The reissue of Thunder's Back Street Symphony sound sufficiently great to make me dig out my old copy of Their Finest Hour, a sixteen tune 'best of' from '95 bought at the Tower firesale in Pasadena.
The original copy, which I'd reviewed for a newspaper around fifteen years ago, was a repackaging for the US market. Didn't look at all like the UK version. This one had a photo of Harry James, the drummer, dressed in a tutu and, I think, was made up to capitalize on the video for "Dirty Love." Anyway, the reissue is the original UK cover art.
"Dirty Love" was a tremendous party tune, even included 'na-na'-na's', and at least half the record is just about on a par with it. It probably saved Thunder from being totally wiped by grunge in the US market although they lasted here until '95 and never seemed to be able to build on what "Dirty Love" furnished them.
It's all meat-and-potatoes very hard rock and pop. Thunder could write nice hooks and not humiliate themselves in the lyric department. "Englishmen on Holiday" is fairly amusing for its story of Brit hooliganism at Euro resorts. "Distant Thunder," which closes the album is great metal boogie. "Love Walked In" was the obligatory ballad, something Thunder did well without much sop.
Along with the best of has made me consider picking up the other two from their first three.
Also great over the holidays were SPV's reissues of the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, one of the pieces of the British blues boom that didn't make it. Surprisingly, four albums on two double CD sets. Sometimes they imitated all the people that did last, for a couple songs you swear it's Savoy Brown, for another Ten Years After. Cover art by Hipgnosis, production made to sound like Mike Vernon. The first album has "Chevrolet," retitled as "Watch and Chain." Foghat would get much more use out of it years later. Dr. Dunbar's Prescription was their most second and most successful album. It looks a psyche LP but it's still mid-tempo white boy blooz with a heavy Hammond sound. If you're a fanatic for this Brit stuff, these reissues hit the spot.
Aynsley Dunbar is one of the Zelig's of hard rock. He seems to have been in many really big bands just, infrequently with indifferent results, most notably Journey, I think (although he seemed to be in the right place at the right time for Whitesnake). Notable Frank Zappa sideman, also on some Jefferson Starship LPs.
― Gorge, Friday, 20 February 2009 21:45 (9 months ago) Permalink
Repackage of Iron Butterfly's last two mid-Seventies albums, Scorching Beauty and Sun and Steel. Great album art but only two original members, guitarist Erik Braunn and drummer Ron Bushy. Not at all like the psych organ 25-million sold In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida Butterfly.
Completely different, showing some yen to do Brit-style glam pop. Almost unbelievable.Guitarist Erik Braun sings, sounds like a poor man's Brian Ferry or someone in Badfinger's back line, or Cockney Rebel with loud guitar. One or two things sound like early Yes or Badger, the rest interspersed with US-centric boogie so they could still entertain in the bars without frightening people screaming for the oldie. Makes for a diverse listen in the 70's hard rock genre. Utterly panned. Didn't sound like anything else in the market at the time. If you liked the odd mid-70's losers like Captain Beyond or Pavlov's Dog, this stands a good chance of scratching that itch.
― Gorge, Friday, 27 February 2009 23:21 (8 months ago) Permalink
16 weren't properly heard in their prime. Chalk it up to poor distribution and a mighty sound that didn't exactly fit the style, being far more violent in riff and concussion than the great stoner mean. 16 smoked in an unfastened way, like the guy with an irrational number of burning cigarettes stuffed in his maw on the cover of their first album, Scott Case.
Bridges to Burn is their new one. Because it's on Relapse, it will have better play than anything they did in the intervening fifteen years or so. And, wowza, they haven't aged a bit, being just as pounding and enraged. Good album, see here for a longer write.
― Gorge, Sunday, 1 March 2009 21:59 (8 months ago) Permalink
got the new vines album in the mail the other day. you remember them, right? saviours from the last "rock" "revolution" along with, um, i dunno, the datsuns and the white stripes or whoever. anyway, it's unlistenable. in the red oversaturated horror show. i literally can't listen to it cuz of the sonic hell it puts you through. and it's reason enough to listen to old iron butterfly albums. lord knows, the snowboarding highlight clip industry needs rock bands like the vines to keep them in montage music, but no ordinary human needs them anywhere or anyhow. singer supposedly was diagnosed with asperger's syndrome a while ago and i would have given them at least a smidge of cred if they had named their album *Welcome To Ass Burger, How May We Help You?* but they are too lame to be funny.
― scott seward, Sunday, 1 March 2009 22:25 (8 months ago) Permalink
A little write-up on hearing Patto's "The Man" from their 1970 debut as part of trailer music for Seth Rogen's mall cop movie, "Observe and Report". Here. Good band, good album, vanished without much trace. Good to see someone in Hollywoodland listens to it.
― Gorge, Thursday, 12 March 2009 22:32 (8 months ago) Permalink
SWEET PERFORMS AT HOUSE OF BLUES ON APRIL 30TH
The UK Rock Band Behind Fierce Hits Ballroom Blitz, Fox On The Run, Love Is Like Oxygen, Little Willy, Hellraiser, Teenage Rampage, Blockbuster And Action Will Perform In LA
WHO: UK rock band Sweet led by bassist/vocalist Steve Priest and joined by guitarist Stuart Smith, singer Joe Retta, drummer Richie Onori and keyboardist Stevie Stewart
WHAT: Concert to perform their 70s hits Ballroom Blitz, Fox On The Run, Love Is Like Oxygen, Little Willy, Hellraiser, Teenage Rampage, Blockbuster and Action, among others.
WHERE: House of Blues Sunset
8430 W. Sunset Blvd.
W. Hollywood, CA
323-848-5100
WHEN: Thursday, April 30th
9 p.m. show
Doors open at: 8 p.m.
― xhuxk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 01:59 (7 months ago) Permalink
So what is the general consensus on Cold Chisel? I'd never listened to them before, at least not consciously, but I paid $1 for a copy of their 1980 Elektra LP East (their only LP ever to chart in the U.S., went to #171) at Austin's citywide garage sale a couple weeks go, and I have to say that -- in terms of my experience with usually much more brutal late '70s/early '80s bogan-rock -- I'm kind of disappointed with it. At least half of it seems like medium-rock attempts at meaningfulness somewhere in the vicinity between the Police and Midnight Oil (with obligatory white-reggae bent and fetishes on Asian girls). But I like "Rising Sun"'s Faces-style rockabilly (Faces being a big Rose Tattoo influence too I suspect), and the tough Viet-vet AOR drama of "Khe Sahn," and esp. the killer surf-to-Police-to-Slade closer "No Time To Cry."
Jasper and Oliver, though, peg East as sort of a sellout: "changed style...to a radio-bias AOR sound." They call their earlier stuff "Australian hard rock with r&b tints," which might land them closer to AC/DC/Rose Tattoo/Angels territory. Or is this just wishful thinking on my part -- just like I assume Elektra was thinking wishfully by giving them one shot in the States in the wake of Back In Black's blockbusting. (What other Aussie bands get released in the States then? Looks like Midnight Oil didn't chart hear until 1984, a few years later. Though Angel City did first chart twice in 1980, before Back in Black but after Highway To Hell, which was AC/DC's commercial breakthrough. Rose Tattoo also only charted at the tail end of 1980, fwiw; Rock N Roll Outlaw got to #197.)
― xhuxk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 16:06 (7 months ago) Permalink
Also, new albums I've liked this year that might somehow pass muster as "hard rock" (though some are probably more "past-expiry" than others, and some of the country ones are inconsistent about rocking). Order of preference, more or less, and leaving out some less explicitly old-school-oriented metal stuff:
(Various Artists) – The Chiswick Story, Part 1 (Ace reissue ‘08)Ian Gillan – One Eye To Morocco (Eagle Rock)Rufus Huff – Rufus Huff (Zoho Roots)Rodney Atkins -- It’s America (Curb)Death – …For The Whole World To See (Drag City reissue EP)Sarah Borges And the Broken Singles – The Stars Are Out (Sugar Hill)Zero Boys – Vicious Circle (Secretly Canadian reissue)Pat Green – What I’m For (BNA)Thin Lizzy – Still Dangerous: Live At The Tower Theatre Philadelphia 1977 (VH1 Classic reissue)Sinner – Crash And Burn (Candlelight USA)X (Australian Band) – X-Aspirations (Aztec Music reissue)Eric Church – Carolina (Capitol)Steadlür – Everything Is Nothing (Roadrunner)The Reds – Early Nothing (Tarock)Wicked Witch – Chaos 1978-86 (EM reissue)(Various) – Keep Your Soul: A Tribute To Doug Sahm (Vanguard)Edguy – Tinnitus Sanctus (Nuclear Blast)(Various) – Heavy Metal Killers (Earache)Saxon – Into The Labyrinth (SPV)Dead Man – Euphoria (Crusher)Keith Urban – Defying Gravity (Capitol Nashville)Elder – Elder (Meteor City ’08)Fires Of Rome – You Kingdom You (The Hours)The Answer – Everyday Demons (The End)Billy Thorpe And The Aztecs – Long Live Rock and Roll (Aztec Music reissue ’08)Living Things – Habeas Corpus (Jive/Zomba)16 –Bridges To Burn (Relapse)Gene Dante and the Future Starlets – The Romantic Lead (Omnirox Entertainment)Jason Aldean – Wide Open (Broken Bow)Meercaz – Meercaz (Gulcher)
― xhuxk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 16:16 (7 months ago) Permalink
Hell, maybe toss in the new Buckwheat Zydeco album Lay Your Burden Down on Alligator, too -- includes songs previously done by Led Zeppelin ("When The Levee Breaks," originally Memphis Minnie), Brownsville Station ("Let Your Yeah Be Yeah," originally Jimmy Cliff), Gov't Mule (the title track), and Captain Beefheart (his long-ignored-probably-due-to-its-normalness Southern soul move "Too Much Time," always one of my favorites by him) -- though only the five-minute "Levee" really sounds like hard rock, at least so far. Anyway, I never cared at all about Buckwheat before (he's been around forever it seems, and his voice seems pretty average), but I like this record. Best original so far: "Throw Me Something Mister," which basically sounds like mid '60s funk-band instrumental with party-chant interjections.
