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 (seventeen years ago)
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 (seventeen years ago)
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 (seventeen years ago)
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 (seventeen years ago)
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 (seventeen years ago)
Busboys American Worker (released 1982, purchased for $1 2009) is, as I've heard rumoured for more than a quarter century, a definite failed AOR (out of Chuck Berry-styled new wave) move by a black band dressed like Louis Jordan (and also like actual busboys I guess), though the only remotely heavy (as in say Living Colour-precursor) cuts are the excellent "Yellow Lights" and especially "I Get Lost" on Side Two. Otherwise, a surf semi-parody, some (slightly Thin Lizzy inspired?) protest reggae corn ("Opportunity"), and sundry attempts at corporate fake-wave, Tommy Tutone/early Huey Lewis-style -- most notably Chin/Chapman-written hard-pop "Heart And Soul," which Exile had taken to #103 in Billboard the year before and Huey himself would take to #8 a year later. All of which is News (nyuk nyuk) to me; always assumed it was a Huey original. Guess they just kept throwing it bands til they finally found one that could make a hit out of it.
― xhuxk, Friday, 24 April 2009 01:49 (seventeen years ago)
Oh yeah, title track "American Worker" probably a failed attempt at having a populist early-Reagan-era recession "Working For The Weekend" type anthem: "In every American city/In every American town/Let's go dancing/We work hard all week/To put some money in our pockets/Now we can afford to dance to the beat." Which just goes to show that black guys could write blue-collar rock lyrics as dumb as any white guy.
― xhuxk, Friday, 24 April 2009 01:56 (seventeen years ago)
Also totally missing the punchlines (the one where whites move in so there goes the neighborhood, the one where they join the KKK, the one where "I bet you never heard music like this by spades") of their '80 debut. So not as good, but I still like it. (First album charted higher -- #85 to #139, so the sellout didn't work. Their closest thing to a "hit" didn't come til '84, with #68 "Cleanin Up The Town" off the Ghostbusters soundtrack.)
― xhuxk, Friday, 24 April 2009 02:03 (seventeen years ago)
I just spent four days hanging around Dublin and Belfast with The Answer. They're good guys and put on a great live show; the bassist is their secret weapon. Whenever the main riff seems pedestrian, check him out - chances are he'll be doing some crazed Entwistle/Geezer Butler spinoff thing in his corner. The drummer's a monster, too, played for almost two weeks with an undiagnosed broken hand until finally having to cancel a gig on Monday night. I agree they incorporate a few too many modern rock influences in some of their songs, but at least they've got a rhythm section that actually rocks (and swings), which is more than most big-selling rock bands can say these days. The first album, Rise, is good too, though not released in the U.S. (it's from 2006, and there's a double-disc deluxe edition at this point filled with acoustic versions, live tracks, covers etc.), and they're selling a live EP on tour that includes some guest vocal work by Paul Rodgers. They'll be back in the summer, still opening the AC/DC tour but in outdoor stadiums this time with a third act added to the bill. Current contenders in Rumorland include Jet or possibly the new incarnation of Wolfmother.
― unperson, Friday, 24 April 2009 02:21 (seventeen years ago)
I like The Answer a lot more than Wolfmother. At least the rocking doesn't seem like a pose with them. And while rock 'n roll doesn't necessarily need to be "authentic," it's always nice when the group seems like they actually love what they do.
― Kickstart My Heartwork (J3ff T.), Friday, 24 April 2009 02:49 (seventeen years ago)
Not sure why you'd doubt that Wolfmother love what they do (hey, it beats milking kangaroos, right?), but maybe you know something about them I don't. (Never read an interview with them. Just figured they were a mediocre hard rock band, and hard to hate, just like their countrymen Jet; there are far more worthy targets out there, as far as I can tell.)
