Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2009

Don't have time this morning to go through that link, but what I've heard of those last two Ian Hunter records sounds really good to me; don't know how popular sales wise.

I was thinking of Ian Hunter as well. Also, though not fitting on this thread but relevant to Kogan's question, the last two Robyn Hitchcock & Venus 3 albums are probably the best things he's done in twenty years. Joe Henry is 50 next year and doing his best work; Wino is 48 so nearly eligible.

Lemmy in Motorhead, Phil Mogg of UFO. Not all of their albums have been godd, but some of them
have been so. Mogg has been a consistantly good hard rock singer.

At least one Status Quo record in the past couple of years has been good, which drags in Francis Rossi and Rich Parfitt.

Suzi Quatro was over 50 when she did Back to the Drive which was a good album.

Quatro only excluded because not white male, obviously.

John Waite -- The Hard Way and the Rounder thing, which included older stuff, too.

That last Uriah Heep record was really strong, too.

Yeah, Kogan mentioned Waite himself, and I seconded it, on that thread. And I said I'd heard good things about that Heep album; still need to check it out. Really need to hear that Quatro now too, which I didn't even know existed. But personally thought the last couple Ian Hunters sounded competent at best (prefer his new one to his previous one, though.)

As per recent announcement of purchase on "I'd buy that for a dollar!" Nothin' on the Boyzz album reaches the mania of these local TV clips from a show at the Agora in Cleveland. If they record company had been able to capture --this-- on vinyl, they might have actually made it to a second and third record.

"Two kick-ass rockers, "Destined to Die" and "Wake It Up, Shake It Up", fly solo among a bunch of overblown boogie-rockers and half-baked Southern biker rock. At times sounds kinda like the so-so first side of OTT bikers The Godz's debut album, but lacks any of that record's ferocious second side bite. The real deal-breaker here though is the production, featuring horns and back-up chorus girls on all but the best songs ..." --sayeth someone on Rate Your Music, pretty accurately. I don't remember who the producer was but the approach was moronic in the context of what the band was like live.

"Too Wild to Tame" -- their best song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_MwihQSO50

Hang around for Dirty Dan Buck pulling the Hammond on top of himself, and the keyboard player trying to yank it off him with band in ful cry. Nice recovery. And what's that -- a short guy playing harmonica, blown out by the rest of the band?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fioT7ws-AKU

CD reissue of the album, now out of print, going for 80+ dollars on Amazon, stupid money.

There was Iggy, back in the mists of time, with the rest of these guys -- doing bad languid blooz. The singer/harmonica player spawned allmusic.com

Eesh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MngsVYSd1C0

Big Balls and the Great White Idiot on YouTube, doing something from 1997's "The Big Waltz," which
is decribed by the band:

1997 followed with the Balls’ soundtrack for the cinema film „Die Mutter des Killers“ (the killer’s mother). This film received the best award of the „Münchner Filmfestspiele“ (Munich film festival) and subsequently became a long-running success in cinema and television. The soundtrack was released as „The Big Waltz“ on CD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViBBk06xIKI

Stick around for the shot of the girl kicking some guy soundly in the balls.

For Germans, I still think they sound astonishingly like an Aussie fightin' bar rock band.

Sehr gut. And ja, wunderbar 'nads-kicking too. Plus, wonder they seem Aussie, given their seemingly AC/DC-derived moniker. As I've said elsewhere, for decades I regularly confused Big Balls Etc. with actual Down Underites the Coloured Balls just from seeing both bands' names and descriptions in old new wave guidebooks, but that was before George ripped me a Big Balls Big Waltz (I think it's called) CD-R and Aztec reissued Coloured Balls' Ball Power. But I still swear they're cousins, somehow.

The Boyzz' Too Wild To Tame, too, is pretty much as George described it -- Lots of brawny biker boogie fun, peaking with the title track, but they didn't exactly have much a knack for writing catchy choruses beyond the title track. Actually, I hear as much Black Oak Arkansas as Godz in their grease chain somehow. And I do like when they finish one song by quoting "Chantilly Lace." And the LP cover (and inner sleeve, depicting a biker war) kicks ass.