― xhuxk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 19:28 (7 months ago) Permalink
By "mid '60s funk band" I guess I mean Meters, duh. Who didn't actually chart til the late '60s. Also, I get the idea that, in general here, Buckwheat employs his accordion like an organ, so I'm not sure how "zydeco" any of it really sounds. (Not that I'm a zydeco expert myself, and not that anybody reading a hard rock thread might care one way or the other.)
― xhuxk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 19:47 (7 months ago) Permalink
Skyhooks were an Aussie band with a release schedule in the US around the same time as Cold Chisel. They were an odd glammy band with an unusual look. Big in Australia, they went over like a lead balloon here. I have a lot of their stuff, dig it out once in awhile. Iron Maiden covered one of their songs. Skyhooks required an unusual sense of humor to 'get', which is why they got no traction in the US heartland, which took them for fags if they took them at all.
Living Things actually made it to a second record?
Zero Boys must be a reissue of their first which was paint-by-number US punk rock, although a very good paint-by-numbers things.
And reviewed, an interesting and very funny comic/personal memoir worked around the legend of GG Allin.
― Gorge, Thursday, 26 March 2009 20:47 (7 months ago) Permalink
Yeah, no idea how the Living Things lasted to see another release (on the same major label); it's not like their debut (which took years to come out in the first place) even came close to taking the world by storm, and the live sets I was seeing a few years back didn't exactly suggest guys who seemed destined to survive as a band, or maybe even survive as human beings. New album seems more compromised, somehow, and forces their protest angle even more incoherently, but still works as catchy semi-punk. Could become either a major annoyance or a revelation if modern rock radio picks any of it up.
And right, that's a Zero Boys debut reissue; had never actually heard the album before, and was surprised by how much I like it. Secretly Canadian also just put out a singles-etcetra comp by them called The History Of which is not nearly as tuneful in its paint-by-numberness; they seem to have subsequently gone more slamdancey, which didn't make them sound more urgent, just more average.
― xhuxk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 23:19 (7 months ago) Permalink
OK, a friend saw The Sweet last year (on a bill with Showaddywaddy and The Rubettes!) and said they were appalling. Nowhere near as appalling as the Brian Connolly-led version (when he was still alive), but at least he had the excuse of being a human trainwreck.
― Matt #2, Thursday, 26 March 2009 23:41 (7 months ago) Permalink
So anybody know what the deal is with this other LP I bought for $1 a couple weeks ago -- a Kansas album called Bringing It Back on the Design Ltd. Music (whatever that is) label, copywritten 1980 though all of its titles seem to be drawn from Kansas' 1974 debut album, except in a different order and without "Death of Mother Nature Suite"?
Hadn't listened to the debut (which I've got on CD) for a while, so I relistened, and decided "Belexes" (erroneously spelled "Believes" on the LP cover) and "Journey From Mariabronn" are by far the hardest rocking songs, with an almost Zep type kick to them. "The Pilgrimage" and "Apereu" are wimpier, but it's charming how Kansas managed to work sorts of hillbilly fiddle hoedowns into their Yes imitations, like they instinctively realized (which for all I know they may have) that lots of that high-flown British classical foo-foo started off as jiggy dance music to begin with. And then there's the J.J. Cale cover "Bringing It Back," a kind of rustic choogle that doesn't really fit at all with what people think about Kansas. Let me know if I have this wrong.
Anyway, I'm still interested in what the heck this LP is. Seems like some weird bootleg or something. It doesn't get listed in Kansas's AMG entry or Wiki page; there's no copies for sale at amazon and ebay, and it's barely mentioned on the web at all. Crazy.
― xhuxk, Friday, 27 March 2009 02:44 (7 months ago) Permalink
Also no photos of the band on the back or front cover, btw. Which is a shame, because on the actual back of Kansas's debut CD, they look like real good ol' boys standing out in the farm field, some even wearing overalls. Get the idea they ditched that hick look before they became superstars, though. (Back of 1975's Song For America, they're cleaned up, a couple ready to hit the disco with their polyester and pants-bulges. One guy still has suspenders on, but even he seems more cosmopolitan.)
― xhuxk, Friday, 27 March 2009 02:53 (7 months ago) Permalink
Actually, a couple copies of the LP (but not much more information) are here, so at least I know I'm not dreaming:
http://www.musicstack.com/album/kansas/bringing_it_back
― xhuxk, Friday, 27 March 2009 03:17 (7 months ago) Permalink
secret soft spot for Kansas right in here (my chest that is.)
― ian, Friday, 27 March 2009 03:29 (7 months ago) Permalink
Well really, obviously, what they looked like (in 1974) was a Southern Rock band. But they sure didn't sound very much like a Southern Rock band. Eight-minute "Death Of Mother Nature Suite" (had to pull out the actual CD for that one) is definitely heavy and doomy in intermittent parts, however.
― xhuxk, Friday, 27 March 2009 03:45 (7 months ago) Permalink
Buckwheat Zydecocranks up his accordionlike a metal god
Saw him close a showwith "Hey Joe" back in the dayShredding feedback hell
― Haikunym Mark II (Dimension 5ive), Friday, 27 March 2009 06:10 (7 months ago) Permalink
I saw Kansas quite a bit around the time of their first three albums. Belexes is the best song off the first. It's built off a Uriah Heep-type figure and it was a high point of their early show. Back then they all looked like hicks who just got off pitchforking hay at the local farm, Walter Brennan Real McCoy suspender dungarees and all. Second album has a pair of hammerdown blooz stomps, one fast, one slow ("Down the Road," which is very Charlie Daniels 'suvvern' and "Lonely Street.") Then the rest of it, now overwrought hand-wringing prog trying for nobility, "Song for America" shtick, with another fast tune, "The Devil Game" stuck in near the end. I never heard much of a Yes influence in these. Starcastle was the mid-western band that sounded like Yes.
"Masque" was the third album and was the best marriage of their styles, raging guitar heavy hard rock, hoedown fiddle interludes, overwrought but fairly catchy prog. Next, "Leftoverture" broke them big through "Wayward Son" but marked the end of the road for my interest in them.
― Gorge, Friday, 27 March 2009 17:23 (7 months ago) Permalink
I bet this is the stuff from Kansas (mark II) now called Proto-Kaw. http://www.protokaw.com/index.php?pageid=1
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006IXGD probably bootlegged or shady contract release.
― james k polk, Friday, 27 March 2009 18:14 (7 months ago) Permalink
I had that a few years ago. Didn't last long until given over to trade credit. Take even more of the boogie stomp out of major label Kansas, add more prog, lose the singing voice for the radio, that was Proto-Kaw.
― Gorge, Friday, 27 March 2009 19:29 (7 months ago) Permalink
I don't think that's what the Bringing It Back LP is, though. Haven't played it and the debut back to back to make sure, but I'm pretty sure these are the same recordings, just in a different order.
― xhuxk, Friday, 27 March 2009 19:34 (7 months ago) Permalink
What do you think of the Meercaz album, xhuxk? Haven't seen any mention of it anywhere else except the Gulcher site. All I know is that it's got a dude with an afro on the front and it's on Gulcher, but it's new, right? Looks acid rock.
And this might be one for the Krautrock also-rans poll, but has anyone heard the Dschinn s/t record? Might be barrel-scrapings, but I hear they did a pretty decent Sabbathy/Lone Crow-ish hard rock type thing.
― ambient bangers (gnarly sceptre), Friday, 27 March 2009 21:04 (7 months ago) Permalink
Popovic Popoff gives it 6/8 in his 70's book which makes it solidly better than average but not quite spectacular. The review indicates it comes down on the side of rock, rather than art, which is usually a good thing with regards to the early-70's.
― Gorge, Friday, 27 March 2009 22:00 (7 months ago) Permalink
So what was it about Uriah Heep and the Midwest? Was that where their biggest market was, or something? They clearly had some bearing on certain of the louder early songs by Styx and Kansas, and I've been playing Head East's Get Yourself Up from '75, and "Jailer" turns out to be full-on unmistakable Heepish organ-sludge. "The Victim" and "Trouble," also on Side Two, are likewise loud (and, in the former case, doom-ridden) enough that I think Martin Popoff should've included the album in his '70s metal book. (As is, he only featured Head East's '79 live album, which I've never heard, though he ended with a perfectly apt line I really wished I'd written myself: "drenched in electricity, paryting like harvest is done with.") First side of Get Yourself Up (a recent used $1 purchase, with a jeep hauling an Afro-shaped load of weed on its cover) dwells in more good-timey, early-Speedwagon territory (I dunno, did R.E.O. have any Heepful moments themselves early on? I'd have check), with shore sounds opening and closing "Sailor" (rhymes with "Jailer"!) and a brief funky Afro-Caribbean percussion breakdown at the end of the ladies' choice "This Woman's In Love" -- reminds me of the Stones circa "Monkey Man," though actually Head East save their own "Monkey Shine" to open Side Two.
What do you think of the Meercaz album, xhuxk?
Marginal. Fuzzy. Unproduced. May well have actual rock songs buried in the acid fuzz, but if so they're hard to get to. So basically, I need to listen to it more. Seriously doubt I'd recommend anybody spend money on it, but I got mine for free, and it's still here. Here's what Stigliano wrote (scroll down -- though he doesn't say so outright, I get the feeling he's somewhat ambivalent as well):
http://black2com.blogspot.com/search?q=meercaz
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 16:04 (7 months ago) Permalink
Someone ought to reissue Get Yourself Up. It's made for Wounded Bird or that company that did the Tommy Conwell two-fer. It was mid-70's, by which time Heep was in decline, so all to the good that someone was still interested in recycling their good style.