Played the Last Vegas album twice in a row all the way through yesterday, and it just keeps sounding better to me. The hooks really sink in. When's the last time there was a sleaze/glam album this good -- 15, 20 years? Second Faster Pussycat album maybe?(Not sure whether Love/Hate or Cinderella's Still Climbing or The Spaghetti Incident? count; anything else obvious I'm not thinking of?)
― xhuxk, Friday, 24 April 2009 13:29 (seventeen years ago)
I haven't heard the Last Vegas album, but I liked both of the first two Buckcherry discs.
― unperson, Friday, 24 April 2009 13:56 (seventeen years ago)
I liked those okay (and their last one too actually), but the Last Vegas album is much, much better than any of those. (Also better than the more garagey indie album they put out themselves a couple years ago, which I may or may not still have in a storage box in my closet.)
― xhuxk, Friday, 24 April 2009 14:01 (seventeen years ago)
Well, you know I don't trust you at all when you use words like "better," but I'll maybe check it out in an idle moment.
― unperson, Friday, 24 April 2009 14:09 (seventeen years ago)
Also better than those Buck Cherry albums (which were ridiculously spotty, truth be told -- they could use a best-of someday if that ballad hit last year didn't suck so bad): Michael Stanley Band, Heartland (1980, $1). George had made me a real good CD-R called The Thumbnail Michael Stanley a few years back, highlighting what I took to be his hardest rocking songs, but the only one from this LP that's on there seems to be his early-Bryan Adams/Rick Springfield-type hard pop smash "He Can't Love You" (Stanley's biggest hit -- went to #33) -- which might not even be the best track here, and definitely isn't the hardest rocking. Really like the tough Diddley beat "Working Again," the even bigger-rhythmed "Voodoo," and the midwestern praire rocker (as in Head East/REO) "Save A Little Piece For Me" (where "save a little piece" sounds more like "sentimental bitch"). And "All I Ever Wanted" hits me as some kind of middle ground between Mitch Ryder (he's listening to a Detroit station, like when Mitch covered the Velvets' "Rock and Roll") and Eddie Money nostalgia classics like "Take Me Home Tonight" from a few years later. A couple extremely furry mustaches in the band, too. Still doesn't seem to have broken them far beyond Cleveland much more than momentarily, though. (On the CD-R that George made, last time I checked, my favorite tracks were "Rosewood Bitters" -- Joe Walsh on guitar I believe, "Heavy Weight," "He Can't Love You," "Hard Time," near-hit "My Town," and "Fire In The Hole.")
― xhuxk, Friday, 24 April 2009 14:51 (seventeen years ago)
Wolfmother always seemed like they were going through the motions to me, like "Look at us, we are playing rock music, please to give us record deal." Just never really struck me as having a rock 'n roll soul, and you can usually tell when bands are forcing it.
― Kickstart My Heartwork (J3ff T.), Friday, 24 April 2009 23:32 (seventeen years ago)
Tried really hard to connect with Jackson Highway's 1980 self-titled LP on Capitol (also $1), thanks to the timely title "Rock And Roll Man (Hung Up On A Disco Girl)," but after a few listens I'm convinced Jasper and Oliver were right in dismissing them as "very commerical Southern boogie, not hard enough to stand alongside other outfits in the genre." Except they can't stand alongside the the best commercial stuff in the genre (like say .38 Special) either, plus they're as much would-be late '70s Seger (sans songs or hooks) as would-be Southern rock, to my ears. The closing track with a bunch of Blackfoot guys guesting on it is long (4:43) but not especially brutal; deadliest thing on the LP is probably the guitar-squall intro of "Hook, Line And Sinker." "Nobody To Love" (in which the singer can't find nobody to love) plays fast and loose with double negatives. Buddy Holly "Rave On" cover is just passable. Rock guy dealing with disco song, best thing on the album, could afford a funkier beat.
Truth be told, a track or two on that Bus Boys LP I blurbed about a few posts up come closer to heavy Southern boogie rock (in the Mother's Finest sense in Bus Boys' case) than anything by Jackson Highway.
