Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2009

man, went to my brother's apartment in hudson, new york and he had 4 or 5 different issues of andy shernoff's old teenage wasteland zine. so fuckin' cool. and funny. so snotty too. pre-punk fuck you punk! wish i had had time to read them all cover to cover.

love this wiki list of bands who have recorded andy's songs. i haven't heard a lot of them other than the obvious ones:

The Dictators, Master Plan, The Ramones, Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone, Mary Weiss, Dion DiMucci and The Little Kings, Turbonegro, The Hellacopters, Drivin and Cryin, Baptized By Fire, The Del-Lords, The Toilet Boys, The Young Fresh Fellows, The Nomads, The Untamed Youth, 69 Eyes, The Golden Arms, The Pleasure Fuckers, The Fastbacks, The Vikings, The David Roter Method, The Streetwalkin Cheetahs, Teengenerate, Texas Terri, Tom Clark, The Screaming Tribesman, The Smugglers, The Meatmen, Sex Museum, The Sons of Hercules, Electric Frankenstein, The Prissteens, Park Central Squares, The Alter Boys, The Hudson Falcons, Metal Mike, Tesco Vee, The Mighty Ions, Sismicos, Lawn Vultures, The Statics, The Persuaders, The Scared Stiffs, Furious George, Powder Monkeys, Parasites, Wanda Chrome & The Leather Pharohs, Los Vivos, the Phanthom Fliers, Labanak, The Wretched Ones, Angel Corpus Christi, Rick Blaze & The Ball Busters, Asteroid B612, Electric Frankenstein, Fifi & The Mach III, Jeff Dahl, Shock Treatment

Scott, you should totally start re-printing choice snotty Teenage Gazette excerpts here. I've always heard of it, but never read it!(Did Metal Mike write for that? Seems like he should've, if he didn't.)

Estimate that I've heard songs by about half of those Shernoff-covering bands (some of which I recall being infinitely better than some other ones.) Doubt I've heard many of their actual Shernoff covers, though.

Re Streetwalkers: If you liked Family, you might like them. For me Family was an often iffy
proposition. Hey, early Euro-art, mostly rock format, dramatic but almost no roll.

Streetwalksrs were supposed to be even more rock. What they were was louder. I had Red Card which was the one which have the most obvious interest for people on this thread. Couldn't write songs, definitely not at all like Aerosmith, almost no groove. Loud and oblique with Roger Chapman. Sometimes painful and easy to ignore or immediately take off, unintentionally so.

There was a live album. I have never heard it.

Steve Gibbons I just can't recall. There's a cover of "Tulane" on YouTube and it's pretty Sha Na Na, with a lighter side of pub rock feel.

Thanks George.

xp Teenage Wasteland Gazzete, I mean. (Googling the phrase indicates there's a book PDF you can download? Is that a compilation of fanzine pieces or what?)

Anyway, from that list, I recommend the Nomads to anybody who doesn't know their stuff. And Texas Terri.

BTW, scored a copy of Suzi Quatro's Back to the Drive from 2006. It's produced by Andy Scott of Sweet and with Quatro, it's given all the bells and whistles that came with the original glam recordings.

The title cut is the best song, but "15 Minutes of Fame" cops Slade's "Hey Ho Wish You Well" which in turn cops "Run Runaway" or vice versa. Normally, I detest versions of Neil Young's "Rockin' In the Free Word," but her take on it manages not to suck. She turns it into old pop heavy metal, less ponderous than Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder.

"I Don't Do Gentle" is true to the old glam rock take on Elvis stuff, which was pretty common on her records and those of others. Could easily work on country music video.

Good album, not infrequently great. Startling how she's past fifty but doesn't sound like it.

thanks to my brother i FINALLY got a copy of the Marcus album. happy about that.

right now listening to the first Strapps album on Harvest from 1976. i dig it. especially when they go for full-on mott the hoople. funny songs. even one entitled "rock critic" all about how awful rock critics are. "I'm gonna make it as a rock critic/gonna sling some mud/gonna make it stick/gonna make you suffer for the things that the good lord never gave me!" first song "school girl funk" is funny dirty funky hard rock and it's a keeper.

Yeah, the Strapps were cool. The CD I have of it has some pic of the band in a "hire car" -- as they say in the UK -- with a hooker in between them. There went any sales in the US or placement in stores south of the Mason-Dixon line.

http://waytoyoursoul.blogspot.com/2007/10/strapps-strapps-1976-hard-rock-256.html

Absolutely made for this thread. There's a lot of Streetwalkers floating around in the usual rip off joints, too, not that it matters. (Vicious But Fair and Red Card) Some of it even streamed, reminding me it was everything I thought it wasn't.

http://waytoyoursoul.blogspot.com/2007/12/microwave-dave-american-peasant-2004.html

Ripping off a guy who plays cigarbox guitar live is a bit lowdown.