Both Styx and Kansas went through sharp style changes. The four Wooden Nickel Styx records, and Equinox, are all organ/synth boogie records descended from the style of Heep. And to a lesser extent, Kansas was. Then Styx picked up Tommy Shaw, jettisoned one of their older guitar players, and went off into Grand Illusion territory, a lot more weighted toward getting on the radio with sappy stuff, ala "Lady." Kansas turned the corner on the past with Leftoverture.
― Gorge, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 16:33 (7 months ago) Permalink
xp Speaking of Dschinn (as ambient bangers was a few posts up), here's Metal Mike Saunders a couple months ago on another German early '70s band that Popoff mentions in his Dschinn review. (I've never heard either band myself; the opinion Metal Mike was dissenting to, as I recall, was actually George's):
i just played the entire 2nd Tiger B Smith (american pressing, cheesy thin Janus vinyl) and i have to file a wildly dissently modern opinion. it is HOOKY, top to bottom. 11 cuts/35 minutes (8 cuts are < 3:30, and the other 3 are > over 5 min; really nice mixture of track times thereof). It has a thin/distorted-pedal guitar sound kinda like 1971-72 Uriah Heep, "heavy" but nowhere heavy metal. it plays all the way through, not one tune w/o strong guitar riffs or hooks. the singing is, uh, functional (rhythm section ditto). rhythm guitar is the loudest instrument in the mix, just like early early 70's hard rock/metal album should be. it's an A- or B+++++ as Robert Christgau might opine in his 1972 front sitting-room. "every listen has given me pleasure or made me tap my foot." uh sure, Bob, tapping my foot to the The Band is my favorite pasttime suuure. why stop there? why not the 1952 Weavers? or some of those crazy Pete Seeger early solo sides? never mind, i made up that quote.
What Mike had written a couple days earlier:
i actually have/bought a 10-cent bin copy of the 2nd lp, american pressing (on Janus) at Moby Disc on ventura blvd, late 70's. funnny, it was spot-checked/audited once only, and misfiled it (forever, until just now) into the "crap, what is this?" misc uncategorized section. since it had a rather confusing cover, not clear if it was a real act or some "fake band" or "rock/disco studio creation, not a band" (as late as the late 70's, america had not yet figured out that the "fakeness" of much UK74 glitter rock was actually a badge of "authenticity," ie fake being a criterion for true UKglitter's 2nd-wave. and don't forget that lousy In-Betweens 45s. or the earliest (and lousy) Bolan and Bowie 60's 45s. when they're actually a German heavy rock/prog rock thing that jumps into "glitter rock" in 1974 (like all the UK hasbeen/neverwas schlubs in 1973-74).
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 16:36 (7 months ago) Permalink
May well have actual rock songs buried in the acid fuzz, but if so they're hard to get to
As in, sounds like they're miked through a municipal aquarium's worth of murky water full of dead fish. And most feel too wobbly and sickly and unformed and mush-mouthed and aimless to be called "rock songs." But if you've got an abnormally high tolerance for, say, shittily recorded live tapes of mid '70s Ohio or Maryland accidental-punk psych-blooze guitar-and-rant lone wolves (thinking George Brigman in the latter case) trying to match Funhouse or the Groundhogs while shooting cock rockets into deep space and not quite getting it right but coming off somewhat endearing anyway, this might be up your alley. Not that it's half as meaty as Brigman or any famed Cle legends. But for something released in 2009, it's closer than you'd expect; the wah-wahs curdle recognizably even when songs are inaudible, and "Unlust," at least, could almost be some weird lost homemade punk 45 from days of yore. (Looks like the Meercaz aka Mozzley M dude plays most of the instruments, with pals helping out here and there. And yeah, his Afro photos make me want to like him.)
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 17:13 (7 months ago) Permalink
In other news, what the hell is a "Gydget"?
via email today:
UFO
"The Visitor" - Gydget
http://www.spv.de/gydgets/ufo-thevisitor.html
Please spread it!!!!!
See UFO live 2009
31.05. D-Gelsenkirchen - Rock Hard Festival 01.06. D-Bad Salzungen - Presswerk 03.06. D-Leipzig - Theaterfabrik 05.06. SE-Sölvesborg - Sweden Rock Festival 06.06. I-Udine (Osoppo) - 23 rd Biker Fest International 07.06. NL-Uden - Nieuwe Pul
09.06. GB-Brighton - Concorde 2 10.06. GB-Cambridge - The Junction 12.06. GB-Belfast - Spring&Airbrake 13.06. GB-Glasgow - O2 Academy 14.06. GB-Newcastle - Academy 16.06. GB-Leeds - O2 Academy 17.06. GB-Nottingham - Rock City 19.06. GB-Wolverhampton - Wulfrun Hall 20.06. GB-Manchester - Academy 2 21.06. GB-Bristol - O2 Academy 23.06. GB-Southampton - The Brook 24.06. GB-London - Shepards Bush Empire
26.06. D-Speyer - Halle 101 27.06. D-Ulm - Ulmer Zelt 28.06. B-Dessel - Graspop Metal Meeting 03.07. D-Mössingen - Mössingen Rockt! 30.07. D-Wacken - Wacken Open Air 07.08. GB-Stratford Upon Avon - Bulldog Bash
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 17:31 (7 months ago) Permalink
Are they worth seeing without M. Schenker? They had one of the alltime great runs of LPs from '74 to '79. Damn was some of that stuff awesome.
― Bill Magill, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 17:38 (7 months ago) Permalink
What's important is they do the songs from the Schenker period, particularly "Too Hot," "Only You Can Rock Me," "Rock Bottom," etc. That said, they've done live stuff for their last couple CDs which includes 'the hits' and while I haven't kept up (I already have the entire UFO catalog up until they first called it quits, which includes all the material with Schenker's replacement, who was pretty good), it should be simple to check used. The guitarist they currently have was one of the hot shot late-Eighties US shredders, I think.
― Gorge, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 18:37 (7 months ago) Permalink
I just looked at that tour schedule and noticed that it's only a European tour. but i would definitely see them now. I grew up in Chicago in the 70s and 80s and they were absolutely huge there, though I don't think they put much of a dent in the US market otherwise.
― Bill Magill, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 18:43 (7 months ago) Permalink
UFO accrued an impressive reputation live. That, in turn, along with Schenker as one of the first emerging metal guitar heroes, kept the label -- Chrysalis -- really interested in them. Ron Nevison was brought on as a producer to give them more of a guiding hand and it certainly worked for Lights Out and my favorite in the cat, Obsession. That's about where they peaked, along with Strangers In the Night, the live album. However, it's gotta be noted that George Martin produced their next studio record, the first after Schenker left and was replaced by Paul Chapman. That was No Place to Run and it's a very listenable record. There you start hearing more of the band's fannish enjoyment of Bruce Springsteen, believe it or not. Actually, you could start hearing it on No Heavy Petting when they covered Frankie Miller who was a Bruce Springteen-esque Brit guy.
Then they entitled an album The Wild, the Willing & the Innocent which was not at all like Jersey rock. The final one before the first break-up was Making Contact, and that's a favorite of mine, too. Some great hard rock songs on it; Phil Mogg does a tremendous job putting them over. But the heart of the catalog is still from Force It to Obsession and Strangers in the Night.
At one point, I think Chrysalis started pushing the Babys ca. 76-81 and it caused some friction because UFO thought, naturally, they had been there first and were doing better material. There are some merits to this argument, but the Babys got the grease toward the Eighties, were sent Keith Olsen to produce, and he put them on the radio with a couple hit singles, something UFO never enjoyed.
― Gorge, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 19:59 (7 months ago) Permalink
Interesting. Ive never heard of the Babys but they should be post #1 on the terrible names thread.
Strangers in the Night absolutely smokes.
― Bill Magill, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 20:08 (7 months ago) Permalink
You never heard "Midnight Rendezvous"? That was their e-ticket, John Waite and the boys dressed in black plastic gayware on the cover of Union Jacks. Actually, they were a pretty good band, early distinctly in the vein of Free. Then it was mandated they appeal more to girls and such, hence the 80's black shiny black plastic clothes for the sake of a presumed coolness. I bet John Waite flinches when he sees that now.
― Gorge, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 22:17 (7 months ago) Permalink
The Babys send album also has a cover to make you flinch. They were definitely pushed as pretty boys, similar to John Waite's 'look' when he went solo. Although it's hard to take him seriously as something girls'd want to wrap around.
― Gorge, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 22:25 (7 months ago) Permalink
Ironhouse self-titled album, 1979 (also cost $1) -- Being portly past-their-prime Canucks, these Randy Bachman-led bufflo-bisons naturally get made fun of by Popoff, but I'd say this album is more subtle than he lets on, inasmuch as BTO alumni can be subtle. The obvious new wave ketchup moves are fun (deadpan backup vox in dance-oriented "Jump Into The Light," weird "Roland synthesizer guitar" effects in "Stateline Blues"); I like how the single "Sweet Lui-Luise" (just barely went Top 40 in the States, and vaguely recall it getting some minimal AOR airplay in Detroit at the time) so unashamedly recycles Randy's old riff from "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet", and like Popoff points out, "Old Fashioned" (great title for old farts) and "There Ain't No Cure" are legitimately heavy, in ways BTO may or may not have even been themselves. Could see some latter-day cowpunks like say Restless Kelly killing for a tune like "Tumbleweed," which is partly built around a "Gudbuy T'Jane" riff, proving once and for all that BTO were the Slade of Canada. Hearty meat-and-tater riffs throughout, in fact.