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 20:44 (seventeen years ago)
This is my jam right now. 1971 hit Australian single I'd never heard before a friend of mine put it on a mixed CD for me. Sounds like the Bob Seger System mellowing out to some Canned Heat or something. Or Brownsville Station on a beach Whatever it is, I played it six times in a row while cleaning out my basement last weekend.
― Brio, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:24 (seventeen years ago)
(sorry I didn't read enough of this thread to know if this fits. just the australian bands mentioned above + "past expiry" made me think of this)
― Brio, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:26 (seventeen years ago)
Yep, I bought a (early '80s reissue) 12-inch of that for $1 last month, too. Didn't get it at first, but I came around. This is from another thread:
amazed to learn "Eagle Rock," which is really no great shakes, was a gigantic hit in 1971 in Australia, where it somehow topped the charts for ten weeks. Maybe I'll force-feed it to myself a couple more times, but I doubt it'll hit. (Copyright on my 12-inch single says '82, so I guess it's possible this is a re-recording.)
― xhuxk, Sunday, 12 April 2009 01:14
Turns out Daddy Cool's "Eagle Rock" does have some kind of archival riff and primal structure to it, best overheard loud from the next room over after a couple beers (which is how it was probably often heard in Australia at the time, I bet.) So not as great a pub-boogie single as say "Teenage Head" or "Smokin' In the Boys Room," but still not bad. (And the lyrics to their B-side "Daddy Rocks Off" basically go something like "boogie woogie woogie woogie woogie woogie woogie woogie woogie boogie.")
― xhuxk, Monday, 13 April 2009 16:06
Has great rhythm thump and guitar turnarounds without being heavy. Song used in the opening sequence of "Wolf Creek", Australia's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," mostly for its bonhommie in the car with three students, one guys/two girls, on their way for a tour after a night of excessive drinking and barfing with friends.
― Gorge, Thursday, 16 April 2009 02:59
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:29 (seventeen years ago)
(Actually bought it for 50 cents. Not that anybody cares.)
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:30 (seventeen years ago)
THERE IS A NEW UFO ALBUM COMING OUT.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:32 (seventeen years ago)
not that i really care...
In constructing this new album, legendary rock icons UFO composed more than 35 new tracks in advance of hitting the studio, 13 of which were short-listed and produced at the studio, and 10 of them making the final cut. The final product; the band's new album, The Visitor. The current UFO lineup continues to consist of the three original members, Phil Mogg (vocals), Paul Raymond (guitar, keyboards), and Andy Parker (drums), as well as American world-class guitarist Vinnie Moore. Bass legend and original member Pete Way is currently suffering from a liver disease and was unfortunately not available for the studio production. "All those who have been into UFO for a long time will find all our characteristic trademarks on The Visitor, and anybody new to the band will be impressed by our enthusiasm and dynamism," frontman Phil Mogg enthuses on the subject of the new songs. The Visitor sees the band benefiting especially from their collaboration with Vinnie Moore, who joined UFO in autumn 2003 and has made an excellent impression on the albums You Are Here (2004) and The Monkey Puzzle (2006), and on the band’s tours. Mogg continues,"Without running down previous UFO lineups, it's been a long time since we had a team as strong as this one. Vinnie contributes his youthful energy and amazing guitar technique, and in Andy's return we've seen the reappearance of a musician who has always been very important to the band's original sound."
― scott seward, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:34 (seventeen years ago)
Cracks me up that you guys were already talking about Eagle Rock this month. Guess I should have done a search. It was a grower with me too - took me a few times now I can't get enough.
― Brio, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:35 (seventeen years ago)
chuck, have you ever heard/owned the Buster album I bought last weekend. mid-70's glam rock/pop. do a killer cover of Born To Be Wild. You would love it.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:43 (seventeen years ago)
Bands who had their heydey in the '70s (and UFO was fucking awesome) always go overboard in trying to say that their newest album is a return to form.