"Burnin' For You" covered by Shiny Toy Guns in new Lincoln car commercial. You can YouTube it. Sung by this lady:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisely_Treasure

Utter dogshit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlDmV2pD9P8

Straight James Williamson showing he's still got some the 'Raw Power' chops. Even playing through a Vox, which really goes back to the unique sound on that Stooges record, considerably different
than Ron Asheton.

There's more here, including Raw Power and Search & Destroy:

http://www.straightjameswilliamson.com/JWvideo.html

"Cock in My Pocket" yet -- technically from Metallic KO. A CD of this show with a better mix and tone would sell a few.

Was curious about a couple of the bands on KZOK: Best Of The Northwest 1981 (Starstream, 1981), which I bought for $3 a few years back. The liner notes claim that "no band has rocked the Northwest harder or longer than Jr. Cadillac", whose "Something Strange" sound like hardassed Bishops/Feelgood-style pub rockabilly with an Elvis-inspired singer; a couple links are below, and apparently they're still around, though the first couple songs I'm hearing on line don't nearly match the one on the compilation.

http://www.jrcadillac.com/

http://www.pnwbands.com/jrcadillac.html

http://www.visionarydance.com/SFS/jrcadillac.html

And "Lookin Out For #1" by Ictus is hard biker boogie with a mean mama singer, probably somewhere in the vicinity of early 1994 or Headpins.

http://www.pnwbands.com/ictus.html

Ictus music career started in Bremerton WA 1980 with a very heavy sound and big production. They recorded their album, Icarus, in Seattle and had a very popular song "The Ice Age Cometh". They played in front of sold out houses in the greater Kitsap areas and Olympia. They then started playing concerts and night clubs in the Seattle market and branched out to the mid west which included Denver, CO.

I like the idea that they were able to make Denver part of the Midwest!

The rest of the comp is okay, but those are the great ones. The Heats are average or better powerpop. Legs do a rocking version of "30 Days In The Hole" with a Joplin style singer who I'm pretty sure doesn't get all the words right; their originals are said to be "hard-driving rock/blues with AC/DC/Trower/early Zeppelin influences," but I haven't heard any.

Also been playing Diesel's Watts In The Tank, also from 1981. Oddball Dutch band, had one (really great) U.S hit with the new wave pop disco metal whatever "Sausalito Summernight," which peaked at #25 that year. No idea what Dutch guys knew about Sausalito, but it worked. The closest band I can think to compare them to is (early '80s) Golden Earring, and I'm pretty sure that's not just because they're from Holland. But they also have a Styx/Queen/Foreigner pomp thing going on here and there, and "Down In The Silvermine" is a total jig-rock (like Horslips maybe? But catchier. Uh...Men Without Hats??) about how down in the mine the days are long but the work is fine. At least I think that's what they say. I doubt the work is actually very fine, though.

"I Hear You Knockin'" -- ala Dave Edmunds -- and "Riot in Cell Block #9" is done ala the Feelgood's on Malpractice. So I guess that gets Jr. Cadillac into pub rock territory. "Too Much Monkey Business" wasn't bad, either. The Edmunds cover is definitely the best I'm hearing. "Sea Cruise" also has the Engli Edmunds pub rock vibe going strong. All of these are from one of their '74 shows at the 'Evergreen Ballroom.'

Oh, and if you were on the New York Times website at the wrong time today. Big 'Oof!'

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2009/09/new-york-times-sunday-virus-adventure.html

hey, chuck, have you ever heard the 70's Brit band Burlesque? I think you might like them.

I mention them on this thread:

a thread for great bands (and artists) that just didn't...quite...fit.

Don't think I've ever heard Burlesque, Scott, though now I'm curious! And I saw that thread the other day -- looks cool! -- and I have some bands I can add to it if I find a free couple hours somtime, ha...

Some Williamson interviews:

http://www.metroactive.com/metro/09.02.09/music-0935.html

http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_13209265?source=rss&nclick_check=1

he still sounds great judging from the youtube clips of that gig.

Ted Nugent-ization in Heevahava Country

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2009/09/in-heevahava-country-if-you-are-to-seek.html

hey guys. i just recently listened to Buffalo's Volcanic Rock for the first time, and i think i kinda love it. sorta CCR (or maybe just Fogerty, really) gone 'eavy--only five tracks!!!. what should i look for next, oh wizened masters of all things rawk?