― xhuxk, Thursday, 16 April 2009 15:51 (7 months ago) Permalink
More Canucks: Headpins, Line Of Fire, 1985, actually splurged and paid $2 (!) for this one based on a couple people's recommendations on this board and elsewhere, and while I wouldn't say it's quite worth that exorbidant amount, it's definitely worth a buck at least and hence a keeper. Get the idea I might've liked it more had it been recorded a few years earlier (never heard the band's '82 debut -- they were a Chilliwack spinoff apparently); as is, you can really detect the codifying of early-MTV/pre-hair '80s metal in the arrangements and songwriting. As such bands fronted by pretty girls go (Jasper and Oliver on the scratchy screecher here: "the delicious Darby Mill, who makes Kate Bush seem positively unattractive"), 1994 or Shakin' Street's hooks packed considerably more idiosyncatic punch. But the songs all rock regardless, side openers in particular. "Mine, All Mine" even seems to have a little bit of Girlschool's version of "Live With Me" hidden in it somewhere. Nifty hockey hair as well!
― xhuxk, Thursday, 16 April 2009 20:43 (7 months ago) Permalink
My gut feeling was that Turn It Loud, the debut -- was a bit better. Sort of the same as Shakin' Street, in which the French debut was a bit better than the US remake and add-on with Ross the Boss and Sandy Pearlman producing, although the latter was way more common.
Headpins probably not as good as 1984, another in the delicious female front sweepstakes. Also suffered a dropoff for the second.
― Gorge, Thursday, 16 April 2009 20:52 (7 months ago) Permalink
I actually like both Shakin Street and 1994 LPs; hard to imagine judging from that followup that Headpins' debut could be nearly as classy as either of those other bands's second ones, but I'll still pick it up if I see it for a buck.
Biggest surprise on Derringer from 1976 (also $1) is the almost-disco band-funk track "Envy" at the end of side one; Rick was a Celina boy, guarantee he was digging the Ohio Players then. Best and hardest rocking tracks, though, are "Sailor" (better than the Head East song with that title) and "Beyond The Universe," in the middle of side two. And actually, he'd always been pretty funky in his own way to begin with, as I recall. Can't believe nobody gave me shit for not including any Derringer LPs in Stairway (just had "Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo" as the #82 single, jeez).
― xhuxk, Friday, 17 April 2009 01:54 (7 months ago) Permalink
I'm sure I've knobbed about Derringer previously. And I'm also positive I mentioned Derringer reissues in Rolling Hard Rock the year before. I was going to mention the new Derring Live in Cleveland, which was a radio gig at the Agora promoting the first album. Blue Sky probably only made it available as a promo to radio because Derringer Live, which is about the same but including material from Sweet Evil was what the formal release was. It's on Wounded Bird which occasionally resurrects things which were never issued domestically when they were fresh.
Anyway, every Derringer band album smokes, the first and fourth being the most pop. Popovic disses the first one but he doesn't much like things like songcraft which the first really hits drills on. You mentioned "Envy." There's "Let Me In" which is great, and the double wah-wah incineration duel on "Sailor." "Across the Universe" is the 130+ beats per minute see what we can do with our fingers thing.
Me from the 2007 thread:
Derringer Live is a fairly hot example of what the guy was doing in the mid-70's, which was be in a band, as opposed to solo. Danny Johnson is on second guitar so there's a lot of shit hot axe dueling, like on "Across the Universe." "Sailor" is a fairly good slice of hard and fast rock with hook and great wah-wah solo to the beat in the middle. Version of "Teenage Love Affair" is good, too. "Hootchie Koo" is long, drawn out for concert show-boating. The band was great if you saw 'em, completely thrashing Aerosmith at the Spectrum when Steve & Joe were getting into their totally wasted before going onstage habits.
However, this didn't translate to sales. Proving ground for Danny Johnson and Vinnie Appice who went off to Axis who did the very Derringer-like "It's A Circus World and I'm an Animal." That lasted a few months and then Appice was in Black Sabbath.
Rick Derringer replaced them with Neil Giraldo and Myron Grombacher, who'd in turn get lifted for Pat Benatar's band, the rest of which is history. Before that Derringer did "If You Weren't So Romantic I'd Shoot You" with them which is as good, often much better than the first.
Searching isn't exact on ILX no matter how improved, so I can't resurrect all the material I'm sure I addressed.
Headpins surely don't outclass 1994 but for cheap it's worth a listen or more.
― Gorge, Friday, 17 April 2009 04:42 (7 months ago) Permalink
Here's something to read and it has nothing to do with music or hard rock but I didn't know where else to put it. I offered a story on torturing of people in the war on terror to the Village Voice, based on my experience with it as per my involvement as a consultant to a famous terror trial in 2005. In the process of making themselves most attractive for New Times, the Village Voice turned it down. "We don't do stories like that anymore," I was told. Yeah, good call. Being New Times attractive didn't help. They were all fired anyway.
Now here we are today with the New York Review of Books and the Obama administration, and many others, revealing in unexpurgated terms what a lot of people knew was happening years ago but couldn't get into print because we have such a 'free' press.
Sorry for the side track. Back to the regular program. Don't be troubled.
Boy, and this is absolute fact, I put on Derringer right before this! A bang up record ended and I thought I'd take a moment doing something else. Now I'll put on the new Boxmasters CDs.
― Gorge, Friday, 17 April 2009 05:46 (7 months ago) Permalink
Cool to see you guys talking about Headpins, they were a good band. Saw them a couple times in the mid-80s (once opening for Helix in '85, a terrific Can-Rock bill), and have been cranking "Just one More Time" on the mp3 player as of late. My favourite tune of theirs.
Their first album was really big in Canada, "Don't it Make Yoou Feel" was a huge single, while their third album was a lot slicker, with a synth-heavy, Fairbairn-esque gloss to it.
― A. Begrand, Friday, 17 April 2009 09:06 (7 months ago) Permalink
"We don't do stories like that anymore"
At least they're honest, though it's surpising they'd be so blunt about it. But yeah, pieces like the one you pitched are one of the things that went by the wayside as soon as Michael Lacey took over. I need to catch up with the Banner New York Review Of Books that somebody linked to from your blog. For what it's worth, today's NYT front-pager on the interrogation memos actually managed to work the word "torture" way up in the third graph. Jumped to almost a full page on A-10 inside, including a large sidebar chart detailing techniques, rationalizations, and permitted combinations.
Back to hard rock, there was a little discussion on another thread today on '90s stuff by D Generation and Hoodoo Gurus, based on songs I'd put on a mix tape for myself over a decade ago. The D Generation song referred to is "Capitol Offender"; James K Polk says later the (far better) Hoodoo Gurus track "Mind the Spider," sadly, was uncharacteristic for them:
Song Lists From Ancient Mix Cassettes I Just Pulled Out Of Storage After Several Years
― xhuxk, Saturday, 18 April 2009 00:11 (7 months ago) Permalink
What do you folks think of The Answer's Everyday Demons? I reviewed it for Outburn, some really solid "kids doing classic rock" stuff with some catchy songs and good riffs, but a little too much filler and modern rock influence. Definitely some keepers on it, especially the opening track, "Demon Eyes," which Kirk Miller in decibel panned as being too much like The Darkness, but to me it has a ridiculously catchy chorus and that's good enough.
― Kickstart My Heartwork (J3ff T.), Saturday, 18 April 2009 00:43 (7 months ago) Permalink
I like the Answer's album; here's what I wrote about it for Spin:
http://www.spin.com/reviews/answer-everyday-demons-end
And what the heck; also did the new Datsuns album (which I don't like nearly as much) for them:
http://www.spin.com/reviews/datsuns-headstunts-cooking-vinyl
The new hard rock band album I've liked most lately is the one by Last Vegas, who are scheduled to open Motley Crue's tour. Haven't decided yet how much I like it, but I definitely like it a lot more than Crue's album from last year.
― xhuxk, Saturday, 18 April 2009 00:55 (7 months ago) Permalink
And the new Cobra Verde album (worse than the Answer or Last Vegas, but better than the Datsuns. Also worse than at least a couple previous Cobra Verde not to mention Death of Samantha albums):
http://www.blender.com/guide/new/55405/havent-slept-all-year.html
― xhuxk, Saturday, 18 April 2009 01:13 (7 months ago) Permalink
But yeah, pieces like the one you pitched are one of the things that went by the wayside as soon as Michael Lacey took over.
Which is why we're in a pickle now. "Not doing stories like that" guys aren't so shit hot as watchdogs. Eh, prisoners being tortured in dungeons? Borrring. BTW, the Village Voice's website is almost as awful as that of the LA Times. It's the we're so desperate will screw it up with so many flash and scripting ads you'll think your computer just hung. "Meet New York Sex Bloggers," "Hot for Teacher: Sex with a Naughty Professor," "There's a Hot Lesbian Party and You're Not Invited," "The Raw Intensity of New York's Elite Youth Basketball," "Teens Grapple with Rihanna and Cris Brown," Ask a Mexican, a column by a guy who lives in Orange County, the Off Broadway version of The Toxic Avenger, the rich/poor gap is the largest in 17 years (that's really astute), etc...
The new hard rock band album I've liked most lately is the one by Last Vegas, who are scheduled to open Motley Crue's tour
They won a Guitar Center contest/promotion which involved a shopping spree at GC, too. And that amounts to quite a windfall of good fortune.
Hoo boy, xhuxk. The Datsuns, damned by faint praise.
― Gorge, Saturday, 18 April 2009 01:40 (7 months ago) Permalink
BTW, here's the next torture thing on a mirror blog I'm running off the DD domain. It trails the original by a few minutes but was necessary because Blogger has become more and more unreliable and fraught with 'oh, snap!' moments if you use it to publish to a server not under the control of Google. Which is what a lot of people do with their own domain.