RIP Pete Way
― Bill Magill, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:45 (seventeen years ago)
the album by New Adventures i bought was kinda cool too. 1980. thought it was gonna be more punk pop, but it's definitely got more of a rockin' soloin' vibe. they were dutch, i think. they just got new wave haircuts is all. the titles tell it all: drive me wild, spacelab cowboy, if your mamma don't like it, rock & roll woman, back to the pit.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 21:47 (seventeen years ago)
The most recent Uriah Heep album was pretty solid.
― unperson, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 22:37 (seventeen years ago)
I need to listen to that new Uriah record. (Was actually thinking of tracking through it on Rhapsody yesterday, but I am always slow when it comes to on-line listening.)
Have never heard Buster, Scott. Will keep my eyes peeled, though!
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 22:39 (seventeen years ago)
i'm listening again, and the Buster album is a dream. Such amazing production. And such an uncanny mix of awesome 60s-era sunshine pop and 70's glam. It doesn't hurt that my copy is a super-clean british rca pressing. don't know if it came out in the states, but if it did it was probably on crappy dynaflex vinyl. the guitars and the drum break on born to be wild are friggin' awe-inspiring.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 22:58 (seventeen years ago)
Pete Way apparently not dead yet. But unable to get back into the US because of the war on terror.
I'm guessing what happened is: Like many British rockers, Pete has a few drunk driving, drunk & fighting, drunken disorderly, or drunk with drugs in the US. Petty stuff when no one cared and the label, Chrysalis, had a lawyer to come down pay your bail, work out any outstanding warrants and convince a judge you weren't a threat to society. Same with Phil Mogg who had trouble getting into the US a few years ago on the same thing.
So Pete leaves the US to record and play back in England with Waysted. And now not only is he sick, but he can't get through Homeland Security because DHS now routinely denies entry to anyone who has or once had the taint of undesirable or a history of arrests. I'm wagering this is now commonplace and if you're not wealthy and famous and with big lawyer, like f'r instance, Ozzy or what's left of the Stones, this is now a huge hassle for old rock musicians. And it would probably be worth a news story.
GWOT collateral damage: Old Brit drunks denied entry into US as potential terrorists.
― Gorge, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 23:43 (seventeen years ago)
Actually, I'm surprised Pete Townshend can still get into the US. I bet his lawyer is always busy.
― Gorge, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 23:46 (seventeen years ago)
It's too bad about Pete Way, both the illness and the visa troubles. I have a couple buddies in the music business who know him somewhat well, and they say he is an absolutely great guy.
― Bill Magill, Wednesday, 29 April 2009 13:05 (seventeen years ago)
Well my attempts to get a response about this guy hasn't provoked anything on the Dadrock thread.
http://www.winterband.com/
I'm hoping this inspires some Fussell-styled analysis from Dick Destiny. Used to live nearby this guy. Wild.
― bendy, Friday, 1 May 2009 02:27 (seventeen years ago)
Best song titles:
9. Trinity Schminity13. Jesus Ain't No Hippie
― xhuxk, Friday, 1 May 2009 02:52 (seventeen years ago)
He really doesn't go for the father/son/holy ghost thing.
Also, uppity women:
― bendy, Friday, 1 May 2009 03:07 (seventeen years ago)
We were honored to be able to give a CD to Senator Zell Miller and he was kind enough to let us take a picture with him and drummer Philip (and to give permission for us to put it here).
― xhuxk, Friday, 1 May 2009 03:19 (seventeen years ago)
For the couple of fans of Dave Gilbert, the Rockets and New Order, Dennis Thompson has a new blog and explains how DG messed up a showcase in front of Mercury Records. Neal Merryweather even makes an experience at the Starwood.