Actually been listening more this week to the biracial (two black guys, two white guys, with one of each switching for a different guy of the same race on their second album) late '70s Island Records funk/fusion/space/prog foursome Automatic Man, whose pair of LPs have each set me back a buck in recent months. Here's George's prediction from a different thread in January, after I bought the first album:

Don't know if you'll like this. Requires more than one listen. Extension of Stomu Yamashita's Go, sort of, which was an experiment on jazz and middle of the road hard rock, the latter furnished by Pat Thrall, who made a lot more money with Pat Travers later but quit that, too, after co-writing "Smoking Whiskey, Drinkin' Cocaine." Anyway, Automatic Man is nothing like that. It's very spacey, often almost frictionless, sometimes veering into prog. One of the members -- singer/bassist, I think, is now much more famous as a songwriter/producer under another name. Plus Michael Shrieve's in the band as a kind of poor man's Jan Hammer. I like it but was there at the beginning. Definitely an acquired taste but not so convincing that you'd have stuck around for the second album, which was colored pink instead of blue, like this one.

But I ended up liking the album more than he figured; Pink Floydy space treks named for Atlantis and interstellar tracking devices thickening into fake-Hendrix territory, with wah-wah parts and vocals that sound like the black guys singing liked the same things about Jimi that people in Living Colour and King's X later did. Second album Visitors from 1977 (with as George suggests the same alien cover as the debut but just a different colored background) is the real surprise, though -- a whole Side 2 of prog (sounds like they were Gentle Giant fans too, and they do a song about Neptune) getting heavy by the end, but on the first side they go all out funk-disco (with hard rock guitar solos) in the first two songs then go total, unmistakable Steely Dan. And the prog itself is pretty funky. I can see how somebody might hate it, but I don't. Way better than the Ambrosia album I bought a few months back (which wasn't bad, and crossed over in at least vaguely similar ways, which is why I mention it.)

Actually, the front cover of Too Wild To Tame seems to be a faily blatant Marlon Brando in The Wild One homage, if that wasn't already obvious. Pretty neat for 1977, I guess. (Publicity bio still inside my copy claims they were the biggest regional band in Chicago at the time besides Cheap Trick, and praises "the astounding lead vocal pyrotechnics of Mr. Buck, whose style borrows from Bob Seger, Robert Plant, and an electric chainsaw in overdrive.")

Popoff is iffy about the album, yet a fan (likes the six-minute "Destined To Die" and compares "Lean N' Mean" to fast Purple), and says their spirit lived on with Four Horsemen, Raging Slab, and Brother Cane.

Also, I think it's funny that some members of the band went on to form a band called B'zz (who I've never heard) -- so, what, Boyzz with oi! taken out?

And I meant "NO wonder [Big Balls] seem Aussie..."

don't remember who the producer was but the approach was moronic in the context of what the band was like live

"Produced by Ron Albert and Howard Albert for Fat Albert Productions." "Executive Producer: Steve Popovich." And yeah, the four-man brass section on a few songs definitely precludes their sound from attaining the ferociousness of those live clips.

on to form a band called B'zz (who I've never heard) -- so, what, Boyzz with oi! taken out?

More or less. No Dirty Dan, more to the light pop metal side of things. Still no knack for song-writing, despite the more pop direction. Maybe one good cut, which was actually featured on Dave Clark's American Bandstand once. Had the album, don't miss its absence. Worth 25 to 50 cents if you ever see it.

Was able to net a digital copy of Big Balls' second album, from the late Seventies, Foolish Boys.

Way more poverty case punk rock-sounding, somewhere between Teenage Head and any miscellaneous bunch of second tier UK punk rock bands. "Punk" songtitles like "Hang Yourself from an Apple Tree," "Submission to Violence" and "Gonna Be a Rat." Meh -- not nearly as good as The Big Waltz, twenty years later. Has that nascent Aussie yob sound, though, only you can hear the German accent a little.

Actually, "Too Wild To Tame" on the Boyzz LP is the song that ends with the Big Bopper quote; also has Dirty Dan doing sort of Steve Tyler shrieks to a certain extent. It may well be the band's best actual song per se' as George says, but on record at least, I think I might like the heavier and less horn-drooped "Destined To Die" and "Lean N Mean" more -- former is an extended organ-driven wailer. Don't mind the band's chooglier and more good-timey songs (in fact I swear "Hoochie Koochie" and the under-two-minute "Good Life Shuffle" sound almost like distant Charleston-contest cousins of Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes), but if the heavy tracks were more typical of their live sound, it's pretty clear why fans heard the LP as a big letdown.

this looks cool.

