chorus lyric, "Subpoenaed in Texas" to handclaps. UFO's Phil Mogg could never have thought of that. After Strangers In the Night Mogg, like Finn, appeared to have a big admiration for Springsteen, too.

Ha ha, I just blogged about the Hold Steady album, and heard way less Springsteen (and hard rock in general) than George (who, as I recall, didn't like their previous albums much) did. Weird. I'll go back and relisten, of course, but here's what I wrote:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/chuck_it_all_in/index.html

Actually, this is a better link to that particular post:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/07/the-hold-steady.html

As critic-aprroved hard rock goes, bizarrely enough, I'm actually preferring the new album by Alejandro Escovedo, who I've never had much use for before.

("Critic-approved hard Bruce-rock," I guess I meant.)

Struck me as the only nerd rock album I'll be able to stand this year. And when you drag it in as a current rock critic fave, certified in Salon (next is NPR, right ?) -- then I'm 100 percent OTM.

If I'd have gone longer, I would have said Eighties Jersey with the dynamics taken out of the song/story operettas, obliterated by the blasting muddy pro forma (although very good-sounding) rhythm guitar that's the trademark tone. I suppose The Hold Steady furnish dynamic on the album with the two or three softer tunes but I had no use for "One for the Cutters" which is one, making Finn sound like Van Morrison, if VM was a chant in conversational cadence more than a voice (and if there were no songs like "Into the Mystic" or "Brown-Eyed Girl").

No way it sounds like Cheap Trick. Finn's no Robin Zander, not by a long shot (not a putdown, just fact) and there's no one in the band who comes close to Rick Nielsen on guitar. Plus, where's the harmony vocals? (United-we-stand wo-wo's don't count.) Plus Cheap Trick's main and often fairly glaring touchstone is the Beatles/John Lennon (heck, they're performing Sgt. Pepper's at the Hollywood Bowl for the second time). And the Boston comparison is equally flabbergasting.

What sets The Hold Steady apart from the classic arena rock they seem to love is the erasure of much of its dynamic. Finn and company just go on for most of the numbers until it's decided the song is over. "Lord, I'm Discouraged" stands out because, all of sudden, you get the guitar hero, something that doesn't show up anywhere on the rest of the record except at the very end -- the unexpected riff where the player really bites down on the talkbox effect. And it sounds great but in the context of the tune, by a time I was zoning out, it's a non sequitur.

In case it's not obvious, it's a likeable record. But it's also obviously still nerd rock, dressed-up good.

I'm actually preferring the new album by Alejandro Escovedo

I saw this in the store. I'm guessing your liking the Tony Visconti magic, he probably having carved it into something it wasn't. I have some stuff to trade in and there was a copy at the used store on Colorado, so maybe I'll pick one up this weekend.

Alejandro Escovedo's Real Animal -- It's a Miami Steve album, no ... it's a Nils Lofgren solo album, no ... it's a memoir of Escovedo's life from the punk rock Nuns to the present. "Always a Friend" sounds like the E Street Band which, it turns out, is about right, the song being big in Austin or Houston where Escovedo sang it in some arena with Bruce and the guys backing him. Or that's how I understand the story.

"Chelsea" is next. A sawing riff and chanting vocal about being in the Chelsea when the Sid and Nancy thing went down.

"Nuns Song" is about Jennifer Miro, mostly, the frontwoman for the Nuns, one of SF's first punk bands. Had their album, which on Poshboy, and this seems to work in one of the Nuns' declining riffs, maybe "Wild Child." The idea of it is more arresting than the execution.

"Chip & Tony" is aboutt the Kinman brothers, Rank & File times, and is the most jolting rock 'n' roll on the album with a stop-and-start Bo Diddley beat. If you keep waiting for the big deal rock guitar to show up (based on the cover photo in which Escovedo looks like Link Wray), this is where it happens. (Also on "Smoke" which is built on Keef-style riffs and a nice swinging shake.)

"People (We're Only Live So Long)" -- Hey, it's Dylan. Not bad, he's got it down.

Escovedo mentions "Louie Louie" twice but paradoxically never quite gets around to playing anything quite as catchy. I would have thought he'd have tried to sneak it in at least once.

The album's fairly pulled back for a guitarist's record. Makes up for it in the arrangements, courtesy of Visconti prob'ly, which add energy. A surprising amount of lugubrious material, Escovedo raking over the coals of memory, maybe having a good sentimental cry on a few of them. Lyrics occasionally to laugh at they're such pure corn, especially on "Sensitive Boys," a waterfall wrung from a wet dishrag. (Similarly, with fiddle -- "The Swallows of San Juan.") Tunes played like hymns.

"Hollywood Hills" sounds like something Ian Hunter solo/acoustic would do. And that's intentional, I think.

Just the thing for rock critics in their late fifties/early sixties. Even after it gets on NPR it won't sell much and they'll be disappointed.

As alleged "rock critic's" hard rock, I like it a lot more than The Hold Steady's new one. Part of it because Escovedo's a genuine rock 'n' roll hard luck case.

Gorgeous tone if you like that kind of thing.

Amusing and extremely well written site devoted to classic hard rock and metal guitarists.

Excerpts:

Michael Schenker:

Infamous for: Questionable business and life decisions, terrible bouts of alcoholism resulting in other flaky behavior, including last-minute show cancellations, walking off stage during performances, onstage arguments, offstage fights, disappearing for weeks at a time. Sadly, Michael's life often seems to be in crisis. In 2002, Michael had to auction off a few of his trademark black-and-white Flying Vs to help alleviate his financial problems. That was a sad day for a lot of us.

http://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/bios/Schenker.shtml

Ted Nugent:

Ted will not play the UK* I have not been able to catch "The Nuge" in real live action, but his stage show antics include Tarzan impressions and bow and arrow displays. Ted is a madman live and it is quite obviously a strength.

* Quote: "I make $5,000,000+ a year from my hunting trips alone, why would I want to make a couple of hundred dollars playing to an undernourished English crowd?"

Ted drinks a carton of chocolate milk before a gig and is crazier sober than most rockers are wasted.

http://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/bios/Nugent.shtml

That's a pretty good site.

Yeah, an incredible amount of work must have been put into it.

Right-very detailed stuff, real in depth musical discussion, a lot of which goes over my head! But a fun read just the same

If you actually play guitar, the analytical stuff on the techniques, styles and solo/scales is spot on, as far as I can tell. Really handy, if you want to cop a slice of someone's style.

For example, re Ted Nugent. Those guys correctly note Ted's solos aren't spectacular. However, it's his talent for honky-tonk, and R&B rhythm that made his riffs so special. His rhythmic sense has always been impeccable. Couple that to a percussive style, with lots of clever muting so the chords have a good thump to them, and that's a lot of the Ted sound. That and the big Byrdland guitar and stacks of amps.

Gorge-you mentioned the Bridge of Sighs remaster in an earlier post on this thread. I saw it cheap and got it-it's shit-hot, and the BBC sessions at the end are great.

Happy to hear you like it, Bill. When Trower tromps the wah-wah in sync with the rhythm on that live stuff, it indeed kills.

I wasn't too familiar with it before. A simplistic description would be the Jimi Hendrix Experience fronted by Paul Rodgers. Really nice.

That Dinosaurockguitar site is indeed extremely informative, entertaining, and well-written. (Even though, as a non-guitarist, I don't speak the language all that much.) Interesting how sparse the Triassic and Cretaceous selections are, though; I wonder if he plans to beef those up in the future.

I've got a few reviews of recent obscure hard rock albums (Continental Crawler, Skafish, 6Ft Hick, Jacknives, etc) at this link, on the left hand page:

http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?magid=90716#/page21/

Also been listening to Eddy Current Suppression Ring (on Goner, from Australia, remind me of Screaming Blue Messiahs with better guitars) and a 30+ year retrospective CD by the Banastre Tarleton Band, one of the most popular local bar bands in mid-Missouri when I went to college there in the '80s.) Here are myspace links; Banastre Tarleton have a pretty amazing "influences" list if you ask me, though I can't say I necessarily hear all those on their CD:

http://www.myspace.com/eddycurrentsuppressionring

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=191917617

Influences The Kinks, Black Sabbath, Atomic Rooster, Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Mott The Hoople, Ian Hunter, Rolling Stones, Blue Oyster Cult, KISS, Procol Harum, REM, The Romantics, Pete Droge, Bang, Dave Clark 5, Crack The Sky, Deep Purple, The Babys, Uriah Heep, Beatles, Steppenwolf, Yardbirds, Animals, Johnny Cash, etc.