Anyway, it's WordPress and while I've not used it long enough to comment, I would recommend people stay away from Blogger if they're serious about long-term use under their own name or on their private net property.
More torture!
― Gorge, Saturday, 18 April 2009 01:55 (7 months ago) Permalink
hey got a sweet copy of the christ child album for cheap the other day. forgot how much i like that one. and got the tuff darts album too. went to a record fair. dude wanted 20 bucks for the dmz album on sire! argh! i want that record, but not for 20 bucks.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 10 November 2009 14:48 (1 week ago) Permalink
got this the other day. seventh wave. from 1975. bonkers mix of glam rock and prog. ziggy stardust meets gentle giant. i dig it. they probably belong on that thread i started for bands that didn't fit. they are all glammed out on the back cover but they have 9 minute songs and titles like "star palace of the sombre warrior". and the singer has great sneering glam delivery. come to think of it, they were probably just big fans of peter hammill and van der graaf generator.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 10 November 2009 14:58 (1 week ago) Permalink
oh and i forgot to mention this: TWO YEARS after i included The Damnation Of Adam Blessing in my filthy 50 list for decibel's stoner rock issue i get a new dvd in the mail of an adam blessing reunion show from 2000. live in cleveland. AND a damnation of adam blessing coffee mug!!! and they quote me on the back of the dvd which is nice and also humbling cuz seriously they are one of my favorite rock bands of all time. and the dvd is pretty cool too. and adam's voice is still so friggin' powerful and great. i couldn't believe it. i actually got choked up watching them do "money tree" after so many years. sounds beautiful. anyway, it seems like my blurb on that list actually created more interest in the band and i couldn't be happier. i swear that's the most i could ever ask for or want. they totally deserve it. and more, actually. would love to see deluxe reissues/boxed-set/etc. they were the real deal. cleveland rocks! (where would i BE without the the great state of ohio!!! okay, and michigan too. but for real, how much inspiration and beauty have i received from OH-friggin-IO???)
― scott seward, Tuesday, 10 November 2009 15:08 (1 week ago) Permalink
I will go on record as saying I'm a huge fan of Danko Jones' earlier work, but unfortunately the title of the new one actually functions as a pretty suitable description: it's never too loud. Note: I heard this one a year or so ago when it came out in Canada...not sure if it's been remixed or not...but the version I heard was very polished and never had any particular oomph to it.
― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 10 November 2009 15:41 (1 week ago) Permalink
So Steve Gibbons Band's 1978 Down In The Bunker, as pretty much everybody who heard it noted at the time, is indeed far and away that band's time-capsule document, in terms of smart songs that stick with you when the album's over and on subsequent plays (at least compared to the two pretty good earlier LPs I mentioned upthread.) Less sure the band's gruff bar-band singer-songwriter r&b actually belongs on this thread, but I set a precedent up above, so too late. Anyway, indelible highlights are "No Spitting On The Bus" (from busdriver's point of view), "Down In The Bunker" (long one about being flashed by a hot woman while on battlefield), "Big JC" (blatant Dylan imitation about a card shark), "Mary Ain't Goin' Home" (cross-racial romance in tradition of "Society's Child" and "Brother Louie"), "Down In The City" (where the ACDCs swing both ways), "Eddy Vortex" (tough Dave Edmunds-style Britabilly about a latter-day Teddy Boy who looks like Eddie Cochran). Very cool, and sometimes Steve even sings in an actual English accent.
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 11 November 2009 03:35 (1 week ago) Permalink
Wiki informs, btw, that Steve Gibbons Band "worked the pub and club circuits until 1975 when they were spotted by Pete Townshend of The Who. This led to the Steve Gibbons Band joining The Who's management stable, recording their first Polydor album, Any Road Up and touring with The Who in the UK, Europe and the United States. Playing the concert arenas, they shared the stage with Little Feat, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Electric Light Orchestra, The J. Geils Band and Nils Lofgren. The UK Top 10 hit 'Tulane' led to three more albums with Polydor."
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 11 November 2009 03:40 (1 week ago) Permalink
And actually, if Gibbons's "Tulane" went Top 10 in the UK, it's far from inconceivable that that's where Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (who were definitely known to cover '70s Brit hits, and who did "Tulane" on Up Your Alley in 1988) may have first learned it.
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 11 November 2009 03:52 (1 week ago) Permalink
Today played two $1 mid '80s sellout LPs by American punk bands who'd previously been compared (on earlier records by both of them I've never heard) to The Clash -- Good As Gold on 415/Columbia from 1983 by New Orleans' Red Rockers and Last Time I Drank...I Thought Of You from 1985 on Enigma by L.A.'s Channel Three (formerly CH3). On the latter, which kind of looks like it was being marketed as sloppy drunk-rock in the wake of the Replacements hype, you can still unmistakably hear the Clash attempts in their gang shouting and guitar punching, but unlike the Clash (and later, Rancid) they don't half have melodies or singing pretty enough to pull the sound off, so the songs just don't stick -- only exception is their cover of Aerosmith's "Lord Of The Thighs" (still a pretty brave move by alleged punks in '85), which they slow down a little and really don't have the chops for, but it still blows away everything else on the album in terms of exuberance, rhythm, arrangement, just plain coming off as an actual song, you name it. Next track, semi-ballad "Just Hangin' Around" is probably second best. Closer, "Unoriginal Sins", seems to be aiming to be both a Stones rip and a rockabilly number in parts, and really doesn't succeed at either.
Red Rockers' album is a lot less loud, and probably better anyway, because at least there are tunes. Don't hear the Clash at all -- more like the Alarm, or Big Country without bagpipes (or whatever), or some kind of Midnight Oil prototype with hints of Rank And File cowpunk mixed in. The guitars have a good deal of surf and jangle in them, which helps. Opener "China" was allegedly a hit (went to #53) pop, but damned if I've ever heard it on an actual radio station or MTV. (Though admittedly I was out of the country when it came out.) Drummer Jim Reilly was apparently an actual Limey expat, having been in Stiff Little Fingers before, but though I love "Alternative Ulster" and "Suspect Device" as much as the next guy, I don't hear much push here from the rhythm section. The songs are at least moderately pretty, though. Need to listen more to decide whether any are as anthemic as they're clearly trying to be. (I've also heard it said that Red Rockers were a political band, fwiw, but here I'm not getting any sense of how.)
― xhuxk, Thursday, 12 November 2009 02:49 (1 week ago) Permalink
Channel 3 were better as CH3 and even then not particularly great except in spots, most notably on the song "Manzanar," which was one of their first. I had I've Got a Gun & After the Lights Go Out. Liked the title cut of the first pretty much. On the second they were trying to get into classic rock territory and screwing up. I remember the cover of the Stones' "Stupid Girl" not being particularly Stonesy, with a sound dime-a-dozen emo mall punk bands would adopt.With patience, guess they could've been as good as New Found Glory.
― Gorge, Thursday, 12 November 2009 03:00 (1 week ago) Permalink
i played that channel 3 album and the same-era EP not long ago and, yeah, pretty weak. but i was never much of a fan to begin with. for some reason the brits just did the punk-to-hard-rock move so much better. maybe cuz a lot of them were already pretty rockin' to begin with. the u.s. hardcore bands that stretched out successfully just became metal bands. or they were the necros. or a member of the escovedo family. i got burned too many times by buying last gasp records by 7 seconds and t.s.o.l. and youth brigade. so many bad examples.
― scott seward, Thursday, 12 November 2009 04:50 (1 week ago) Permalink
Maybe because Joe Strummer started off in an R&B band and Topper Headon played with PatTravers. Just two examples, so when Sandy Pearlman got 'hold of them they made a real convincing hard rock/metal record they immediately tried to disown.
Brian Baker worked the journeyman hard rock/metal guitarist thing pretty hard.
― Gorge, Thursday, 12 November 2009 05:31 (1 week ago) Permalink
Yeah, Brian Baker's Junkyard era (not sure off hand what he's done since) came to mind immediately for me, too, when Scott wrote that. (Also, Duff McKagen was in the Fartz, right? Though he'd probably count as a weak or at least mediocre link in GnR, when you get down to it.)
So Scott...tell me what you know about the Noize Toys, okay? Pretty sure you gave me my copy of of their Fallin In Lust...Again LP ten-plus years ago, and I must have been laughing too hard at the proto-Warrant pretty-boy-cheese cover at the time to actually listen to it. (Especially the guy in the Batman T-shirt and quasi-Mohawk and Anthrax patch on his jacket.) Or maybe I did, and the cover just stuck with me more. Turns out it's pretty good! Out in 1987 (on some Orange County indie called Dr. Dream, whatever that was), so mostly a better-than-average stab at the first-Poison-LP crowd, but the two catchiest songs ("Wanna Hear The Toys" and "Neighborhood Nightmare") are more Van Halen circa 1984 rips. (How come that album didn't audibly influence more rock bands? It was huge! Or maybe it did, and I just didn't notice? Or maybe its influence just got immediately superceded by hair metal.) Also, Noize Toys cover "Hungry" by Paul Revere & the Raiders -- smart choice. A few songs make me think I'm listening through cotton in my ears, so probably they could've used a bigger budget. But the album is still some good fun, especially when it gets all David Lee Rothy.
Put on Piper's Can't Wait from 1977 after that. I like both of their albums a lot; makes me think I should have kept the one I used to own by Billy Squier's other '70s band, the Sidewinders, too. Also, at least the first couple songs on Can't Wait definitely have some Who juice in them, which relates to a discussion up above somewhere.
― xhuxk, Thursday, 12 November 2009 18:12 (1 week ago) Permalink
Oops, actually Noize Toys is '88, not '87. So, second Poison LP, then. (Not in Popoff's metal guide, so I'm guessing it's obscure.)