Well, you'd probably like two other Buffalo records if you see 'em: Dead Forever and Only Want You For Your Body.

The bass player from Buffalo went into Rose Tattoo to play guitar, who became far bigger -- in Australia, anyway. Rose Tattoo were probably the heaviest and most extreme boogie band, ever, all their songs taken from the brutish and seamy side of life, delivered by Angry Anderson, a little bald guy with a ferocisou voice and the demeanor of someone who'd just been released from hard time in prison.

now playing: The Rods - Wild Dogs

now playing: Tommy Bolin - Teaser

Wondered what happened to Tsar. Still don't know. But my original line was that if they were gonna do glam in
1999, and that's what they were doing, they should've revolted when handed Tim Lord-Alge as the mixer for their
debut. What turned out to be great for the Jonas Bros. seven years later didn't do the best job for them.

http://wilfullyobscure.blogspot.com/2008/11/tsar-king-of-school-ep-2001-sbn-session.html

So here's a promotional thing Hollywood put out, with stuff Lord-Alge didn't mix away into mooning sissyland.

Odd Kiss-like cover of the Backstreet Boys' Larger than Life. King of the School and You and Jim Would Hit It
Off hit the old glitter rock vibe right, the spine not all squeezed out. Afraidio makes it sound like there was a hard rock band underneath it all along.

Some live stuff included, all closer to the sound they'd deliver on Band-Girls-Money before bust.

Here's the bona fide bad idea, encapsulated in the Allmusic review...self-explanatory in an unintentionally hilarios way.

"Tsar brought in producer Rob Cavallo (Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls, Eric Clapton) and mixer impresario Chris Lord-Alge (Duran Duran, Savage Garden, Stevie Nicks, Hole)."

Yep, some Duran Duran, Savage Garden and Stevie Nicks -- just what they needed. Perhaps they thought it was a good idea at the time. Maybe they never did, being compelled to it by the record company.

listening to Rose Tattoo's Assault & Battery: damn, this is potent stuff! punkier than early-AC/DC, too. oh well, live an' learn.

now playing: Graeme Edge Band - Kick Off Your Muddy Boots

A review of a live record of Rose Tattoo's done a few years ago. This when Pete Wells, the guy from Buffalo, was
still alive and in the band.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-04-03/music/dung-jumpers-down-under/

now playing: Earl Slick Band -- Razor Sharp

was listening to Earl the other day! "PJ Proby" has to be one of the strangest tribute songs ever written by anyone.

got this from my brother. it's great! local columbus ohio pressing from 1983. you can't quite tell from this picture, but they are total new wave glam metal warriors. thought it might be fun to play once, but i really really like it. very diverse mix of hard rock, pop metal, new wave, you name it. a lost gem if there ever was one. can't find anything on the internet about the band.

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20080604/320259978674.jpg

later 1985 album. i'll keep my eye out for it, but it would be total luck to find one.

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20080604/320259977167.jpg

what i wasn't expecting was how well-written the songs are and how rockin' the rock is. and then to throw in some oddball punk/new wave songs just sweetens the deal. i'll do a track by track post when i get to work tomorrow.

I got curious & started googling. It looks like there are copies of their 2 records (on cd, maybe?) and a 25th anniversary reunion cd available here:

http://www.mattavery.com/downloads.html

ooh, good find. that reunion cover is, um, really something. i wonder if those are cdrs for 15 bucks. probably.

I thought the newest had one had great song selection. "Don't Pull Your Love" by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds and "Hot Razors in My Heart" by Crack the Sky, which is quite a span.

Can't say much for his taste in drunk heevahava T-shirts but Matt Avery's quite the tunesmith.

Performed on stage with Kato Kaelin at "The Gathering" at The Continent, Columbus OH which aired on Extra TV 1995

!?

He also played guitar for Tiffany.

Speaking of Buffalo upstream, dug into my stacks for the Count Bishops, who shortened it to The Bishops for "Live" on Chiswick in '78. Dave Tice of Buffalo as the front man, and the live record the band's usually tough sound from the very hard man side of pub rock. Lots of Chuck Berry guitar, the performance on sulfate. One of their best was "(I Want) Candy!" by the Strangeloves, four years before Bow Wow Wow took it worldwide. If you're on this thread, you'll muchly prefer the Bishops' take on it.

Their 7-inchers, of which that was one, were also very good.

Lotsa Bishops on my shelves, much of it reissued on CD by Ace between 1995 and 2006: Self-titled album, Cross Cuts (under the name Bishops), Rollin' With EP, The Best Of, Speedball Plus 11 (which is early stuff from 1975, before Tice was in the band.) Just take your pick; not much of it doesn't rock ferociously. Personal favorite track is probably "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In" on Cross Cuts, the old Fleetwood Mac song that the Rezillos also covered, but nobody made it kick heads in like these pub-punk thugs did.