And oh yeah, also been liking Pressure in the Sodo, by the Boss Martians, who are from Seattle:

http://www.myspace.com/thebossmartians

No one is influenced by Bang. That's a dirty lie. Especially right next to Pete Droge.

For me, BGO in Suffolk has the best deluxe issue remasters of stuff coined in America. Today I picked up REO Speedwagon's Ridin' the Storm Out/Lost In a Dream two-fer. For most, REO's just the band that sold a gazillion on the basis of the sappy Hi Infidelity in the mid Eighties. It went to #1, spawned one or two #1 hits, made Kevin Cronin's voice immediately recognizable to anyone who listens to classic rock radio. I couldn't stand that stuff.

But these two albums were not Kevin Cronin-ized. They came after REO T.W.O -- the only one of the early records the company elects to keep in print in the US -- but well before any commercial success. T.W.O. was their first uniformly good hard rock record and is really one of the archetype slices of Midwest slash & burn party boogie, spawned at U. of Illinois frats and bars.

Cronin left or was replaced after doing all the demos and guide vocals for the next record. And a guy named Michael Murphy, who had a much more dusty and manly voice took over for the next three. They're barely represented on the first REO box, which was devoted to the band's first ten years prior to megasales.

And I listened to them a lot at the time, saw the band share a bill with Kiss in '74 which would have been the time of Hotter than Hell.

REO were a little mixed up. They'd turned up the amps on REO T.W.O. but apparently forgot they could turn them up even louder the further they pushed into the decade. As a result, they levelled out as a very chopsy boogie band, sounding like a heavier version of Jo Jo Gunne. There was a lot of boogie in them but they wouldn't do fuse the floor and walls of the arena overkill of a Foghat or Aerosmith.

In terms of playing with Kiss, they had their lunch eaten by the pyro and fire-breathing.

But the two records are good. "Ridin' the Storm Out" has an immediately recognizable riff, punctuated by a siren wail synth line. "Son of a Poor Man" is still in their set, even with the hacks playing it. Nice cover of a Terry Reid tune closes Storm, "Without Expression." As a style, it predates Tom Petty's jangle rock. It's not something they did often, but they could.

The rest, particularly Lost in a Dream, is meat and potatoes midwest rock (meant to go along with Joe Walsh's Barnstorm or early southern rock) and it made them a big draw regionally, enough to keep them signed even though the LPs were barely charting. Their label cut them an immense quantity of slack for little ROE. No band would last that long now.

Definitely not for everyone's taste. However, if you were there, these are solid LPs.

Yeah, definitely no Bang in Banastre Tarelton Band's sound. (Maybe a pinch of Crack the Sky, though. I haven't decided yet.) In general, I wish they rocked harder. They may the only band I've heard who do songs in favor in invading both Grenada and Iraq, though. (Which makes them distinctive, if not smart.)

And REO were, obviously, way more huge in Missouri in those days. Kids these days have no idea. They were pretty big in Michigan, too. And yeah, REO T.W.O. killed, especially "Golden Country." I don't know the era without Cronin very well, but I got curious about it again (and also curious about the Head East albums I don't own) while paging through Popoff's '70s metal book a few months ago. Midwestern '70s prairie bonfire rock, definitely a subject worthy of intense research.

"Ridin' the Storm Out" was actually one of REO's biggest '70s hits, though maybe the live You Get What You Play For version with Cronin is the one that got most of the AOR play? I'm not sure. Just checked my copy of The Essential REO Speedwagon (two discs, Sony Legacy, 2004), and that's the one that's on there, along with the Cronin-sung demo of "Son of a Poor Man." Here he is in the liner notes: "During the recording of Ridin' the Storm Out I accidentally spilled some red wine on producer Bill Halverson's white carpet...bad move by the new kid." So "the band decided they needed some new blood. They fired me, so I showed them - I quit!"

I hated Hi Infidelity at the time (trashed both that LP and a live show in the Mizzou student paper, in a couple of the first music reviews I ever wrote), but it grew on me over time, especially the songs that sound kind of like Bo Diddley ("Don't Let Him Go") and Music Machine turning into psychedelic metal ("Follow My Heart"), and the doo-woppy "In Your Letter," plus He-Man Woman Hater's Club jokes.

Or maybe "Follow My Heart" is more Troggs than Music Machine, who knows. (Cool dubby part toward the end, too.) (And hell, why be ashamed? I'm a sucker for "Keep On Lovin You" and "Take It On The Run" by now, too. If they'd come out in 2008 not 1980, they'd rank among my favorite singles of the year.)

And yeah, REO T.W.O. killed, especially "Golden Country."

I dragged it out again to A/B it with the Murphy stuff. REO TWO definitely turned up the amperage. And then the band went sideways. "Let It Ride" and "Lay Me Down" absolutely killed me in '72. Had been listening to all the Brit rock and all of a sudden this comes out of the heartland.

Then they backed up a couple degrees, not majorly, but in a way that I thought was a move to make them fit in with the Joe Walsh crowd. Incidentally, Walsh played slide on a song from Ridin' the Storm Out. You listen to the album, you can immediately pick him out.

I don't know the era without Cronin very well, but I got curious about it again (and also curious about the Head East albums I don't own) while paging through Popoff's '70s metal book a few months ago.

Popoff doesn't really get REO. They were a lot harder early than he makes them out. Ridin' the Storm Out is an album with some songs that are better than everything on REO TWO, although the total impact of the record is less. It was their first to chart, but only barely.

Lost In a Dream is also an album of surprising guitars and songs. They're just not the over the top delivery that was starting to grease the kids, like me and my brother. It seemed to me they could've gone balls out, but didn't.

REO weren't on late Friday night TV. Kiss was. And that made a big difference.

Alice Cooper was into Welcome To My Nightmare at the time -- crap, as far as I'm concerned -- compared to the REO records which are crafted, unphony and working to get something on the radio that's a lot harder than the Eagles or the Doobies and not a ballad. I saw both acts in 74. Alice was a waste of time of ear damage. Even then he was aiming at being the Lawrence Welk (or maybe Jerry Lewis, or a combination of the two) of hard rock. There was a dancing toothbrush in the show, perfect for kids and parents who might like an AC lunchpail for their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

For something you've heard, I'd say think The Rockets shortly after the minor success they had with "Oh Well." Maybe the LP "No Ballads." Of course, by the time The Rockets came along, Kevin Cronin had gotten in touch with his inner sissy and REO were all over radio.

Here's the thing. REO was kind of a secret true believer's band in '74. We used to play them on eight track, to putting in a drop ceiling at the swimming pool bath house over the summer. My workmate went to see Seals & Crofts in Hershey, because that's what his girlfriend wanted to go to. I took my brother to REO at the Harrisburg Farm Show. Guess who rued their decision?

At Albright, my girlfriend hated me playing REO. UNTIL You Can't Tuna Piano... which was the preface to them breaking big. They began devoting records to a sound the chicks really liked. Everything with Murphy was total guy's guitar band rock, not something women would buy but something they'd suffer through with their dates and after a few slo gin fizzes.

The Head East records are more fizzy than REO. Pancake flops on me after the first side. I had two other of their studio records but forgot them for the live omnibus. Not the case with REO. I found them warmer-sounding, their keyboard player did more barrelhouse boogie figures. And REO had Gary Richrath, a non-shredding total guitar hero. He also wrote almost all their early material.

"Ridin' the Storm Out" was actually one of REO's biggest '70s hits, though maybe the live You Get What You Play For version with Cronin is the one that got most of the AOR play?

Maybe. That would have had to have been after the live album. I remember it from 74, which was the Murphy version. I'm assuming that when it gets played on radio now, if it does, it's either mostly from the live record or a 50/50 split, at best.

I'm not sure. Just checked my copy of The Essential REO Speedwagon (two discs, Sony Legacy, 2004), and that's the one that's on there, along with the Cronin-sung demo of "Son of a Poor Man."

His guide vocal and the version of this on that stinks compared to the studio original. Perhaps it was a demo. The live version is OK. But Murphy sings the best one even though he muffs the vocal on the last stanza. Originally, it was "A son of a poor man will bring you home." He sings, "A son of a poor man will bring you down," which is unintentionally funny. Most probably missed that. Can you tell I listened to this a lot?