Here. For those who don't know, Gilbert left New Order and was taken up by the Rockets. The Rockets' second album featured a semi-FM smash, "Oh Well." A little success went to the head. Subsequent albums, while good, did not get as much traction. Gilbert became more erratic, eventually derailing the band. Mostly known for being big in bars around Detroit. Truly a great classic rock 'n roll voice. Dead now.
As for Winterband, hmmm, there's a lot of heavy crazy in the US now. F'r instance, fits right in with the special manias of the Lehigh Valley Biblical Neo-Nazi, the scripture-spouting anti-union ex-union steward.
These are the class of people, now almost all the GOP or loosely associated with it, who voted for decades to instate as leaders the people who've wrecked the economy and made the American brand name into a joke. For reasons difficult to explain other than just plain stupidity and susceptibility to manipulation, instead of now hating on those who've done the dirty work, they hate on the allegedly Godless, or homos, people they think want to take their guns, union workers, 'socialists,' 'commernists' or other people in their same economic slice.
If you lived in Italy prior to WWII maybe you'd have something pungent to say about this, seeing how Benito Mussolini seems to be the kind of savior they're looking for. In fact, the end of Mussolini's power could be a metaphor for the GOP now. The rest of Italy sensibly refused to fight the Allies after the Sicily landings, forcing the Wehrmacht to take over and employ Otto Skorzeny to rescue the Duce. Except the GOP has no modern Otto Skorzeny, no Wehrmacht to reconstitute the old law and order.
Talked about this a little in Rolling Country, too: The cosmic illogic of John Rich pushing his Detroit song on Sean Hannity's America.
Completely different than when Pete Seeger went around singing "This Land is Your Land."
― Gorge, Friday, 1 May 2009 16:46 (seventeen years ago)
Okay, I'm now COMPLETELY obsessed with "Eagle Rock" -- insidious earworm! Googling turns up an alternate early video, a boozy reunion version, and animated Wiggles. But here's how to play it on the balafon:
― Such A Hilbily (Dan Peterson), Friday, 1 May 2009 19:08 (seventeen years ago)
xp For what it's worth, I edited or oversaw pieces at both the Voice and Billboard (connected to a Cat Stevens a/k/a Yusuf Islam cover story in the latter case) about foreign musicians having Visa problems post-9/11, but George is right -- a piece specifically about aging, now fifth-tier rock guys whose terrorism-unrelated civil misdeeds are being used aginst them, and who can't afford to fight it, surely seems like it could be interesting.
Speaking of UFO, I got an advance of the new album in the mail yesterday, and made it about halfway through it. A couple songs seemed okay (third one was even fast I think), but I can't say they were exactly holding my attention. Nice guitar parts here and there, though. I'll get back to it eventually.
Did listen a couple times today though to this $1 album Spitballs, which came out on Beserkley in '78 and has all the wimps and weirdos on the roster (Modern Lovers, Greg Kihn Band, Earthquake, Rubinoos, and UK pub rock guy Sean Tyla, supposedly, though no names are credited on my domestic copy) covering their favorite '50s and '60s oldies. Guess the label was the cloesest thing to a Stiff in the U.S.; the camaraderie feels comparable to me (and I read once that Earthquake had recorded a cover of Ian Dury's "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll"; not sure if it ever saw the light of day). Favorite spitballs are mostly versions of songs I never heard before or at least never thought that much about -- "Gino Is A Coward" (?), "Over & Over" (Bobby Day?),"Let Her Dance" (Bobby Fuller Four sort of imitating Buddy Holly I think), "I Want Her So Bad" (no idea, but it's easily the most punk rock thing on the album.) Most mainstream-'70s-hard-boogie cuts are probably "Knock On Wood" and "Feel Too Good," the latter credited to Roy Wood so I assume it's a Move number. And the rendition of the Who's "Boris The Spider" make it seem like an Alice Cooper precursor. Side closers are "Telstar" and "Batman," pretty neat.