Speaking of head-kicking thugs, a few things that surpised me (or I was happy to be reminded of) upon playing the first Point Blank LP (from '76, one of George's all-time favorites I know) a couple times this week, after I bought a $1 copy to replace the one I'd gotten rid of after I wrote my metal book: (1) How "Free Man" seems to be a pro-police song except when they try to confiscate the bands' pills (it's kind of ambiguous about taxation I guess); (2) The high crazy Little Richard yelps in "Moving" (how many other rock bands have even pulled those off, since the early Beatles I mean? And anybody else even half this heavy?); (3) The heavy but ornate jig rhythms through "Wandering"; (4) how "Distance" is also basically a heavier version of early Kansas style prog; (5) the real short outlaw guy in the band on the far right in the inner sleeve photo -- either he's a dwarf, or everybody else in the band is very tall, I'm not sure which (or which guy he is, either). Killer album; deserved a much higher ranking than #291 in my book.

Also re-bought for $1 #311, Jean-Paul Bourelly's Jungle Cowboy from 1987, the Stairway rating of which is more sensible than Point Blank's, but it's better than I would have guessed -- perfectly respectable fake Hendrix by a bluesman (you can tell as much by his singing as his guitaring) ostensibly doing a harmelodic jazz thing, but more tuneful and song-oriented than most music in that refined sphere.

As for more recent releases, I mentioned that Laughing Dogs reissue on American Beat upthread a little, and yeah they're hacks, and fake corporate new wavers totally outclassed artistically among the smarty pants CBGB crowd, obviously, but I like it anyway. Heaviest track is probably "Get Outa My Way" from the 1979 self-titled LP, with its Tyranny And Mutation riff, but they do lotsa catchy Cheap Trickish hard pop ("Johnny Contender," "I Need a Million") and '70s Midwestish pomp AOR ("It's Alright It's OK," "Two Who Are Willing.") Cover the Animals' "Don't Bring Me Down" as good as Petty did, and cover Dionne Warwick's "Reach Out For Me" so it sounds like the Rubinoos. Seems the debut was more hard rock, the '80 followup slightly more powerpop.

What I really love, though is Mondo Rock's Primal Park, another Aztec Music reissue filling in another piece of the mysterious Aussie rock puzzle -- One-1980-album (plus B sides and spare change)-band revolving around former Daddy Cool/ Mighty Kong guy Ross Wilson. The best songs ("Down To Earth," "Toughen Up," "The Fugitive Kind," "Love Shock") sound uncannily like American Fool-and-earlier John Cougar corndog greaser rock (which I take to be a weird case of parallel marsupial evolution rather than any direct influence), to the extent that "The Fugitive Kind" has basically the exact same riff scheme as "I Need A Lover," and is even expansive in the same way in its arrangement (which the country bands aping early Cougar have never much tried.) But other cuts like "The Rebel" are more Angel City meets Southern rock, and by the end, Wilson is getting songwriting help from this guy Stephen Cummings, who wound up singing for great lost Aussie new wave band the Sports, whose single "Who Listens to The Radio" hit #45 in the US in 1979 basically because it sounded like a harder rocking version of hot rookie Joe Jackson (it got airplay in Detroit, I'm not sure where else.) And Mondo Rock's "Telephone Booth" sounds a lot like that Sports hit; the Sports also apparenly later recorded their own version of "Perhaps Perhaps," of which there's a demo here. Liner notes say the band also has a Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons connection, if that means anything to anybody. (All I remember is my college radio station used to play that band and I confused them with the Jags at the time: So, early Costello imitators, maybe?) And Mondo Rock got to open for the Commodores during their late '70s Oz tour, at which time Lionel Richie compared Wilson to Mick Jagger. Also, back in 1973, Marc Bolan allegedly told him that Daddy Cool's "Eagle Rock" was a ripoff of T. Rex's "Ride A White Swan." And Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" is in turn said to be an "Eagle Rock" rip!

Also, fwiw, a couple Rhapsody reviews I hacked out about new/recent albums. (You need to scroll down pages to read the blurbs)....

Status Quo

http://www.rhapsody.com/status-quo/in-search-of-the-4th-chord

Anvil

http://www.rhapsody.com/anvil/this-is-thirteen

(The Anvil album is actually more fun, and less serious, than I give it credit for there, btw -- "Worry," which is about, uh, worrying, cracks me up for some reason. One problem I think I had was that I listened to the new album right after listening to 2004's Back To Basics, which is actually a lot goofier, not mention more concise and more consistently catchy. Both albums are good, though. Haven't seen the movie yet, but it's in my Netflix wait queue. Also need to catch up with their early albums, which I ignored back then, one of these days.)