Plus, if you were into Les Pauls played aggressive and well, REO couldn't be beat. You had to see 'em for that, but still... I was a guitar player so that made an impression.

Trying to see Pagey in Led Zeppelin was like trying to win a lottery. REO ya could get tickets for. Peter Frampton? You kidding me? I still can't figure out why Frampton Comes Alive is one of the best selling guitar rock albums of all time. Actually, I can. Pete and his black Les Paul didn't frighten girls. They even liked the songs. A lot.

Yeah, I compared Slippery When Wet to Frampton Comes Alive in Stairway -- pretty rock by pretty boys, for pretty girls.

My older brother had that Frampton LP (who didn't?), but he had two copies of REO's live album. And that was back when we were putting in a drop ceiling in our own basement, weirdly enough -- or at least I guess that's what you'd call it; those insulated, removable ceiling tiles separated by metal runner bars (or whatever you call those.) A neat place for hiding stuff from parents, once it was all installed. We were also building retaining walls out of railroad ties on the backyard hill (w/ swimming pool) around that time, but I don't think we ever actually played REO albums while doing it.

Btw, if you think Welcome To My Nightmare is shit (which it was, for the most part), you should hear Alice's new one. I actually liked some stuff on 2005's Dirty Diamonds (purty cover of the Left Banke's "Pretty Ballerina," for one), but I couldn't find a single track to like on his new one. Totally tuneless. Somebody please correct me if I missed something, but I actually found the mostly worthless new Motley Crue album more bearable -- "White Trash Circus" even sounds like an okay glam rock song, and "Down At The Whiskey" is a fair to passable stab at Mott the Hoople-type band's-early-daze nostalgia (not that it much sounds like them.)

The Welcome to My Nightmare show was really for children. Warmed up by the James Gang long after Joe Walsh had left ... and the James Gang was marginally better.

I occasionally get curious about Coop's output just after Nightmare. And then I stifle it. My brother had Go to Hell and his live one from the same show on eight-track. Go to Hell had one decent song on it, the title cut. After that, the only time I checked again was for Special Forces which was advertised as a return to old Alice (something subsequently promised many times and never delivered upon) with Nitzinger on guitar. That was another dead skunk, memorable for an embarrassingly rancid cover of "7 and 7 is..."

I'm faintly curious about From the Inside because it's supposed to be about his sanitarium rescue from raging drunkard. And while I think the anonymous review of Flush the Fashion I posted into the AC: C or D thread is hilarious, I have no interest in actually hearing the record. An old friend who was a die-hard fan had a copy and I remember him playing it for me one Friday night. I detested "Clones" the couple of times it made the radio.

I love Flush The Fashion, actually -- the only post-Greatest Hits Alice album I'd say that about. But then, I was totally new wave in 1980. And it is a total new wave album, Gary Numan imitation and Music Machine cover and everything. Got plenty of airplay in Detroit; not sure about elsewhere. (Joel Whitburn says it only went to No. 44 nationally, so apparently not so much. "Clones" actually sqeaked into the Top 40 at 40 for a week.)

Just checked REO's early chart standings, too; looks like the first two LPs didn't even chart, which surprises me. Then the two Murphy LPs went to #171 for Ridin the Storm Out and #98 for Lost In A Dream. None of their albums even came close to the Top 30 until You Can Tune a Piano But You Can't Tune A Fish, which went #29 in 1978.

Early REO albums were favorably reviewed in Creem, dunno about Hi-Fidelity (think it was Jeffrey Morgan who did like Flush The Fashion), but for inst the very first was in the same review with maybe Sir Lord Baltimore, or more likey the Rationals I guess (who have a retropective coming out, and also a comp of other bands on A-Squared, according to Fricke's Picks; he hasn't heard the Rationals, at least on the latest issue with Obama being modestly benevolent on the cover, but has heard the label comp and does like it though he does like most stuff he reviews duh--but did have *some* not too many qualms about that Sonic's RB box last year, which I never saw much about anywhere else)

hey hard rock dudes,

should i buy the Nitzinger album at my local record store? it's $13.

(cover is plain black w/nitzinger logo)

Great LP. (Second one, the blue one, is good, too.) But I can't imagine paying $13 for anything these days (at least anything I can't have for dinner), Louisiana cock fights and girl drummers or no.

But I can't imagine paying I3 for anything these days

Then you certainly wouldn't enjoy my shopping trips.

The comp is titled A-Square (Of Course), and it's on Big Beat. Fricke says it's got Scot Richard Case doing "snarling Pretty Things covers"; Prime Movers, "featuring a teenage Iggy pn drums"; MC5's "Looking At You"; The Up,"Just Like An Aborigine"; and Half-Life, "Get Down." He doesn't have tracks listed for the Rationals collection yet (not in that print issue, anyway).

Revisited three of the Replacements 2008 reissues: Sorry Ma, Stink, Let It Be.

In '81-'83, enjoyed the first two very much in original. Was doing a fanzine at the time and probably reviewed them although I no longer have copies. Liner notes for the new ones are pleasant reminisces, often gushing, suggesting they were a big success a lot faster than I seem to remember it happening. Saw them a bunch of times and they were always laughably bad, often inexplicably so, even when they were opening for Tom Petty. They ended up one Petty tour in Allentown and the best thing one can say about their performance at the Fairgrounds was they broke their instruments at the end of the set.

Sorry Ma still sounds great. The adds all could have made the original 'cept maybe for the Bob Stinson thing, "A Toe Needs a Shoe."

Let it Be -- echh, no longer does anything for me. An album for girls. Apropos, a lady does the liner notes, weeping upon it in the same way critics wept over Liz Phair's reissue earlier this summer.

The hard rock stinks -- one bad cover of Kiss song; "Gary's Got a Boner" -- this is the same band that did "Shiftless When Idle"?

Some dweeb started a thread a week or so ago on ILM asking what effect Paul Westerberg used on his guitar for "Answering Machine."

Standard stereo chorus. Hot stuff.

Adds -- cover of "20th Century Boy," played ploddingly, improves the odds only slightly. I guess this might have seemed special if you got it on the flip side of an obscure single.

Grass Roots' "Temptation Eyes" -- stinks, everything's off and struggling.

DeFranco Family's "Heartbeat -- It's a Love Beat" -- another tune unintentionally/intenionally rendered into joke tune status.

Stink still loaded with backbone and energy, a quality missing even on the uptempo stuff on Let it Be. "Gimme Noise," "Stuck In the Middle" hammer.

The covers as adds on this work a little better than on "Let it Be." "Hey Good Lookin'" isn't awkward like "Temptation Eyes." "Rock Around the Clock" -- they can play it but it goes on too long. If you were drunk when they did it probably sounded hilarious.

Yeah, Replacements were pretty clearly one of those bands that got lamer, more bland, less rocking with each subsequent release they put out. Peaked with the debut; I can bear them maybe through Tim, but they were heading downhill long before then.

From today's email:

SOUTH TEXAS ROCKFEST photos of Helix, Jetboy, Faster Pussycat, L.A. Guns, Xyz, Bang Tango and more are posted at www.myspace.com/rocknationtv
in the picture album section.

Doubt I'll check those out, but maybe somebody should.

From now until the end of human civilization as we know, music blog nerds will find everything ever done by anyone 25-years earlier and rip it to the net. The Gift of Noise -- quarter century-old noise band compilation, made in France, with me on it. I suspect the admirers of it must have only one eye in the middle of the forehead.

Meanwhile, found a copy of The Road Hammers' Blood Sweat and Steal. Could have put it in Rolling Country but it's just as much hard rock. Canadians who love truckers, called road hammers, ergo their name.

"I'm a Road Hammer" kicks off album. The next song is about hammering their girlfriends in bed and the third is called "The Hammer Going Down." They have a message. It's uncomplicated and they won't be budged from it. They write about what they know. I guarantee ya, though, that if they hump their ladies to the beat of the song about hammering and working their love, the Road Hammers wake up to empty beds a lot.

"I've Got the Scars to Prove It" is my favorite because it lets up on the hammer, bringing in a slow burn arena ballad, the kind Trace Adkins likes. A cover of Little Feat's "Willin'" is more than righteous and honorific enough. "Keep On Truckin'" does not have anything to do with R. Crumb and the Grateful Dead; it sounds like the Georgia Satellites' "Open All Night."