― xhuxk, Friday, 1 May 2009 22:34 (seventeen years ago)
Isn't Earth Quake's "Mr. Security" and the Vanda & Young cover of "Friday On My Mind" on that? Or do they do "Head Held High?" Earth Quake did lotsa covers, "Rte. 66," "Kicks", "Ma Ma Ma Belle". "Knock On Wood" ain't bad but, as I recall, it's really only about half a song, the band sounding like it knocked it out between takes just screwing around and decided to keep it after redoing the vocals to pro spec.
The things that need reissuing are Earth Quake's live album, which was their first for Beserkely, and it's almost all covers. And a double live Beserkely done for a German TV rock show with Earth Quake, Tyla Gang, Greg Kihn and someone else. The first two, which made up one vinyl LP of a 2-fer, smoked. Tyla Gang actually was a Stiff artist at one point. They made one or two for Stiff, as spin-off of Ducks Deluxe, doing a stoked R&B pub boogie and pop style. Which wound up on one LP called "Yachtless," too, which was on Beserkely but which might not have seen domestic release. That was a definitive. Great single, probably from Stiff days, called "Styrofoam." "Moonproof," which followed -- was domestic and on B, and I recall not liking it at all.
― Gorge, Saturday, 2 May 2009 00:33 (seventeen years ago)
foreign musicians having Visa problems post-9/11
This belongs in the metal thread, but the Swedish black metal band Marduk are playing NYC on 5/21; it's their first U.S. tour since February 2001.
― unperson, Saturday, 2 May 2009 01:13 (seventeen years ago)
Isn't Earth Quake's "Mr. Security" and the Vanda & Young cover of "Friday On My Mind" on that? Or do they do "Head Held High?"
Nah, none of those are on Spitballs. (And it's hard to figure out which bands/artists are doing which songs anyway, since as I said, they're not credited. I don't get the idea that any of the tracks are, say, just Earthquake, per se'; it's not a compilation so much as a tossed-off collaboration, or at least that's what it looks like to me. My copy doesn't even list the names of the performers on the cover, though Scott Seward says he has an UK import copy that does. But yeah, "knocked it out between takes just screwing around" is pretty much the aesthetic of the entire album, not just "Knock On Wood." Though that aesthetic definitely goes along with the whole we-might-as-well-be-having-a-pickup-softball-game feel of a lot of these bands' music, including Earthquake's, in the first place.
The Earthquake LPs I have on my shelf, fwiw, are Rocking The World from '75,8.5 (as in Richter Scale) from '76, and Leveled from '77 (easily the one I play the most, thanks to their covers of "Kicks" and Hot Chocolate's "Emma").
― xhuxk, Monday, 4 May 2009 16:46 (seventeen years ago)
Been listening this weekend, or trying to, to the self-titled '75 Columbia LP ($1 used promo pressing) from Zuider Zee, who'd probably wind up the second-to-last musical artist on my alphabetically ordered LP shelf if I decided to keep the thing, but I don't think I'm going to. Just too twee and weedy in its late-Beatles (& maybe Wings) appropriations; could defintely use way more proto-Cheap-Trick powerchords, in other words, though I have a feeling Geir Hongo would go for it. George might even like it more than me, too; I'm just not Beatles-obsessive enough. Basically, the singer usually does a McCartney thing, and they also put his voice through filters or whatever to give him gruffer Lennon-like parts (unless those are two different guys, which I tend to doubt). Do like intermittent sections of the two longest/archest/proggiest songs, five-minute humorously titled "Zeebra" (featuring boogie-woogie piano and Motown bassline and hard rock guitar interludes) and almost-eight-minute "All That Is" (an all-over-the-place mess including a minute or so where it gets loud and fast and stays weird and thus anticipates Tin Huey to my new wave ears). And being Beatles fans, they don't lose the melodies when they get complicated, a good thing. But the only time they stay vigorous enough to hold my attention for an entire song is "Haunter Of The Darkness," at the tail-end of Side One. (They also do something called "The Last Song Of Its Kind," a very deceitful title seeing how it's just a bad flimsy ballad, and I've heard many more bad flimsy ballads since 1975.)