RELEASES ON OCT 27, 2009:

YOU WERE’T THERE: A HISTORY OF CHICAGO PUNK 1977-1984

"Truly great documentaries not only evoke a period but resurrect them wholesale. That's the case with You Weren't There - A History of Chicago Punk 1977-84, a blood-spattered valentine directed by Joe Losurdo and Christina Tillman."

-- Robert K. Elder, Chicago Tribune

YOU WERE’T THERE: A HISTORY OF CHICAGO PUNK 1977-1984 is a rare glimpse into a truly one-of-a-kind American underground music scene that documents the impact that the Punk movement on the Windy City. Though overlooked in the annals of rock history, Chicago served as an important early supporter of this burgeoning and controversial scene that could be violent and unsavory at times, but always tempered with large doses of humor, art, and intelligence.

USA 2009, 130 min (+ 29 min of Extras), Color/B&W, 16mm/HD, 1.78:1, English

Featuring: Naked Raygun, the Effigies, Strike Under, Big Black, Articles Of Faith, Silver Abuse, Mentally Ill, Subverts, Negative Element, Tutu & the Pirates, DA, Rights of the Accused, Savage Beliefs, End Result and more

DVD Features: Deleted scenes and rare performances by Articles of Faith, Mentally Ill, Negative Element, Tutu and the Pirates, Jeff Pezzati, Rights of the Accused, and Steve Bjorklund

LP/DVD Features: 20 track vinyl LP of rarities from Chicago’s finest, poster, and standard DVD features

LP features tracks by: Naked Raygun, Articles Of Faith, Negative Element, Tutu & The Pirates, Mentally Ill, Buzzards, The Way-Outs, Painterband, Strike Under, DA, Subverts, Toothpaste, End Result, Trial By Fire, Verboten, Rights Of The Accused, Savage Beliefs, Nadsat Rebel, Seismic Waves, and Effigies

Catalog # FTF-003

DVD UPC: 082354250522 Price: $24.95

Limited Edition UPC:082354250621 Price: 34:98

http://www.factorytwentyfive.com/ftf3/

A curiosity scored a feature on the LA Times Calendar sectio today, entitled "Punk and Islam? Get Over It"

Okay, I will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUCg-v4ScFk

Dreadful stuff, by this example.

But the titles in the story made me laugh: Sharia Law in the USA, Suicide Bomb the Gap, Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay.

Kominas and taqwacore subject apparently flypaper for Rolling Stone, Newsweek, the New York Times -- the latter two which one would expect. Also News of the Weird.

This is too choice.

The Waco Tribune gets more conservative right wing ownership, looks to revamp editorial page. Editor contacts Nuge with friendly suggestion to tone down name-calling and attacks, Nuge agrees to try in e-mail, promptly posts an attack on editor on his website. Gets canned from newspaper.

http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2009/08/16/0816wacsanchezFINAL.html

"The irony of this disagreement with Nugent is that I have been one of his biggest defenders.

"Two years ago, I sustained a strong attack from the left that demanded that I pull his column after a concert he had in which he held up what appeared to be some semi-automatic weapons on stage and unleashed on candidate Barack Obama, 'You might want to suck on these, you punk.' "

Nuge compares paper to Nazis here:

http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/stateofmine/?p=1647

Noticed by Romanesko, too:

http://www.poynter.org/article_feedback/article_feedback_list.asp?id=168572

Ted Nugent & Sean Hannity skedded to do "Yay Coal Day" in West Virginia, paid for by coal company.

"The site will be a reclaimed surface mine.

"A little background: [Massey Cola Energy] is the scourge of the United Mine Workers, which holds its annual Labor Day rally in Racine, Boone County."