The album grows on me the more I hear it. The first three cuts on the road and hammering are a little stodgy but after that it turns into something warm and sincere fast. I'm guessing this would have sounded better without the overwhelming Nashville sonic candy stuck on it -- the banjo so you know it's from "Deliverance" land, the jaw harps. Little Caesar used to do this kind of thing a decade and a half ago.

Actually, it's Blood Sweat & Steel although Blood Sweat and Steal's a good title for an LP, too.

Rick Springfield reprises "Jessie's Girl" theme in "What's Victoria's Secret?", kickoff tune on Venus in Overdrive. He does it but good in a song that doesn't sound like his old hit, it's a golden signifier telling you what he thinks his album's going to be. Old school! This isn't the all out Drop-D guitar chomp that was the last one he penned himself although the title cut delivers some of it.

"Warning Shots" is Beatles-loving pop metal with riff from "I Am the Walrus" as intro. He'll give someone three warning shots "to the head," more like kill shots.

"God Blinked (Swing It Sister)" tries to be funky and just kind of ties itself in a knot. Dud. No idea what he was trying to do with this.

"Mr. PC" is off and running, his Eighties fast pop rock with axes, done so girls like it. Springfield basically invented bands like Tsar and the Jonas Brothers. 'Course, the Jonas Brothers wouldn't write a song with a title like "Mr. PC;" they stick with things like "Play My Music" and "Year 3000," good songs but compelled for Disney approvable.

"She" is more John Lennon channeling, much better than "Warning Shots."
One of the record's high points along with the first tune.

"Saint Sahara" -- old-fashioned Eighties arena wave the glowsticks and wet the panties waltzing power ballad.

Cover version of "My Generation." Springfield can certainly do The Who.

Acoustic cover of "Jessie's Girl" closes it.

Overall first impression: starts great -- sags in middle -- finishes strong.

Yeah, I've been listening to the Springfield, too. Potentially one of the year's best albums, actually (as was his last one, but I wasn't expecting him to pull it off twice in a row.) My copy doesn't have the two bonus tracks that end George's, but I'm really loving "What's Victoria Secret" (which I swear has as much Eddie Money "Take Me Home Tonight" as "Jessie's Girl" in it) and the perfect hard pop of "Time Stand Still." George also didn't mention the reggae-tinged hard rock title track (like Lenny Kravitz or Living Colour done right), or the stellar Stones rip "God Blinked (Swing It Sister)." I actually like the middle of the album more than George does, I guess. And track 11 is more late '60s Brit style cups-and-cakes castle-pop to go with the two blatant Lennon rips (i.e., "She," which I hear as late Beatles sifted through ELO sifted through Cheap Trick at their most ornate). No idea what the message of "Mr. PC" suppposed to be, but I like its Stone Temple Pilots riff and crosstalk from old cartoons. (Stinkers for me are maybe "I'll Miss This Someday" -- pop-punk emo, almost -- and "Oblivious," which could almost pass for Coldplay or something. But the latter is growing on me. And hey, that's pop rock too, right? And like George say, Rick was decades ahead of the pack as far as that stuff goes.)

(Track 11 = "Nothing Is Ever Lost," btw)

(And actually, George did mention "God Blinked"; I just like it more. I hear it more as "Stones" than "funk," which I assume was Rick's intention.)

I did refer the title cut, "Venus in Overdrive." That's the one with the Drop-D guitar through Recto amp chomps. In between, while singing the verses, it's reggae. I thought it was the one tune that stylistically was most like the stuff on his last one. (Excluding the covers album which I passed on).

"One Passenger" is one of mediocre tunes, saggy for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. Aimlessness, maybe, or the Edge/U2 guitar thing. "Oblivious" also delivers into the oblivion.

"My Generation"/"Jessie's Girl" editions were exclusive to BestBuy, sez the sticker.

And it would seem "Mr. PC" is about the Internet, the wonder of the world of information brought to Mr. Springfield through his computer. "Share it Mr. PC!"

And the Lennon rock is fairly superb.

"My Generation" is Rick's excuse to go hot shit on guitar. He really bites down it.

Supergrass' Diamond Hoo Ha Man Long-in-the-tooth Brit band, fifteen years after or so still look like they could open for the Jonas Bros. Were they twelve when they started?

Title cut starts with cool octafuzz bass riff. It pounds but Gaz has that fruity nerd rock voice, one which always argues with the muscularity of tune even when shouting "Bite me!" "Bad Blood," right after it mines the same vein. And so does "Rebel In You," again starting on an introductory riff which uses octafuzz to provocative effect, a repeating theme. That makes the first ten minutes good enough not to skate through.

"345" has some Pete Townshend slash chords. Explosive and crashing, the more the guy's voice is buried the better the album works. But like most of the stuff that's loud on this album it has only a minimal melody. Might sound good in a pub if you remember the Motors.

"Whiskey & Green Tea" A higgledy-piggledy smash-up of vague Oriental movie theme, blaring sax and a crashing power chorded descending riff.
Gaz sings "Being chased by William Burroughs" which sounds more truthful than they know. Best tune on record because it gets the attention mixing almost tuneless hard rock with Bonzo Dog Band style. Very English, almost has entirely and accidentally redeemed what's a solidly mediocre record up to it.

"Butterfly" sounds like you could sell it to a movie production if the script is a boy-meets-girl, boy-lose-girl, boy-get-girl in Barcelona or some similar environ type tale.

Supergrass has sold about ten albums in the US. This probably made eleven. The more you listen to it, the better it sounds. So your enjoyment is going to be directly proportional to the amount of time you're willing to front load.

Were they twelve when they started?

They sure looked it. I always liked the debut, I Should Coco, for its Buzzcockian proclivities; stopped paying attention soon after, as they slowed down and blanded out. May check the new one, though.

Album I played the most the last couple days: Robin Trower – Day Of The Eagle: The Best Of (Chrysalis/ Capitol). Which is great. If I was a guitar player, I bet I'd have more to say about it. In general, I love the sad beautiful stuff and the heavy boogie stuff about equally; only cut that seems to approach Blues Hammer schtick is the live "Rock Me Baby," which still has killer playing.

May attempt Return To Forever -- The Anthology (Concord) next. So far, haven't had the mettle for it. Their reunion gets a page in the Sunday NY Times; the paragraph that says they inspired jam bands kinda scares me a little, I have to admit.

I passed on the Trower comp. It's a good selection. Have all of it. Trower was influenced by Hendrix but made the style something uniquely his own.

You have to listen to an original of Bridge of Sighs. A strongly charting record without a single, all on the back of his guitar and the astonishing voice of Jimmy Dewar. Mentioned Trower's facility with funky lines up above, particularly on "Alethea," "Gonna Be More Suspicious," and "Confessin' Midnight." Some of this is prob'ly from For Earth Below, the one after Bridge. Anyway, he works the wah-wah in time with the riffs, something almost no one white ever thinks to do.
It locks greasy syncopation into them and provides a cross-talk with the rhythm section. Now people try that with sequencing. At one point, he went a little too far into it, became frictionless and movie theme-y, losing the rock 'n' roll thread. Victim of the Fury is a fair to good one if you get it cheap. You don't see it much, or Long Misty Days which, at the time, was thought of highly.

I'd give Diamond Hoo Ha a B- or B. Every time I play it, I "get" more of it. Has enough concussion to keep my interest. The "best of" a few years back left me cold.

Hadn't looked into the booklet that came with the Rick Springfield Cd. Contains 576 postage stamp-sized shots of Rick posing one-on-one with fans, almost all middle-aged women. It's kind of touching showing as it does his eagerness to grant them their small requests. Only one or two men and I'm sure he must have guy fans at his shows. I'd think a shot of them with RS might not be something to show buddies at work lest they be seen as ...

Also noticed most of the album was mixed by Chris Lord-Alge who has a style fine-tuned for radio and, in particular, the kinds of bands which have done the Springfield thing, like Tsar -- who it didn't work for, and the Jonas Brothers, who won the jackpot. And ta think that was the guy who mixed the "Living in America" song for the old Rocky movie.

Come to think of it, I've no idea why Tsar's first record ended their career on a major and the Jonas Brothers went gangbusters. They sound almost the same.

Rick Springfield Cd. Contains 576 postage stamp-sized shots of Rick posing one-on-one with fans, almost all middle-aged women. It's kind of touching showing as it does his eagerness to grant them their small requests. Only one or two men

Sounds like the 3,000 names inside the new Dierks Bentley best-of I wrote about here; he's gotta have male fans, too, but it's the ladies who showed up:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/06/one-curious-tre.html

no idea why Tsar's first record ended their career on a major and the Jonas Brothers went gangbusters.