Also, not sure whether I ever posted this one from earlier this year; Saxon:

http://www.rhapsody.com/saxon/into-the-labyrinth

And Ian Gillan (who isn't very hard rock any more, but I kind of like this album anyway):

http://www.rhapsody.com/ian-gillan/one-eye-to-morocco

I definitely wouldn't say any of those four albums are anything like absolute must-hears, btw; not like lots of the old $1 LPs that have been mentioned here. But they're all worth checking out at least once if you can hear them cheap. Anvil seems the most noteworthy, if only because this is clearly their year in a way, though the Status Quo one might actually prove a better listen over time; hard to tell.

Re Point Blank, worth emphasizing here for those into the really hard man's hard end of the genre:

Point Blank's debut had five bulls-eye shotgun blasts (in eight cuts) of impolitic sentiments delivered via twin-guitar riffage, a blooz shout-screamer and shuffle rhythms mined from Rio Grande Mud-tone ZZ. If our president had a house band from the days he was a power drunk, dancing on tables and delivering cheap shots on the playing fields, Point Blank was it

Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, an area Kevin Phillips says repeatedly in American Theocracy is demographically, ideologically and politically like Texas, South Carolina or Tennessee (he's right), the Point Blanks were so iron-fisted, Old Testament and misanthropic, I felt I knew them from fights in gym class and post-football game dance orgies.

More here:

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/05/bad-texas-bees-beat-your-women-b-and.html

Speaking of American Beat reissues, I dug out the first Fools album -- Sold Out -- yesterday. Never heard Heavy Mental which was also supposed to be out on a AB twofer.

Sold Out was sent into the world at the same time as Get the Knack, and they opened for them on tour, so you can guess how well the Fools did in the long run. Surprisingly great album though for those into the poppy end of hard rock. They were packaged as powerpoppers but I just took them for bar band luggans whoo changed their clothes and always had a good grasp on writing hummable tuneage with amusing lyrics, mostly about getting drunk, chasing girls and -- Mutual of Omaha -- setting up some plan to defraud an insurance company, a sentiment we can all still get behind.

Class line: "I don't want to grow up/I don't want to be a jerk."

I've got three 12-inch vinyl Fools slabs (the two albums you mention, plus an EP which I believe has their early Dr. Dementofied poultry-clucked Talking Heads parody novelty "Psycho Chicken") in my box of "F" LPs, which is still unpacked underneath the stairs (a shelf-space issue). Remember liking those first two albums a lot, and yeah, they for sure gave off the vibe of crass bar-band semi-hard rockers latching onto new wave as their ticket onto the radio in the wake of their Boston homeboys the Cars. Their closest thing to real hits were "It's A Night For Beautiful Girls," which went to #67 off the debut in 1980, then a cover of Roy Orbison's "Running Scared," #50 in 1981. Also just realized I put a picture of the Sold Out LP cover in my second book (the non-metal one), next to a Kingston Trio LP cover of the same name, even though the Fools are mentioned nowhere else in the book. And now I'm kinda pissed at George because I want to dig the albums and listen to them all again now too, but they're barely even accessible.

Actually, almost positive I liked Sold Out considerably more than Heavy Mental, though I wish I could verify that now.

Also, one Mondo Rock caveat: They do have a certain predilection for a kind of cod-reggae that pales next to their tougher, more Cougar cuts. (Not that I have anything against Aussies doing reggae, necessarily, but Men At Work later did it with way more hooks, plus a saxophone.)

I'm surprised American Beat didn't send the Fools reissu to you. It was supposedly out in July
or August. Apparently they did the A's, too. But that doesn't really surpass the A's CD-R best of done by Rick DiFonzo last year.

I'll need to bug them for those, if I can figure out who to bug.

Also, for some reason the Fools (because of the novelty hit/fake metal angle) are making me think of Blotto (who did "Metal Head" and "I Wanna Be A Lifeguard" c. 1980-ish) and the Commericals (who did "I'm So Heavy Metal" in 1980). Couldn't tell you off hand how good or bad they were, but I do have a Commericals album, and the "C"s are not in storage, so I'll play that soon. Don't own a single Blotto record to my name though.

I used to see Blotto a lot, they were popular at one club in the LV. Basically, "Metal Head" was just like "I Wanna Be a Lifeguard." They were entertaining for one 45-minute set, once. You never had to see them again though unless the idea was just to get shitfaced drunk to somewhat costumed guys doing
amiable frat band-style rock.