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2009/08/11/sean-hannity-will-save-the-coal-industry-on-labor-day/

John Rich added, maybe to sing 'Shuttin' Detroit Down' for the anti-union sponsors advertised as a jobs rally.

http://www.wtvr.com/news/dp-wv--jobsrally0817aug17,0,4017160.story

Opinion divided over Nugent dismissal at Waco newspaper. Nuge compared to Maureen Dowd, except on
right.

http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2009/08/18/08182009wacletters.html

So somehow I wound up playing the Marcus album on United Artists from 1976 three times in the past two days. Just didn't want to hear anything else, at least not in the living room, where the turntable is. Guess I like it a lot -- on a second Hounds or Streetheart album level, almost! Not sure what else to say about it right now (except that I paid $2 for it at The Thing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn a year or two ago), so I'll let somebody else say it for me:

http://phrockblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/marcus-marcus-1976-us-detroit-obscure.html

i need the marcus album.

chuck, do you run into this guy down in texas?

the lead singer, i mean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd9IZlQAh58

Listening to Marcus right now. The blog entry made it sound somewhat more than it is -- one of those many club bands successful locally and very capable of making a good hard rock album if given the
resources.

Reminded me of the bands on the CD with Popoff's book, particularly Cain -- although not nearly as cutting, with some Head East and Wooden Nickel-era Styx sans reliance on keys.

Every cluster of counties in the US had bands like this during the mid-Seventies, often quite good when doing their own material.

Pretty obvious why it was in for substantial fail. Terrible packaging, which is minor. African-Americna lead singer is the other show-stopper, unfortunately, for the time. Thin Lizzy had the one get out of jail free card, probably because of "The Boys are Back" which got on radio bigtime before the kids realized there was someone named Phil Lynott.

So outside the area, the white kids who'd buy this on spec would have never gone for it in the stores, even though it sounds really really white, even the ostensibly hard rock funk bits. "Gypsy Fever" good example. They're just not that good when they tip over into slightly more funky stuff, too frictionless, not at all like Aerosmith. There was one guy who was 'it' doing funky hard rock 'n' roll with a heavy axe in the mid-Seventies and it was Pat Travers.

I'm not hearing any Glenn Hughes in the vocals at all, which would've made 'em a little like Trapeze and "Come Taste the Band" Deep Purple.

"Highschool Ladies, Streetcorner Babies" is probably the closest it comes to Aerosmith. But the sing-songy verse parts do it in a bit.

Unusually named "Pillow Stars" comes closest to Lizzy in some of the harmony guitar parts.

That Texas Hippie Coalition video left me speechless.

gorge did you see my jukin' bone thread? are you a fan? album kills me every time i play it:

JUKIN' BONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"That Texas Hippie Coalition video left me speechless."

hahaha! same here!

That Jukin' Bone record has the '71 shit -- a bit of trying to be everything, some Grand Funk, maybe a lot of Grand Funk, the pot smokin' guy halfway between being a hippie and a slacker, they even do "Goin' Down! Everyone has to do "Goin' Down" or you don't get your hard rock union card. And "The Hunter," that the was the optional choice. They do both! Oww!

Check the lede photo. The reviewer was also rendered relatively speechless, judging by the entry.

You spend too much time describing it, uncharitable adjectives could creep in.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/reverb/2009/04/07/live-review-texas-hippie-coalition-cervantes-masterpiece-ballroom/

This is entertaining.

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:73VCtUggHiYJ:www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/ReaderComments/%3FContainerID%3D224831+texas+hippie+coalition+review&cd=16&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Best comment:

The words WHITE TRASH is racist. I am proud to be white trash.

CDBaby:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/texashippiecoalition

Myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/texashippiecoalition

Hmmm...Don't see any Austin shows scheduled for the next few months, but I'll keep an eye out. They're playing San Antonio in October, though. The month of giant pumpkins, which seems somehow appropriate. (Judging from "Leavin," which sounds to me like Alice In Chains with a better singer, I'd probably have to see them live to truly appreciate them. Though maybe some of their other songs are more Southern rock, less downtrodden grunge, who knows.)

I got their CD in the mail when I was still at Metal Edge; I remember it being a combination of Pantera's and Black Label Society's worst qualities, with some substandard modern hard rock (think The Four Horsemen) thrown in. They've got nothing going for them but visual spectacle, but I imagine if you're in a third-tier market, starved for loud live music, they'll be more than entertaining enough.

i always liked Agony Column. my fave Austin, Texas hellbilly metal band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbPqAI_wFzY

Been browsing through some of the rips of old stuff I used to have on the mustanghardrock blog. Reminds me of how hit or miss the material was and how much it has been inflated by niche web writing.