― xhuxk, Thursday, 12 November 2009 18:17 (1 week ago) Permalink
(not sure off hand what he's done since)
He's been a member of Bad Religion since about 1994.
― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Thursday, 12 November 2009 18:22 (1 week ago) Permalink
Ha ha, thanks Phil. I could have looked that up, I guess. (I haven't had much use for Bad Religion since Into The Unknown in 1983 -- early punks-going-'70s-rock-route move, which they've disowned ever since -- so I'm a few years behind. Did they ever get good again?)
― xhuxk, Thursday, 12 November 2009 18:46 (1 week ago) Permalink
Did they ever get good again?
I only liked Suffer and No Control and the one after that - their super-bare-bones style-establishing albums. That was when I stopped paying attention, which was about three years before he joined the band. These days I think they're still "punk" but in that slowed-down, pseudo-anthemic duller-than-dogshit way like bands like Rise Against and The Hold Steady.
― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Thursday, 12 November 2009 18:52 (1 week ago) Permalink
Re the Piper twofer, it was total souped-up British invasion stuff, as opposed to the more popularly received Led Zep cops he adopted when under his own name. There's jangle amid the crash on both records.
Great cover of the Stones "The Last Time" on the first one, tremendous extended Stone-sy throwdown on "Blues for the Common Man" from Can't Wait.
"42 Street" on the debut is about the only thing that starts getting into metal, it's slowed down thump in the same vein as Aerosmith's more sturm-and-dramatic tuneage.
― Gorge, Thursday, 12 November 2009 19:15 (1 week ago) Permalink
got the new album by TAB THE BAND in the mail. i felt the briefest glimmer of hope when i found out it was a band started by joe perry's kids. kinda hoped the apple didn't fall far from the tree and and all that. no dice. pretty anemic and amateurish stuff. local band stuff. like a cd someone you don't know might hand you and say: "hey, you should check out my band sometime." i mean, it's rock and they like cheap trick and the stones, but they can't pull off even the simplest of simple rock moves. they sound like they are trying really hard to sound like slackers.
plus, instead of their horrible band name, WHY didn't they name themselves THE SONS OF JOE PERRY!?
not only would it be a cool/funny name for a band, it would be true!
― scott seward, Friday, 13 November 2009 00:02 (1 week ago) Permalink
one from the shelf, two from the dollar bins:
Shooting Star, Shooting Star (Virgin 1979) Occurs to me you can classify these Kansas City kids with Head East and early Kansas early Styx in the Midwestern prairie dogs progging-out category; in fact, they've got a second keyboard player/harmony vocalizer whose real specialty is apparently violin, and the band jams hardest (especially in "Tonight," which oddly starts out like a really sweet Def Leppard ballad from a decade later) when he bows hardest. "Bring It On" and "Midnight Man" are the other real rockers, and "Last Chance" holds up for almost seven minutes. Wouldn't say they ever get metal, per se', but definitely the louder edge of AOR. Surprisingly, they charted five albums (including a best-of) in the '80s; highest only to #82, though. Also charted three singles across the decade, all peaking between #67 and #72. Which suggests Missouri rock radio, at least, was probably pretty devoted to them -- seemed to be the case when I was in Columbia.
related thread:
Where is the love for HOUNDS and STREETHEART and SHOOTING STAR and PRISM?
Scorpions, Blackout (Mercury, 1982) Kinda dissed this upthread a little, but it eventually sank in. Main attraction, duh, is the speed of their über-sleek precision German technology over about half of the album (first two tracks, especially, and "Now!," where the "na na na na na na"'s really sound like they predate Axl). But man, they are so cold, and mostly just remind that, when hard rock/metal lost its r&b, I got off the boat. (Weirdly, unlike Priest and Maiden, I don't think anybody's ever complained that they're missing from Stairway.) Can't quite call them arhythmic though, and Klaus Meine's Aryan accent can be amusing. Also, "Arizona" almost sounds American! Don't really get why Martin Popoff thinks there's only one ballad*, though -- I count three, though maybe he considers schlock meisterwerks "No One Like You" and "You Give Me All I Need" midtempos. (Third and most artful ballad is the LP closer, "When The Smoke Is Going Down"; "China White" being more a metal trudge -- slow enough tempo-wise for a ballad, but seven minutes long, and heavy.) Anyway, makes me think I should finally explore Scorps more -- is it true that their early '70s LPs were Kraut-rockish? (A la early UFO, I guess?) Never heard 'em.
Black Sabbath, Technical Ecstasy (Warner Bros., 1976) Popoff is right about this album being a total downer; difference is, he likes it, and I don't. And besides, Sabbath were always downers, duh, but their first few downer albums had riffs, and thud, and throb, and hooks. This thing just feels thin and tired to me. But then, I never even liked Sabbath Bloody Sabbath much, so what do I know, right? Guess the other big deal is they're theoretically getting bluesier on a few cuts (most notably I guess "Rock 'N' Roll Doctor," which has a cowbell, and probably concerns drugs.) Just don't sound good at it to me. Stupid last cut "Dirty Woman" finally brings in a riff you can chew on at the start, then eventually builds seven minutes toward Iommi auditioning for Derek and the Dominoes or somebody -- hence an interesting enough track to keep, but the only one, I'd say.
* -- Well actually, he says "only one committed ballad," so maybe he thinks the two hits -- which he admits being sick of -- were half-assed ballads. Which makes the "10" score he gives the LP even more confusing.
― xhuxk, Friday, 13 November 2009 21:30 (1 week ago) Permalink
Also played Crucified Barbara's In Distortion We Trust back to back with two-girl-rhythm-section/one-guy-guitarist hard rock band Lost Goat's 2002 Tee Pee The Dirty Ones today, and was surprised to like Lost Goat a lot more. Don't think I heard any other albums by them, but this one has way more Zep beauty than I'd remembered, pretty unusual for supposed stoner-metalers. Pick hit, now as then, is "The Hanging Tree." They also do a Leadbelly cover, and get people named Kris and Jackie to guest on violin and cello in one song. Don't think I ever heard any other albums by them; pretty sure this was their first. Recorded in San Francisco, which I'm guessing is where they were from.
― xhuxk, Friday, 13 November 2009 21:38 (1 week ago) Permalink
all peaking between #67 and #72. Which suggests Missouri rock radio, at least, was probably pretty devoted
... and that radio outside of Missouri probably mostly ignored them, or else they would have charted higher. They were clearly hitting some kind of ceiling. Though maybe they got play in Kansas and Nebraska, too.
― xhuxk, Friday, 13 November 2009 21:42 (1 week ago) Permalink
Don't get this Wiki claim at all:
Technical Ecstasy continued the band's separation from its signature doom and darkness that had been such a trademark of the band's early career. While the album's lyrics dealt with topics such as drug dealers, prostitution, and transvestites, the music itself was seldom dark
So what's the consensus? They sound depressed as hell to me. Or maybe just depressing. (And as I said, Popoff seems to agree, despite liking it a lot more than I do.) (By the way, Sabotage might be my favorite Sabbath LP -- in the top three, easy -- and that one preceded this. So maybe I'm missing something. If somebody can explain what is, please let me know what before the next time I take out the garbage.)
― xhuxk, Friday, 13 November 2009 21:55 (1 week ago) Permalink
I think I recommended Shooting Star on one of the Rolling Hard Rock threads a couple years ag.
===============Revive. I revise things I said on Shooting Star upthread. Much higher in guitar octane on first two albums than supposed. If you see the second, "Hang On For Your Life," and like good hard rock with some boogie but more hooks, then GET IT. Were supposed to be like Kansas but where from Kansas City so why'd everyone describe 'em that way. Must have been the fiddle which is pushed out of the way in most of the hard rock tunes and more gone for "Silent Scream" (I'm hearing it now in the cracks of one of the big arena-aimed production ballads) which was the most AOR of them. Latter is probably too Journey-ish for many but it was the last for Virgin, so the edict had to have been get a single at all costs.
Had two songs on "Up The Creek" soundtrack which still sells and is in replay somewhere in the US during the year. The movie was duff, and I liked the soundtrack.
Entire Virgin catalog transfered to guitar player who administrated it to digital on-line last year, as far as I can tell.
― George the Animal Steele, Monday, January 16, 2006 11:00 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink[Silent Scream] is probably too Journey-ish for many but it was the last for VirginUh-oh. Wasn't on Virgin, but was last before that edition of band ruptured. Album previous was last on Virgin. Scream might've been on Geffen. I guess I should check.
And the "Up the Creek" songs are cool. "Take It" the most rocking, "Get Ready Boy" a close second.
― George the Animal Steele, Tuesday, January 17, 2006 2:13 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink==========
Hang on for Your Life still kills. Great high-energy songs. Silent Scream got better and better, too. It really had the mid-Eighties teenage mall movie soundtrack tunes going. Ron Nevison took 'em in that direction and it worked well.
― Gorge, Friday, 13 November 2009 22:15 (1 week ago) Permalink
i honestly can't remember anything about the shooting star album. i have an album by missouri too. were they big in missouri?
as far as TECH XTASY goes, i dunno, i always liked it. i like it all pretty much up to and including born again.
― scott seward, Friday, 13 November 2009 22:22 (1 week ago) Permalink
I don't remember Missouri being quite as big in Missouri as Shooting Star. Saw their album with the billboard on the cover for $1 a few weeks back, but passed on it again. Honestly not sure if I've ever heard them. They were supposed to be slightly Southern rock, right? Welcome Two Missouri from '79 charted at #174, but that was it.
Actually, biggest Missouri band while I was there (1979-1982) was probably the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. Who I don't think I've ever heard an entire album by, though I've always liked "Jackie Blue."