― xhuxk, Monday, 4 May 2009 17:05 (seventeen years ago)
And speaking of end-of-the-alphabet rock, this came in via email at the end of last week. The Hill and Beard quotes at the bottom are pretty amusing:
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played "stump the band" with the audience on April 21 at TD Banknorth Garden in Boston. They were not stumped by a fan's request to perform ZZ Top's great "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" as this account confirms. (There's video of the performance, too, so check it out):
\http://www.nj.com/springsteen/index.ssf/2009/04/boston_video_of_bruce_springst.html
Bruce had performed the song only once before at a regular E Street Band show, on Sept. 15, 1984 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia.He did play it an handful of times at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park in 1984 and 1987
Here's the E Street Band's earlier (1984) crack at the ZZ evergreen (audio only):
Lastly, here's the band's account of how the song, which first appeared as a track on their 1979 release Deguello, came to be:
Billy Gibbons: “We saw a performance one evening, featuring Freddie King. At the conclusion of the show, we were attempting to describe the fierce intensity of that night’s experience – that kind of omnipotent ‘badness’ that is of a universal proportion. This seemed like the way to go.”
Dusty Hill: “You don’t want ‘I’m Bad, I’m Regional.’ People know that bad isn’t really a negative. Are you bad in a little pond? You could be bad worldwide, but it doesn’t sound as good as ‘nationwide.’ I like the ‘gold-tooth-display’ line. A lot of bling.”
Frank Beard: “’Gold-tooth display’ was ahead of the curve.”
― xhuxk, Monday, 4 May 2009 17:17 (seventeen years ago)
Awesome.
― Bill Magill, Monday, 4 May 2009 17:29 (seventeen years ago)
I recall seeing Bruce around then at the Spectrum. Beer fell like rain from the upper decks, the restrooms were a catastrophe and the man had discovered weight-lifting.
Plus the habit of repeating popular choruses fifty times and the art of making a four and half hour show seem like six, right in there with Hot Tuna.
― Gorge, Monday, 4 May 2009 17:47 (seventeen years ago)
That Spitballs comp sounds cool! In response to Chuck's (?) - Gino Is A Coward is by Gino Washington (not to be confused with Geno Washington), a Detroit R&B greasy soul stomper type, big regional hit, I think. Great song. His "Out Of This World" is pretty awesome too.
Glad to hear someone else is on an Eagle Rock kick!
― Brio, Monday, 4 May 2009 21:32 (seventeen years ago)
Listening to a tour-only live disc by The Answer, recorded in December 2007. They're joined by Paul Rodgers on two songs - covers of "I'm a Mover" and "The Hunter."
― unperson, Tuesday, 5 May 2009 17:06 (seventeen years ago)
Well, I just made the thread but can't find it at the top. Great stuff, I tell ya.
― Gorge, Friday, 1 January 2010 01:58 (sixteen years ago)
xp Uh...not Stella. Harpoon. (I don't have beer on draught at home, duh.)
― xhuxk, Friday, 1 January 2010 01:59 (sixteen years ago)
Did it again. Here 'tis for the sake of the Britishes. ILM safety features, I guess.
Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010
― Gorge, Friday, 1 January 2010 02:00 (sixteen years ago)
i am drinking coffee and black & tans (made of guinness and bass).
i just saw shovel on vinyl for CHEAP and i feel stupid now for not picking it up even though i have a copy. it's pricey online. i don't think its on cd.
and yeah i had a used EP (that i liked but i sold it in the store) and a used shovel which i'm keeping cuz i like it. never heard the later album. the later one sells for cheap online.
― scott seward, Friday, 1 January 2010 02:01 (sixteen years ago)
okay, it's to the new thread i go!
― scott seward, Friday, 1 January 2010 02:03 (sixteen years ago)