Black Sheep -- Lou Gramm's band before he was Lou Gramm. Well, he was pretty much himself, anyway, prior to Foreigner. The poor man's Foreigner and Free -- one song, "Power to Heal," you'd swear was Free if you didn't know the entirety of them in a blind test. And that's about the high point. Too much trudging which doesn't do much for Lou's overwrought style of singing.

Leslie West Band -- What Mick Jones of Foreigner was doing, playing second fiddle to Leslie, before getting together with Lou for Foreigner. It's the Leslie West show, it rocks, you know what it sounds like if you like the guy. He's a master of consistancy as well as constancy.

Broken Glass -- Stan Webb and a bunch of guys from Keef Hartley and other Brit blues outfits just post Savoy Brown's Boogie Brothers, which was the same thing almost, if this means anything to you. One totally ruling and catchy blues rock cut, "Standing on the Border," and the rest is genre slush, competently done, with some jug band and quiet bits thrown in.

With the exception of Leslie West, Jukin' Bone -- also ripped on the blog -- is the best of the lot.

Not sure I have the energy to revisit all of it. Features all FIVE Babe Ruth albums. All SIX Chicken Shack albums. Almost the entire Stray catalog. "Hearts of Fire," their 75 or 76 album, contains two excellent southern rock tunes, one of which -- Mr. Wind" -- you'd almost swear is Skynyrd.

<img src=http://www.dickdestiny.com/cwt.JPG />

Actually, CWT's The Hundredweight does live up the hype, as fun as Jukin' Bone. Brit power trio on a German label, doing straight power trio stuff with horn backing which in no way sucks.

I'd never heard of this. Kind of like Chicago with the guitar turned up louder and no pop radio stuff like "25 or 6 to 4." Pre-heavy metal cover of "Signed DC".

"Steam Roller" just as title sounds, stud bull hard-man ranting.

Ah!

http://wwww.dickdestiny.com/cwt.JPG

Dammit.

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

Blog novelty tune:

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2009/08/funky-rock-n-roll-friday-hey-craig-man.html

xhuxk, do you have the new Weird Al CD, Internet Leaks? I was browsing cable music videos today and his spoof of "Riders on the Storm," "Craigslist," was spot on. He could also have done a wonder fully hilarious X-rated riff on the same theme. Captured perfectly the inanity of the posts.

And the CWT album continues to astound. Six tunes on it, all of them early Seventies brutality with the horn charts, get better the more I listen to 'em. And I was a bit harsh on Broken Glass. It's probably Stan Webb's most hip mid-70's Chicken Shack album that's not Chicken Shack. Half of it fair to good blooz rock, arranged so his weak voice trading off with Miller Anderson's, another perennial blooz rock sideman, is actually good. One edits out the jug band country, reggae and sensitivity and it's a solid fifteen to twenty minutes of genre.

Henry's Funeral Shoe Everything's For Sale -- A winner in the Dept. of Naming, guitar and drum blooz & boogie, downtuned a step or maybe two so that it always sounds stud and 'roid rage he-manly.

Works a bit better than the last two Black Keys records, mostly in rawness, brutality and groove. Hearing a song now where the guy goes from stud bull to US college nerd, quite a span for a band from Cardiff, Wales.

Nasty crunching slide throughout, the down tuning lending a bit of a stoner rock vibe to it. "Empty Church" is the high point, having the best groove. It's at cut seven and after that the vein-busting apoplectic hard blooz man on vocals is about all the prescription you need. The song's riff smokes.
"Hand Prayer" uses a bit of Ten Years Afters' old "Choo Choo Mama" riff. Last tune goes folk, sounding a little like hippie dippie Donovan.

If it was aiming for early-Seventies fuzztone density, mission accomplished. Style is great, but once you get past the attack and wallop, there isn't one damn song with a catchy or memorable hook to it, just as with the Black Keys. Well, the Black Keys have a couple, like what was played for the Black Cat Moan movie and the tune Hung's using for its opening theme.

Nothing about Radio Moscow on the whole thread? Brain Cycles is pretty good two-man psychedelic retro blues stuff, its feet are on the ground but its head is in like outer space, baby.

Well, yeah -- they certainly fit re Henry's Funeral Shoe, only they're 'merican. But after spending some time watching their vids -- they have a lot of exposure -- I felt a bit like the guy in the crowd who yells, "Play your other song."