Disney! And Hannah Montana...

Interviewed Alice Cooper tonight. He talked about his last two studio albums, The Eyes Of Alice Cooper and Dirty Diamonds, the former of which was apparently recorded in 12 days with as little overdubbing as possible for a garagey hard rock vibe, and the latter was a continuation of that same spirit. Has anyone heard these records? Were they decent?

Dirty Diamonds from '05 (as I mentioned a few posts up) was catchy enough for me to keep it on my shelf for a year or two. Not great, obviously, but probably his best since Flush The Fashion, to my ears. Most songs ran under four minutes, which helped. (Found his new one completely unlistenable.)

You know what's surprisingly good? The new(ish) Annihilation Time album, Annihilation Time III: Tales Of The Ancient Age. That title might lead you to expect warrior metal or something similarly hokey, but it's actually a stripped-down '70s-hard-rock-meets-pre-Rollins-Black-Flag disc - 10 songs, 32 minutes, room enough for a guitar solo here and there but the big selling point is the vocalist, who sells lyrics like "stretched thin, about to snap/no escape from society's trap" in as pure a SoCal bark as I've heard on anything recorded post-1982. On Tee Pee and highly recommended, by me anyway.

Did a rundown on Jonas Brothers' new one on the Miley Cyrus thread. Harder-sounding than the last but not as good in the song-writing. Again mixed by Chris Lord-Alge who's apparently the go-to guy for this manner of material. And not always to the artist's benefit.

Lord-Alge did the Springfield CD, most of it -- anyway, not that it needed it. And since he mixed this one I dug out some of the old stuff he was on that never succeeded and did some contrasts. He does really give bands the heavy power pop sound -- crunchy and loud guitars but never too in your face. Always more energy and sonic candy on the choruses -- more doubling, handclaps, multiplying shouting voices. Really souped-up for radio and video maximization. However, it evens out most of the hills and valleys, nixing a lot of potential rock 'n' roll drama for a flavor of manufactured excitement. Sometimes it works, like with Jonas Brothers.

He did Tsar's first album. That was supposed to be big but bombed. He did The Donnas' Spend the Night for Atlantic. Dragged it out and that's one example where the band's performance got past him a bit. It's often a crushing CD, a character he tends to erase in favor of Hollywood stardom. Remember a band called Other Star People? They got the Chris Lord-Alge treatment and it didn't do them any good. Naturally, Green Day, too.

I liked Dirty Diamonds quite a bit, it was a really fun record. Haven't heard the new one, though...

I have to third the Dirty Diamonds love here. Really solid album. Eyes of, on the other hand, was pretty boring.

Has anyone talked about the new Supagroup record, Fire for Hire, on here? Pretty catchy AC/DC knockoff, not going to win any awards for originality, but they have some serious hooks.

Wrote about that Supagroup album (along with a couple other good AC/DC soundalikes) here:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/07/a-couple-mont-1.html

I find I'm a lot more forgiving to generic AC/DC knockoffs then generic knockoffs of other varieties. Maybe it's because of how much I love the music of Angus and company? Or maybe it's because such simple, fun rock music never really wears out its welcome? I even just picked up the first Rhino Bucket album for a dollar! New official AC/DC album is called Black Ice and is coming out soon, by the way. I know going to buy it, although I'm going to wait until it shows up at my local used CD store because I've no desire to give Wal-Mart any money whatsoever.

I find I'm a lot more forgiving to generic AC/DC knockoffs then generic knockoffs of other varieties.

Yeah, same here. That Airbourne CD, for example, totally reminded me of all those late-80s knock-offs likeKix, Dirty Looks, and Four Horsemen. I can't not like that.

Airbourne didn't stick for me. Lots of vigor and mastery of the style. No songs, though.And I tried to wear it in.

Kix were a Frederick, MD, band -- home of Bruce Ivins!

The Rhino Bucket CD I got has not one, not two, but three different songs with titles that are terrible double entendres for "going down!" That's impressive by anybody's standards.

Has anybody heard the new AC/DC? on another thread they saw it's coming out this fall. Sept.?

New AC/DC in October, I think. And I'm with George on Airbourne. I wanted to like it, but it wound up doing very little for me.

Has anybody heard the new AC/DC?

I have -- had some good stuff! Though I probably shouldn't say more til my Blender review (which I actually haven't quite written yet) comes out.

I saw an article in Rolling Stone that said they heard a preview and liked it but I didn't catch an authors name. No review though.
I also see that it's due out Oct. 27.

I'm a sucker for bands like Airbourne. Any hard rock band from Australia for that matter. Sadly the excitement usually wears out fast and Airbourne was no exception. For every Rose Tattoo there seems to be a dozen Jets and Airbournes.

Just got reissues of the first three albums (1968, 1970, 1971) by psychedelic hard rock band Freedom's Children, whose name is pretty goddamn ironic considering they were from South Africa.

New Canobliss EP is really good- heavy grooves mixed with prog shredding and clean vocals. Very unique sound, even throwing in some spanish lyrics for flavor.
http://www.dangerdog.com/reviews_2008/canobliss-psychothermia.html

The next few things furnished a few laughs. Ted Nugent, while on the country fair circuit this summer, still has time to write an editorial for the Waco Tribune.

Put a hoax in your tank with ethanol

Well, greenies, I hope you are proud of yourselves.

With the horrible, fantasy- driven "feel good" disconnect you have forced upon America and the world with your pie-in-the-sky dreams of saving the poor polar bears, which by the way, are at record-high populations, exploding gas and food prices are the direct result of the counterproductive scramble to clean the air and save the whales.

While continuing with the brain-dead, suicidal ban on any new drilling for oil or gas in America's untapped rich "independent" reserves, while demanding the development of the insanely wasteful ethanol biofuel, America bends over further and further into the hateful hands of our enemies.

Nicely done, lefties. No wonder you want to legalize dope. You are dopes.

The production of corn-based ethanol actually costs more in energy consumption per gallon than is realized per gallon of this "alternative."

Worse, the very same corn that is critical for the production of food for hundreds of millions of people around the world has been grossly wasted while artificially and unnecessarily driving up the cost of every commodity known to man.

Greenies, what in God's name were you thinking? Oh, that's right. It feels good because it sounds good. And that is all that matters.

Consequences be damned. Such an inconvenient truth.

The same gaggle of clueless Democrat and Republican senators who raised hell to create the ethanol hoax, including presidential candidate John McCain, recently urged the fantasy-driven Environmental Protection Agency to back off enforcement of their legislation to ramp up production of ethanol.

Agri-welfare brats are going nuts, I'm sure.

Even the terminal big government maniacs at Rolling Stone magazine and the ultra left New York Times have admitted how the entire ethanol joke is out of control.

Respected economist Walter Williams recently declared, "Politicians, farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American public. They are in it for the money."

With the nanny state bloating at the hands of the liberal Congress, government subsidies at a rate of 51 cents per gallon of ethanol will end up costing tax payers a whopping $3.5 billion this year for the 7 billion gallons expected to be produced.

Corn is a grossly expensive crop to grow. It takes more than 1,700 gallons of water to grow enough corn to produce one gallon of ethanol.

This uniquely high water content of ethanol is dangerously corrosive to standard gasoline pipelines, so it must be delivered to all destinations by truck or rail, creating a ridiculously cost prohibitive overhead.

Once ethanol finally finds its way into our gas tank, that same water content can ruin engines, making it even more destructive.

Another disturbing little ditty to add to the ethanol scam. Even after ethanol subsidies have ravaged our pocketbooks, as fuel it is at least 20 percent to 30 percent less efficient than gasoline.

Based on laws pulled out of the dark, gloomy recesses of mindless bureaucrats, the United States is required to produce and we are forced to burn 36 billion gallons of this snake oil by the year 2022.

That is five times our current load of 7.5 billion gallons. With 33 new ethanol plants being built right now and 60 more up and coming, this runaway freight train is on a collision course from hell.

America is the fourth-largest exporter of rice in the world. U.S. farmers have more than 30 million acres in corn production this year, which means fewer acres for rice, beans, wheat and hay.

Economics 101 tells me that supply and demand will force prices up for all those commodities and dramatically reduce our exporting capabilities.