Biggest local/indie/new wave band in Columbia was probably Fools Face. From Springfield. Who played powerpop, allegedly.
― xhuxk, Friday, 13 November 2009 22:45 (1 week ago) Permalink
So George, didn't you review Motochrist's 666-Pack for me at the Voice? Or did I just imagine that? Google isn't helping. Anyway, I just decided to get rid of my CD after maybe ten years. Not sure why it took me so long to decide that isn't all that great. Maybe I was cutting it slack because it only has eight songs. (Next up: Slojack!)
― xhuxk, Friday, 13 November 2009 23:32 (1 week ago) Permalink
Slojack (on Get There From Here, Silver Lake Records, 2000): More dynamics and blues groove in the playing and more thought in the songwriting than Motochrist, but singing still comes off real clumsy to me (AMG review says Mike Ness-like, and I can buy that I guess -- never much connected with him, either) and the production's too murked-up to put the songs (reportedly "openly gay") over. Here's what George wrote:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-08-29/music/wizards-of-ozone/
Both of these CDs were in storage for about five years, I think.
― xhuxk, Saturday, 14 November 2009 00:28 (1 week ago) Permalink
Yeah, I reviewed Motochrist's EP for you but it was one of the few things you never slotted.
Don't precisely recall what I wrote. First song came on like gangbusters, I think, and the wordplay one on Evel Knievel was OK. They were a bit monochromatic, maybe like someone copying the Dead Boys doing "Sonic Reducer"-like material with louder guitars but not quite the Memorex.
The second Slojack album, which is what I reviewed for the Voice, in retrospect, wasn't as good as the debut. Which had better production and was even more openly gay. Totally awesome live band though when I caught them in Hollywood a couple times. Singer was inspired by Brian Grillo of Extra Fancy, which they sounded nothing like.
Slojack's shouting hardcore-like singer wasn't quite up to more melodic material, so on the first album, good production and the guitar carrying a big part of the melodies, helped. I don't think they had the same budget or amount of time for the second.
Also in that period of me doing Hollywood street bands -- The Superbees debut, which I no longer have although one song on it, "The Glue Sniffer," totally ruled as a Detroit-ish hard rock salute to reprobates who listen to Blue Oyster Cult. One of their best tunes, a cover of Humble Pie's "Up Our Sleeves," never made it to record.
Then there were the Hitmen, who I saw many times, who made fair to good but mostly fair albums not nearly as Stooge-like (but more really hard altie lonesome me country rockish) as they looked.
And Pygmy Love Circus' second, "The Power of Beef", which dropped off a cliff after a totally crushing opening number, "Drug Run to Fontana," which exactly captured the white trash meth head suburban part of the movie "Sideways," when the Thomas Hayden Church character picks up the fat waitress at the steak house, goes home to screw her, gets surprised and leaves his wallet there...
In fact, the singer might have actually been in that scene as the guy who chases the protagonists.
I guess PLC did two great songs -- that one and "I'm the King of LA (I Killed Axl Rose Today).
Which makes me laugh pretty good everytime I hear it.
― Gorge, Saturday, 14 November 2009 03:41 (1 week ago) Permalink
Puhdys Sturmvogel from 1976 -- overall feel seems slightly more schlocky than the best-of I tracked up above, but really the math is about the same: 50% various shades of Deutsch Tin Pan Alley drinking ballads, 50% various shades of riffy foreign-language guitar rock: speedy early metal (title track), garage rock bridging the '50s and '60s ("Untermiete"), space rock with powerchords (they are Germans after all -- "Reise Zum Mittelpunkt Der Erde"), glammy pop-rock with Deep Purply riffs and '70s Elton woo-woo vocal hooks ("Lachen Und Schweigen"), airy art rock doesn't maintain much of a groove ("Auf Dem Wege.") Another keeper, though, no matter how you break it down.
― xhuxk, Saturday, 14 November 2009 15:08 (1 week ago) Permalink
Tech Xtc sounds like half whacked-out cathedral (as in edifice, not band)-doom & half Birmingham street punk to me--except when Geezer's singing, i guess. most depressing thing about it for me is Ozzy's booze-bluez mood (talk about a downer). but i really dig it nonetheless. don't know about Popoff including it in his top 25 metal discs ever, tho. still, i'd hang on to it if i were you, Chuck.
― the not-fun one (Ioannis), Sunday, 15 November 2009 11:57 (6 days ago) Permalink
Okay, I'll give it ONE more chance. But only one. (Also, fwiw, in the Popoff book I have, he puts Sabotage #2 and Born Again #23 in his all-time metal Top 25, but not Technical Ecstasy. Guess it's possible he changed the list in other editions, though.)
Still in the process of answering Phil above, I'm not sure how much of Nazareth's Malice In Wonderland I can fully rep for beyond the undeniable single "Holiday," which went #87 pop. Lots of the rest is good or interesting, but not what I'd call indispensible -- sort of Southern-rockish fugitive tale "Showdown At The Border" (though what Scotsmen know about Mexican/American borders is beyond me), sort of electronic-pulsed "Fast Cars," sort of rock-disco "Talkin' About Love," a couple midtempo things with noticeable guitar parts, a ballad called "Fallen Angel" that sounds as proto-hair-metal (singing = proto Axl) as its title. Nothing that strikes me as very metal at all, if that's your concern, though Popoff singles out "Talkin' To One Of The Boys" as "cool and edgy" and "Ship of Dreams" as "Spanish and snakey."
New W.A.S.P. album Babylon (w/ covers of Deep Purple "Burn" and Chuck Berry "Promised Land") sounded surprisingly listenable during one background spin, though maybe I was only surprised because I never paid much attention to them before. Can't even say how any of their songs go (not even the PMRC-beloved fuck-like-an-beast one); just always assumed that I wouldn't like them much. Now wondering if I might've been wrong.
New Marillon album Less Is More seemed unsurprisingly boring in the background -- only made it through a few songs -- but I don't think I've ever even tried to play a Marillon album before. Were they ever any good? I've always been under the impression that their reason for existence went "keeping early Genesis's sound alive after Genesis sold out into late Genesis"; not sure how right that is. And I'm not a big Genesis fan, but some of the early stuff wasn't bad, I always thought. (Ditto some of their late stuff. Neither was very hard rock, though.)
― xhuxk, Monday, 16 November 2009 02:03 (5 days ago) Permalink
Uh, it's spelled "Marillion," actually. (Sorry, I'm not British.)
― xhuxk, Monday, 16 November 2009 02:06 (5 days ago) Permalink
Can't even say how any of their songs go (not even the PMRC-beloved fuck-like-an-beast one); just always assumed that I wouldn't like them much. Now wondering if I might've been wrong.
I have their first two albums in my iPod. The second one, The Last Command, is better than the self-titled debut. Each has a couple of excellent tracks plus a bunch of filler, and overall their aggression helps them get over - early on, they were a little nastier and more raw, musically speaking, than their Sunset Strip peers. They seem tough and genuinely misogynist/misanthropic, where Mötley Crüe, their closest equivalent, were just surly, horny pricks. Recommended from the first album: "I Wanna Be Somebody," "L.O.V.E. Machine" and "Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)," which is included on the reissue along with a horrible cover of the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black." Recommended from album #2: "Wild Child," the seriously unhinged "Ball Crusher," "Fistful Of Diamonds," "Blind In Texas" and another bonus track from the reissue, a decent cover of Mountain's "Mississippi Queen." I've never heard anything after TLC, though I too got the new one in the mail this past week.
― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Monday, 16 November 2009 02:56 (5 days ago) Permalink
The third album, Inside The Electric Circus, includes two covers (and not as B-sides): Humble Pie's "I Don't Need No Doctor" and Uriah Heep's "Easy Living." I might have to check that one out just out of morbid curiosity.
― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Monday, 16 November 2009 02:58 (5 days ago) Permalink
So, George opined upthread that "My Baby" on the first Mother's Finest LP was better than "Niggizz Can't Sang Rock & Roll," but I dunno, I'm really loving the latter as mean Confederate metal sang by a redneck-accented nigga named...well, I assume Murdock, though the cover says bassist Wizzard sangs too. Honestly think whichever guy sings that one and "Rain" has a better hard rock voice than Tina Turner-style belter Joyce Kennedy (apparently wife of Murdock a/k/a Glenn Murdoch), even though she's got more God-given pure vocal power. Also am hearing the album as split between a Nugey-metal Side One and a funk Side Two, with the latter winding down to the sorta Pointer Sisters/ Funkadelic nostalgia diddybop "Dontcha Wanna Love Me" (the album's corniest and probably worst cut) and more straightforward '70s hard rock "Rain."Awesome record, either way (and their funk material has lots of rock in it, and vice versa). Mainly, I can't hear the "Niggaz" song without imagining it blowing the inbred minds of a crowd of Black Oak Arkansas fans, though I'm not sure off hand who Mother's Finest toured with.
Speaking of Tina Turner-style belters fronting rock bands of color, Scott mailed me a box of records a few months back, and I really listened to them, Scott, honest -- favorite was probably Love Craft's We Love You (Whoever You Are) from Mercury in 1975. Thought "I Feel Better" and "Ain't Gettin' None" and "The Flight" were worthy of the first Nona Hendryx LP or any Betty Davis LP, and "The Hook" almost worthy of Babe Ruth (band, not baseball player). Plus there's the eight-minute Santana-style prog-fusion jam "Monumental Movement"; apparently they started out as a psych band named H.P. Lovecraft, I read somewhere?
― xhuxk, Monday, 16 November 2009 04:09 (5 days ago) Permalink
Oh yeah, their Tina/Nona/Betty-style soul-rock diva is named Lalomie Washburn (who apparently doubles on percussion), and judging from the photo on the back (where the band's all surrounding their Amazon Queen, it looks like) and a few of their surnames (well, at least guitarist Jorge Rodriguez and probably conga/timbale guy George Hannibal Agosto), the lineup of six other musicians seems to be at least half Hispanic.