For some reason, many of the two man bands have this feature, even the most famous.

Starting to run through Riding the Blinds' Start Running from a year or so ago. Power trio to the Crazy Horse singer/songwriter side of things. This is a good thing, as it means the band does songs as opposed to riffs, vamps and feels -- which, after a lot of examples, never pans out in bands which
don't do some type of metal.

Good version of "I'm Going Down" on YouTube, which you might not think so of during the first thirty seconds, when the singer/guitarist is a bit of college nerd voice. But then it snaps into place and the groove works, and they do it as finely as anyone else since Jeff Beck made it popular.

Never heard of them prior to yesterday. So I'm surprised at the total lack of press other that some local blurbs and, even moreso, by the stupid sum of money wanted for a copy of their first release on Amazon reseller.

Me on White Wizzard, in the Voice, of all places (and yeah, the headline's kind of weird):

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-08-25/music/all-hail-white-wizzard-and-the-new-wave-of-british-heavy-metal/

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AJcpmbP_Sow/RqRacNSNEcI/AAAAAAAAAP0/HtLxi5kMoMs/s320/folder.jpg

Blown Free Maximum Rock 'n' Roll from the late Seventies, a white label homemade affair.

Terry Knight Grand Funk and the early Seventies didn't end in the early Seventies for these guys. A fine curiosity, plenty of fuzzy, blasting brassy guitar and corny arrangement. "We play rock n roll music/The band was outasite!" For some of these songs, they are.

Oh, and here be a link:

http://robotsforronnie.blogspot.com/2007/07/blown-free-maximum-rock-and-roll-1978.html

Ha, good job recycling the church-burner quote. They oughtta put in onna T-shirt.

Yeah, or a bumper sticker at least. I owe you one for pointing out that interview to me, George. But I couldn't resist.

This robotsforronnie blog (named for a Crack The Sky song, right? Or are they both referring to some sci-fi thing I'm not nerdy enough to know about about?) stuff looks promising. I'd run across it before while googling individual albums, but never really explored it much. Guess I'll have to now.

Youtubed that new Weird Al Craigslist Doors parody George mentioned a few posts up, and I second his approval of it. Anybody who hasn't heard it, do so.

Spent some time in the past couple days, for the first time in 23 years I guess, with the first Georgia Satellites album, which I probably underrated in their time. Actually preferred the followup single "Battleship Chains" to the big goofy hit back then; I was wrong about that, I think, but "Battleship Chains" is still good. But I guess "Railroad Steel" is the album's heaviest track; "Can't Stand The Pain" and "Nights Of Mystery" the most Stones-sliding; "Over And Over" a good "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" rip; and they don't censor the lines about "slant eyed ladies" in their "Every Picture Tells A Story Donut" cover. Suddenly I'm curious, though -- Obviously they hit on the basis of what was more or less a novelty hit (like say Timbuk 3 or whoever), but what audience, if any, were they originally marketed to? A few years later you could see anybody from hair-metal (esp say Faster Pussycat or Rock City Angels) fans to country (esp say Kentucky Headhunters -- and John Anderson actually covered "Keep Your Hands") fans going for them, not to mention Black Crowes fans a few more years after that, but in 1986 was their audience supposed to just be people who were still buying Stones and ZZ Top albums, or who? They really seem like an anomaly for that era, unless I'm not thinking of somebody. (Replacements fans? Jason and the Scorchers fans? Screaming Blue Messiahs fans? As if those bands even had that many fans to begin with.) (Okay, I got it -- Mellencamp fans, right?)

I don't know their two subsequent LPs at all. Metal guy Popoff thought they got a bit better (his scores go 6 to 6 to 7); old Stones and Skynyrd supporter Christgau thought they got slightly better then worse (B to B+ to C+). I don't know who to believe.

did you like any of the dan baird solo albums? i only really remember his early 90's hit, i love you period.

"but in 1986 was their audience supposed to just be people who were still buying Stones and ZZ Top albums, or who?"

yes. stones and zz top fans. and even ac/dc fans. rootsy/retro/southern rock is something that major labels have always pushed because it is something they know how to sell and it doesn't confuse them. and they like it! and its why the 80's were littered with the bones of Treat Her Right and The Brandos and all the cowboy Long Ryders/Jason & The Scorchers bands.