Can you say "lose-lose"? Who came up with this game plan, Willie Nelson or Michael Moore?
=======
Lehigh Valley native plays bass for Nugent

Few people can say they make their living playing music. Even fewer can say that living includes touring the country alongside rock legends like Ritchie Blackmore, Alice Cooper and Ted Nugent.

Greg Smith of Bangor can lay claim to both.

The soft-spoken bassist -- a musical journeyman who has also performed with The Alan Parsons Project, Wendy O. Williams and Blue Oyster Cult -- is currently on the road with Nugent. Tonight Smith will join the "Motor City Madman" on for a performance at Penn's Peak in Jim Thorpe.

Smith chatted with staff writer Dustin Schoof about life on the road with one of rock music's most legendary -- and controversial -- acts.

"He has a ton of energy," Smith says of Nugent. "He's 60 years old but he's a ball of energy. It's amazing, sometimes it's hard for me to keep up with him. His playing is just so good."
======

And, if you're so inclined, more guns and laughs from Pennsyltucky.

New album from The Pink Spiders, Sweat It Out, scratches my power-pop itch for this year. Loads of catchy songs and clever wordplay. Search: "Gimme Chemicals," "Settling for You," and "Trust No One."

Have any of you guys heard a Swedish band called Sister Sin? Victory Records sent me a sampler, and the two songs are great hard rock throwbacks, really doing the 80s thing very well (think a slightly glammy Motorhead). The singer has a very cool Kim McAuliffe/Darby Mills (Headpins) thing going on, great range and a great raspy snarl.

I got that same sampler. Interested to hear the whole album.

listening to that new Blood Ceremony album on Rise Above. I dig it okay. If you like Witchcraft you'll dig it. Or if you just like Sabbath riffs. Or flute solos. The singer is no Jinx Dawson, but who is, really.

Ha, I like both that Sister Sin single (especially the first song, which reminds me of Mensen) and that Blood Ceremony CD! I am actually listening to the same metal as other people for a change, crazy huh?

Sounds like interesting stuff. Sadly, it will never be seen in Pasadena record stores.

I wanted to like the Blood Ceremony CD, but I didn't.

Rose Tattoo, here also called The Damn Fine Band -- All Over Now

CD of white boy blooz and boogie covers, none obscure. "Stay With Me," "All Over Now," Foghat-ized version "I Just Want to Make Love to You," "Baby Please Don't Go," "Money" ala Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels -- which is the most killing thing on a plat of many good turns. One gets the idea. Angry Anderson is a natural on these things.

I got this over the legacy edition of ZZ Top's Eliminator. I remember the videos all too well.

Both Piper albums released as a two-fer on American Beat. The first is the best, produced by Eddie Kramer. Billy Squier, about three albums before he was famous, in a band with two other guitarists. Couldn't get any satisfaction and would later recycle some of these tunes like "The Road," I thin'. Plus another, title which escapes me. Second album called Can't Wait is more pop but still has one major frantic blow-out, "Blues for the Common Man," which is not a blooz. This is much less Billy doing Led Zep than Billy doing the Rolling Stones, which he covers on "The Last Time."

And finally saw a copy of the Tommy Conwell two-fer on American Beat from last year. There were at last three shoulda-been hits on his first album, Rumble. "Everything They Say is True," "Half a Heart" and "Love's On Fire" -- all of which are better than most everything played on the CMA TV blow-out on Monday. God, does Rodney Atkins suck, or what? And I'm officially sick of everyone's backing band looking like the early-twenties guys playing whiffle-ball or touch football in your backyard on Labor Day.

Second album Guitar Trouble is more frenzied and rock 'n' roll and just doesn't have as good songs. "Let Me Love You" does the Robert Palmer "Hot Case of Loving You" riff and Tommy shoulda lmpwmn better than to sing a song called "I'm Seventeen" with the lyrics "I'm seventeen and I am cool/I'm seventeen and I am cool." Way too phoned in for a second album. Reminds me of the bar band stuff Beaver Brown and John Eddy used to do, only produced for an audience he forgot had become older with him. Then we've "Hard as Rock" and "Good Love Bad" (Geez, I'll take a Bad Company thing and just change two words and use the riff from "Cant' Get Enough," no one will know!) Ya think he'd hit the wall? Or no one in the studio to tell him, "Hey, fer Chrissakes, listen to yourself."

Amazing blow-up after almost uniformly great first album. Historical curiosity.

I'm really, really enjoying the Blood Ceremony. And I had no idea there was such a huge scrap late last year over how the band abruptly left Shadow Kingdom for Rise Above.

Just posted this (about an album I bought for $1 in Astoria, Queens a couple weeks ago) on the buy-that-for-a-dollar thread, but I'm putting it here too, for people who don't tend to check there:

Can't speak for their other albums, but on first listen, From Rats to Riches is great. A lot heavier than I would have guessed, and more lyrically and structurally eccentric (almost in a Crack The Sky kind of way) than I figured from supoosed bar band hacks, with sonic influences running the gamut from doo-wop to prog to maybe even punk (this was '78). Flo and Eddie produced, by the way. Favorite songs so far: "Taking It To Detroit" (about how they're gonna play Cobo Hall like "Kiss and Seger" and make it huge, which of course never happened -- well, they may have played Cobo Hall, I'm not sure, but if so I don't think it helped much, and I don't know of this actually getting airplay in Detroit, though after Bowie and J. Geils and Kiss had scored on Detroit radio with hard-rocking Detroit songs, you can see why they tried); "Mr. Mechanic" (probably the heaviest and fastest song on the album, maybe a progenitor of ZZ Top's "Manic Mechanic," though more likely not but it kills regardless); "Victory in Space" (a pomp-rocking plea to the "ladies of the universe"), "Don't Hate the Ones Who Bring You Rock and Roll" (a weird and at least passingly homophobic rocker -- starts out "Son of a bitch let me rip his eyes out/Prancing around like a faggot/Painted up ass like to pull his pants down/Shoot off his works/Then I'd like to bag it -- feed it to a maggot," and you're like what the fuck, but then by the end he's saying "Twisted mothers, twisted brothers, twisted sisters," so I'm wondering whether this was a feud with Dee Snider song! Or maybe I'm misreading it and they were on the same side rather than rivals; I'm not sure. Twisted Sister were a big Long Island bar band too right?); "Local Zero" (a blue-collar Catholic song -- "Who can quit near our daughters' communion" -- that seems both anti-boss and anti-union -- maybe their local was going to go on strike and they were worried about going broke?) Not sure what their day jobs were, but they are pretty homely and beefy regular suburban Joes with beards and Jewfros and sports jerseys on the LP cover, and it's pretty wacky how they're emerging out of dry ice on stage with that big inflatable football on the back. The album doesn't look "terrible" to me; looks awesome. And I'd say the music lives up to the promise. (Like I said, don't know their other LPs at all. University of Missouri's radio station KCOU used to play "Back To My Music" off of Tasty from 1974, and I remember it being a lot more hippie-freak choogly and good-timey in a pleasant but run-of-the-mill way than this album. Not sure how typical that cut was. Also wondering if they got any rock airplay at all outside of New York and maybe Jersey; according to Joel Whitburn, not a single one of their albums even cracked the Top 200, which is pretty astounding for guys who I've always heard had a decent local following, and who clearly kept at it for a decent length of time. Christgau gave Tasty a C- "what can you say about a band admirers claim is the best to emerge from Long Island since Vanilla Fudge"; they don't show up in any of the Rolling Stone Record Guide books, not even the first red one. Jasper and Oliver in The International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal love them, though -- "The music is a mixture of raw aggressive metal, often tinged with weird jazzy overtones. It is always of high quality, and they are worth their weight in gold." Doubly impressive, because on the album cover I got, they definitely aren't skinny guys, so that gold would weigh a lot!)

Er, that lengthy spiel was about THE GOOD RATS, if that wasn't clear (which it probably wasn't.) A couple people on that other thread had actually if they were any good, so I answered...

I had From Rats to Riches, Rat City in Blue, Tasty and a live album, so I must have liked them once much more than I do now.

Tasty is the only one I kept.

It was probably their best seller but if a Good Rats record ever went over 70,000 in sales it would have been a miracle. They make fun of their reps as good musicians on the title cut of Tasty. At least that's what I thought they were doing. "Fred Upstairs and Ginger Snappers" I recall only for its allusion to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The chorus of "300 Boys" ("I slept with 300 boys!") -- that's it keep it simple, then ensure no one will play the song by dint of subject matter -- made it their catchiest song and the one I instantly remember. And "Fireball Express" was the second best.