― xhuxk, Monday, 16 November 2009 04:15 (5 days ago) Permalink
Seriously dumbshit quote in today's LA Times Calendar section, from a review of Them Crooked Vultures.
"Scumbag Blues, with a killer clavinet solo from (Joe Blow, the not-famous member), answered a question that's long burned in the hearts of all ZZ Top fans: What would Tres Hombres have sounded like if Nile Rodgers of Chic had produced it?"
Methinks, bucko, thy sense of dry humor was lost here. Or that fans already know what ZZ Top sounds like au disco.
Anyway, that song is all over "YouTube" in numerous "you are there" recordings. I dare anyone on this thread to sit through more than 45 seconds of it. The belief seems to be that if one uploads some version of it enough times, the aggregate views of people sucked in will amount to something.
― Gorge, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 22:04 (3 days ago) Permalink
I submitted a spec review of the Vultures disc to the Voice but they didn't take it, so here it is:
Can we disband the Cult of Josh Homme already? In terms of tours and releases, the guy keeps busy, sure; but in terms of quality of output, he’s been coasting since Kyuss broke up. The Queens of the Stone Age released a moderately interesting debut album, and then got lazier and more self-infatuated with each passing year. And the less said about the Eagles of Death Metal, the better. This new thing (which we’re of course being told is a real band, not a momentary enthusiasm) is a trio featuring Homme on guitar and vocals, John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards, and Dave Grohl on drums. The presence of Jones is the only thing that elevates this beyond being Vol. 11 of Homme’s jam-and-release “Desert Sessions,” and he’s ill-used.
Paired with a drummer capable of groove (see Disc One of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti), he’s a monster. And there’s a riff midway through “Reptiles” that nods toward late Zeppelin. But Dave Grohl is not John Bonham; he’s a club-footed caveman, and not in a good way – the garage-metal primitivism of Nirvana was all he was ever really suited for.
Consequently, Jones can’t add much more than his name and some backing vocals and keyboards. As a bassist, he’s mostly limited to echoing Homme’s caveman-trudge riffing, and might not even have been the guitarist’s first pick: from its riff to its high-pitched vocal straight from the Jack Bruce playbook, “Scumbag Blues” sounds like a Cream cover with a little bit of funky organ floating stranded in the left speaker.
The real problem with Them Crooked Vultures, the band and the album, is that 2009’s already seen a much better example (bird-related name and all) of how to do the supergroup thing right – Chickenfoot, the Sammy Hagar/Joe Satriani/Michael Anthony/Chad Smith power quartet. From Hagar’s pumped-up vocals, his most emphatic since Montrose, to Satriani’s restrained yet skillful riffing and solos, to Anthony’s emphatic bass and undiminished-since-Van-Halen vocal harmonies, to Smith’s thunderous – and genuinely funky – drumming, the band’s self-titled debut disc was that rare 21st Century hard rock album that existed outside the pernicious influence of grunge. No ponderous dirges, only adrenaline-fueled party anthems with actual choruses, and a couple of ballads tacked on at the end.
Respect to Homme, Jones and Grohl (plus touring guitarist Alain Johannes, of course) for heading out on the road without a CD to flog, and for getting people to pay to watch and listen to them run through over an hour of entirely new music. But the truth is, Homme’s always been better at writing riffs than songs, and not by much. You can still occasionally stumble across a song by the Firm (Paul Rodgers, Jimmy Page) or the Power Station (Robert Palmer, Tony Thompson, 2/5 of Duran Duran) on the radio. It’s extremely doubtful that “New Fang,” Them Crooked Vultures’ half-assed first single, will have that kind of staying power.
― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 22:54 (3 days ago) Permalink
West Bruce & Laing are playing at Westbury Music Fair in January. Any chance they'd be worth seeing in this day & age?
― Thus Sang Freud, Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:46 (2 days ago) Permalink
i'd think it would be fun! they can still play. a lot more fun than that horrible cream debacle.
― scott seward, Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:48 (2 days ago) Permalink
i saw that cream debacle! in the super cheap seats at msg, not that they were that super cheap for the occasion. you kept hoping something would explode down there, but clapton remained his measured modern self with his stupid old strat. it was, however, cream, one kept telling oneself.
― Thus Sang Freud, Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:57 (2 days ago) Permalink
from what i understand, per concert lore, i saw the "good" night.
― Thus Sang Freud, Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:58 (2 days ago) Permalink
Oh, turns out it's West, Bruce Jr. and Laing. That doesn't do it for me.
― Thus Sang Freud, Thursday, 19 November 2009 16:15 (2 days ago) Permalink
ha! and it's actually ADAM west too, i think. and R.D. Laing's grandson.
― scott seward, Thursday, 19 November 2009 16:33 (2 days ago) Permalink
Always read the small print! There's a West, Bruce Jr. & Laing video on youtube, but I don't wanna turn this thread into a video fest.
― Thus Sang Freud, Thursday, 19 November 2009 16:57 (2 days ago) Permalink
Have yet to hear a single song by Them Crooked Vultures, and don't particularly have any interest in doing so (especially the more I hear about it), but a lot of what Phil writes -- about Grohl being a punk drummer but not a hard rock drummer, about Homme writing riffs not songs --rings true. (And I'm not even sure how great Homme's riffs are.)
Another cheeseball old LP donated to me by Scott, albeit this time probably 15 years ago or so -- Chiefs Of Reliefs self-titled on Reciever UK from 1988. They sound like Sigue Sigue Sputnik-style synth-poppers discovering Neanderthal glam-metal and butt-rock riffs, and are generally pretty stiff about it, vocally and rhythmically; this was some lame kinda trend in the UK at the time I think (Gaye Bikers On Acid? Age Of Chance? there were probably better examples I ignored or never heard of at the time). Still, the riffs are big and fun, and the three dumbbells making the music are endearing in their enthusiasm, and occasionally even come up with something approaching a tune -- like when they shoot for maybe a mid '80s electro-ZZ Top/ Motorhead mix (or Zodiac Mindwarp?? What the heck did Zodiac Mindwarp sound like anyway?) in "Lookin' For The Beach," or opt for melody (which Limeys tend to be better at) over the beat in "Walk About," or ineptly attempt halfway rappy Licensed To Ill teen angst in "White City Boys" and "School Leaver" (about being a dropout, I guess, but hard to tell if it's pro- or anti- giving the just-say-no shouts) and maybe "One Force One Crew One Song." You can kinda imagine them being aging prole street-punk oi! boys feeling some understandable affinity with early rap's all-for-one-one-for-all posse-party ethos. They even borrow the readymade old rap line about "not a preacher or teacher or politician" somewhere. Still, pretty marginal; no idea if Scott sends me these things because he decides they're not so great in the first place, or they're duplicate copies of LPs he likes, or what.
Changing the subject: Did a single great new hard rock vocalist emerge in the '00s? I can't think of anybody myself, but maybe I'm neglecting somebody obvious. And maybe there's a great rock singer out there I just haven't identified as such yet. Probably a woman, as George kinda suggested above. But then again, one older guy (more from the '80s or '90s) I'm just now realizing is a pretty soulful, emotive, powerful vocalist is Gary Floyd -- who I guess was in the Dicks and Sister Double Happiness, neither of whom I ever paid much attention to at the time (so: recommendations?), but I've just now been listening to him cover sundry Spirit, Steppenwolf, Leon Russell, Clarence Carter, and Curtis Mayfield classics on this 2003 CD called Mad Dogs & San Franciscans by the weirdo avant/jam/fusion/whatever band Mushroom (who I often like otherwise too btw), and he belts great. So now I wonder whether he was ever anywhere near that good with original songs.
― xhuxk, Friday, 20 November 2009 16:28 (Yesterday) Permalink
chiefs of relief were post-bow wow wow. i like exactly one song on that album: don't knock the rock you've got. really, who else am i gonna share that album with?
"Did a single great new hard rock vocalist emerge in the '00s?"
i guess kelly clarkson doesn't count. she made probably the only great rock vocal performance i can think of in the 00's.
― scott seward, Friday, 20 November 2009 16:37 (Yesterday) Permalink
I'm not complaining, Scott! (You can send me all the albums you want!) But you're right; who else would like that thing at all? And I probbaly even like it more than you do! "Don't Knock The Rock" is definitely loveable in its ridiculous. (Also occurred to me the Chiefs Of Relief are a definite step on the road to The Prodigy, oi!-lectronica-wise, which halfway matters to me though probably not to anybody else.)
Hmmm...If you're going to count Kelly Clarkson (who I've never really gotten, for some reason), then you should probably count, say, the guys in Montgomery Gentry, too. (So maybe I should have said "great new '00s hard rock vocalist that people don't consider teen-pop or country"?)
― xhuxk, Friday, 20 November 2009 16:42 (Yesterday) Permalink
i could never tolerate sigue sigue sputnik. you know what i tried to listen to not that long ago? a doctor and the medics album! holy toledo, what a mess. i have NO idea what that music was supposed to be. just unbelievably bad. i should youtube zodiac mindwarp. that faux-biker thing was weird. my friend liz was a circus of power fan back then. though i think they were a might heavier than zodiac. did i give you my copy of sex metal by ledernacken? or maybe you have your own. all these things are mushed together in my brain.
― scott seward, Friday, 20 November 2009 16:47 (Yesterday) Permalink
i just dig the one kelly song a bunch. well, maybe more than one, but since u been gone was probably the only hit song that was rock-related that i heard and loved in the 00's. that's a pretty sad statement.
― scott seward, Friday, 20 November 2009 16:49 (Yesterday) Permalink