Lot of jokes, many not really that funny. In the context of '75 or so, it didn't work unless you were in a bar and drunk and then you wouldn't have heard them unless you were on Long Island and the band was in front of you. So they backed it up by being very musicianly and having a shit hot guitarist which never really counted for much in the mid-to-late 70's unless you were in Van Halen. If it were 2008 and they were rebooted as a young band with stocking caps instead of Fidel Castro looks, maybe you could trick Pitchfork fans into liking Good Rats for their gift of irony. Probably not, though, the musicianship and ability to sing, even with the unusual voice of Peppi Marchello, would get in the way a bit.

Extra points for idiosyncracy and making a career of it despite apathy.

I think Tasty came out around the same time as The Skyhooks US premier, which I also played a lot ca. '75. Skyhooks were Oz's first "big" hard rock band and in the US were promptly taken for fags, so you know how well they went over. In terms of style, both bands had a similar witty but a bit too intelligent way with hard rock. At least in Australia, the Skyhooks made reasonable coin on record sales. Doubt if the Good Rats ever made any, existing mainly on their regional live draw.

Not sure what their day jobs were

If they had day jobs, they probably worked in music stores. There was a time when you could play original music regionally in bars and make a living at it. (Some people probably still can, too.) The Good Rats fell into that category. And it's probably why they wound up with some major label representation. Someone figured if they could sell on Long Island, maybe they could sell in the heartland. Since, relatively speaking, Good Rats records probably cost almost nothing to produce, a label wouldn't have been that cross with them or the A&R man even if the records were underperformers.

Curiously, from the Ramones bin in Amoeba, a Teenage Head "best of" remade with Marky Ramone on drums and Danny Rey producing.

Rampaging wall of guitar guitar and shakin' beat punk rock of crushingly heavy rock 'n' roll feel. Very catchy -- all the tunes were originally -- and easy as a repeat listen.

If you ever had and liked the first Teenage Head album, this is a must have. The middle-aged guys chew the carpet nails; singer Frankie Venom now looks more like a really crabby older man than a fan of the New York Dolls and it suits him and this record, which would break a beer bottle over your head for no reason at all if it were a person.

Also in, reissues of Geordie's catalog. Brian Johnson's old band from Newcastle, fashioned purposely as a poor man's Slade. Which they're pretty good at on Hope You Like It which features all the charting UK singles of the band from '73. After which, it was all downhill sales wise, although they'd stick around for two more albums, the second of which, Don't Be Fooled by the Name, I've yet to get around to.

"Hope You Like It" is definitely worthwhile, having a variety of tuneful stomps and Johnson's obvious belting voice. Contains novelty tune, "Geordie Lost His Liggie," which allegedly always brought the house down. Virtually incomprehensible sing-a-long jib traditional about losing a marble -- the "liggie" -- down "the netty" -- or toilet -- and bashing the latter apart with a plunger trying to find it, only it wasn't in the netty, anyway.

That Teenage Head w/Marky Ramone album is outstanding. Some tracks top the originals. Easily one of the year's bigger surprises for me.

I saw they reissued the debut in 2006 and something called Head Disorder. Was unfamiliar with the latter. Tempted to get the remaster of the debut, though. Attic seems not to have served them particularly well.

Frankie Venom, frontman for Teenage Head, has died before his time at 51. Teenage Head's debut album was an unheralded piece of greatness at the intersection of punk rock and raw rock 'n' roll in 1979. Mostly ignored by critics and poorly served by its Canadian label, Attic, which cowered after the band was banned due to a riot at Toronto's Ontario Place in 1980, Teenage Head was never quite able to attain the momentum and publicity afforded much lesser acts. "Let's Shake" and "Somethin' on My Mind," from the band's second album, Frantic City were said to have charted in Canada.

Frustrated with the slog, Venom left Teenage Head in 1985.

In 2003, Venom returned to record a "best of" the band's catalog with Marky Ramone on drums, released as Teenage Head with Marky Ramone this year. Although not reviewed widely, it was acknowledged as one of the band's best efforts.

new Ross The Boss album, anyone? It looks expensive in the US, I have no idea whether this guy has done anything good in a long, long time, so I haven't heard it. I love pretty much everything he did up through the 80's (even the Manowar stuff), though, and I'd be willing to track it down if one of you said it was great.

Listening to the new (International) Noise Conspiracy right now. It's actually pretty damn good. Less Sweden rock than their last one, more psychedelic and jammy.

digging the latest stuff from small stone that i've gotten in the mail. new ones by roadsaw and ironweed. or is it roadweed and ironsaw? or sawweed and roadiron? in any case, they rock nicely. roadsaw, from boston, have apparently been around forever, but this is the first i've heard. i have heard their side project antler though.

BOTH ALBUMS RECORDED IN BEAUTIFUL ALLSTON MASSACHUSETTS!

you know the drill though. big riffs, mayhem, wine, whiskey, women, etc.

I picked up that Roadsaw CD in the dollar bin. Haven't listened yet, though.

wait, roadweed or ironsaw?

a lot of the small stone stuff i end up playing really loud two or three times and then i forget about them. but the ironweed song playing right now sounds great! very heavy and rocking.

Roadsaw. The title "See You in Hell!" caught my attention, and then when I saw what label it was on I was sold.

Lemon, a whimsically named reissue subsidiary of Cherry Red, is putting out the back end of Pat Travers' Eighties catalog. It's the end of his road with Polydor and encompasses Radio Active, Black Pearl and Hot Shot.

Radio Active came off the success of Crash and Burn which spawned the Travers tune most immediately remember, "Snortin' Whiskey."

While Crash and Burn was successful, it apparently wasn't quite so enough for Tommy Aldridge. He went off to join Ozzy. Second guitarist Pat Thrall quit to do his own thing and flopped.

Travers replaced Aldridge with one of Lita Ford's early drummers, Sandy Gennaro. Radio Active flopped, as did the rest of these, but not for much, if any, dip in what old fans had grown to like. Black Pearl took a turn for AOR pomp and added a synth player. It broadened Travers' tone somewhat. Of all Travers' records, it's simultaneously very musicianly, tuneful and the most smooth-listening in his major label catalog. Polydor had wanted to dispense with him but Travers' lawyers compelled them to honor the fine print in his contract. And that forced them to issue Black Pearl. The label declined to promote it.

Hot Shot takes his sound back to stadium rock. Of the three, it features the hardest sound and attack, often crossing into commercial mid-Eighties heavy metal.

My preference is in the order of release, Radio Active being the best. However, all three are solid.

Liner notes in the reissues along with paste-ups from the Brit music press, notably Kerrang which uncharacteristically threw him a couple bones for these. In the Radio Active notes, Travers recalls the Brit press treated him like a stodgy idiot during the first part of his career, which coincided with the rise of punk rock. (Paradoxically, his first drummer in the UK was Topper Headon.)

Hitmen retrospective from 2007, in Australia, finally arrived here. Two discs, one a reissue of their debut album and various singles. The second, single from before release of first album and various live dates.

Band was a follow-on to Radio Birdman. Helmed by Birdmen Chris Masuak and Warwick Gilbert, fronted by Johnny Kannis, who comes off as Oz's Dick Manitoba with a voice.

Living Eyes by Birdman came out around the same time but that band was ending while this was getting started. There is some overlap in sound. I come down on the side of the Hitmen bringing a heavier sound but sometimes it sure sounds like the Birdmen with someone else at vocals.

Did two great covers know one knew popularly: Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers from New Order. Not the famous NO, but Ron Asheton's post-Stooges band with Dave Gilbert of the Rockets on vocals. And one of "Solid as a Rock" by Shakin' Street.

The best part of the package is the live material. It smokes. It covers a couple tunes by BOC, notably a great version of "Cities On Flame with Rock 'n' Roll." When they're not sounding like BOC, they combine a lot of Detroit garage influences, plus some Dictators. "King of the Surf" -- a cover, is their bit to imitate something from Go Girl Crazy.

Juan de la Cruz Band -- Himig Natin. What's that mean? From 1972, this is a Philippine release, although most of it is in English, I presume because there appears to be an American -- who furnishes lyrics and singing and drumming -- in the band. It's '72 and Cactus was floating their boat, I bet, because a lot of it sounds like 'em only slower. No one named Juan de la Cruz in this band.

"Mammasyal sa Pilipinas" is a direct rip of the Jeff Beck group's cover of "I Ain't Superstitious."

"I Wanna Say Yeah" is the 'Merican singing about gettin' drunk, yeah -- yeah -- yeah -- outtasite, baby, fine chickee fahn.

Right '72 dolt's, if which I was one, thud rock. I'm betting the band was popular with American servicemen out to get drunk in bars around Subic Bay.

Some Wal-Mart purchaser needful of liquidity brought a copy of AC/DC's Black Ice to Penny Lane on Colorado, so I snatched it. No Wal-Mart's within thirty-forty miles of Pas.

Anyway, it's real OK by me. Brent Musberger pitched a segment of "Rock 'n' Roll Train" video during the Tech/Oklahoma State game, so someone's applying some promo arm-twisting. And they know their audience. Extra points for moving close to a million (or now maybe over) physical units fairly quick, puncturing myths on the primacy of modernity.

This one's way catchier than House of Jazz. And it shakes better, too.

The Train single, "Money Made," "Wheels" "Big Jack" and "Rocking All The Way" are all good. "Money Made" is the pre-lim favorite. It has the most arresting rhythm and gang shout. Since it's fifty-five minutes, you can cut out ten and it would shape up as a vinyl format AC/DC record without too much filler. In any case, it goes by a lot faster than the last one.
You can remember the tunes. The only one I could remember from the last a week after I bought it was the title cut.

No one beats Malcolm's rhythm chops and Angus has played the same fills for the last forty years but they're the best fills in the world, so why change?

Shows diff between AC/DC and bands that mine AC/DC, like Airbourne. For this one, the Youngs wrote some songs as opposed to just riffs. Louder than hell R&B.

Unsurprisingly, election day wasn't what Ted Nugent had hoped for.

Thoughts on Chinese Democracy and ZZ Top

I like both records. But it's well established that I have bad taste.

Interesting post, Gorge, but I thought Bobby Knight came up with that quote at the top about sportswriters. I may be wrong.

The problem with the guitar solos is that, while the five replacement guitarists may (arguably) be technically better than Slash, they aren't emotionally better.

Just got a terrific batch of stuff from the German hard psych rock label World In Sound, apparently now based at least part-time in NYC. A lot of their releases are by South American bands, and the best one in today's pile is Cosmos Kaos Destruccion (I bet you can do the translation without my help) by La Ira de Dios (the Wrath of God). They're a super-heavy psych-punk-hard rock trio in the vein of High Rise or Mainliner with a better mix (everything's not deliberately in the red) and some elements of early peak period Hawkwind as well. Really good, blaring stuff. "Por favor, dame velocidad" (please gimme speed) he howls, and I totally believe him. Recommended.

A rolling hard rock gathers no Moss

not even sterling?

is this about those dancing days?

I totally disagree with most of this, but it actually makes me curious about the bands here that I've never heard of:

http://pub37.bravenet.com/forum/3172289350/show/929916

Classic Rock magazine best albums of 2008

50. The Black Keys - Attack & Release
49. Todd Rundgren - Arena
48. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Dig Lazarus, Dig!!"
47. Thunder - Bang!
46. Tesla - Forever More
45. Viking Skull - Doom, Gloom, Heartache & Whiskey
44. The Jim Jones Revue - s/t
43. Girlschool - Legacy
42. Stonerider - Three Legs Of Trouble
41. Black Tide - Light From Above
40. Diagonal - s/t
39. Dirty Penny - Take It Sleezy
38. Glenn Hughes - First Underground Nuclear Kitchen
37. Bob Dylan - Tell Tale Signs
36. Graveyard - s/t
35. Lethargy - Purification
34. Testament - The Formation Of Damnation
33. Blood Ceremony - s/t
32. The Mars Volta - The Bedlam In Goliath
31. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
30. Kings Of Leon - 0nly By The Night
29. Rose Kemp - Unholy Majesty
28. The Clash - Live At Shea Stadium
27. Joe Bonamassa - Live From Nowhere In Particular
26. Endeverafter - Kiss Or Kill
25. Uriah Heep - Wake The Sleeper
24. Rose Hill Drive - Moon Is The New Earth
23. Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark
22. Queen & Paul Rogers - The Cosmos Rocks
21. Thin Lizzy - UK Tour 1975
20. Judas Priest - Nostradamus
19. Marillion - Happiness Is The Road
18. Pride Tiger - The Lucky Ones
17. Alice Cooper - Along Came A Spider
16. Motorhead - Motorizer
15. Black Crowes - Warpaint
14. Stone Gods - Silver Spoons & Broken Bones
13. The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
12. The Raconteurs - Consolers Of The Lonely
11. Opeth - Watershed
10. Motley Crue - Saints Of Los Angeles
9. Journey - Revelation
8. Big Linda - I Loved You
7. Whitesnake - Good To Be Bad
6. Def Leppard - Songs From The Sparkle Lounge
5. Airbourne - Runnin' Wild
4. Black Stone Cherry - Folklore & Superstition
3. Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
2. Metallica - Death Magnetic
1. AC/DC - Black Ice

That Black Stone Cherry album is dreadful. And to think they had so much promise...but no, they're well on their way to being Nickelbackified.

The first track is pretty good, but other than that, those are my thoughts exactly.

I actually way preferred this year's Nickelback album myself. (And I never heard much promise in Black Stone Cherry to begin with.)

So who are: Big Linda, Pride Tiger, Rose Hill Drive, Rose Kemp, and Dirty Penny?

Not sure I've ever heard Thunder, either, though I've definitely heard *of* them before.

Had no idea Uriah Heep put out an album this year, either.

Unjustifiably missing on that list: Rose Tattoo, Rick Springfield, Helix, Night Ranger, Ted Nugent's live album.

I have a self-titled Thunder album from 1980 that Wounded Bird reissued, I remember correctly they play mildly interesting roadhouse rock. Had no idea they were still together/reunited.

That was weird spacing... also, it should be IF I remember correctly. I mean, I could probably throw the CD on, but I'm lazy.

That must be a different Thunder, these guys are ex Terraplane who were around in the late 80s. God why do I remember this stuff?

Alice Cooper - Along Came A Spider

I completely missed this, is it worthwhile in any way whatsoever?

I couldn't even make it through the thing. (And I'd actually liked 2005's Dirty Diamonds OK. Think we talked about this somewhere upthread, actually.)

The Thunder I know had a US debut -- were more well known in Britain as regular openers for the mighty Quo, I think -- at the end of the Eighties/early Nineties. Made some noise due to a single and video for "Dirty Love" -- which is a funny, amusing and very catchy song. The video had the drummer, a short bald guy in a ballerina's outfit and dirty sneakers. I recall it being on MTV a lot. The rest of the album was only fair by comparison. Second album and they were about through here although they had more in the UK.

I've a best of collection. It's OK, was very cheap used and contains "Dirty Love" which is the entire reason for owning or investigation. Most of what they did was standard hair metal, boogie and ballads.

Gave 'em a review in the newspaper which essentially said you'll probably hate most of the album but damned if the single won't keep you coming back to it.

Helix had a new album? I'm amazed I didn't know that. Good, I take it?

Yep. Wrote about it here:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/05/hair-metal-pion.html

I think George wrote about it on his blog earlier than me, too.

And Thanksgiving weekend in Michigan (true story), I convinced my younger sister to go out to her garage and find her legendary cassette copy of Walking The Razor's Edge and donate it to my collection. She said she'd bought it for the "great ballad", which must have been a hit in Detroit, or at least Windsor, at the time. She also got excited when she saw an old Giuffria cassette (self-titled) of hers out there. (She'd bought that for a ballad at the time, too.) The two boxes of cassettes in the house were pretty much all John Cougar and Bryan Adams ones (hers, like I say in that Helix review) and Pat Benatar ones (her husband's), except for the Firm and a couple other things.

George beat me to the Helix album by four months:

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2008/02/sludge-in-70s-recent-cost-effectives-us.html

Haha, yeah, Helix's ballad (cover of "Make Me Do Anything You Want") was quite the crossover hit in Canada.

I should track that new album down, good to see it was well-received. They were just in my city playing some tiny dive, flogging a Christmas album or something, and I sort of wanted to go, but didn't. I saw them a couple of times in the mid-80s when they were selling out 3000 seat theatres in Canada.

Bleh, I remember Giuffria..."Call to the Heart", that was the big song of theirs.

Demonstration of the Korg Pandora by me. Basically, much of the technology is devoted to putting a classic rock band in a box the size of a cigarette pack.