Rolling Hard Rock 2008 Thread

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Standard stereo chorus. Hot stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

From today's email:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the Lennon rock is fairly superb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Were they twelve when they started?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disney! And Hannah Montana...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Has anybody heard the new AC/DC?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Put a hoax in your tank with ethanol

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Consequences be damned. Such an inconvenient truth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greg Smith of Bangor can lay claim to both.

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

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

"He has a ton of energy," Smith says of Nugent. "He's 60 years old but he's a ball of energy. It's amazing, sometimes it's hard for me to keep up with him. His playing is just so good."
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And, if you're so inclined, more guns and laughs from Pennsyltucky.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tasty is the only one I kept.

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

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

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

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

Not sure what their day jobs were

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

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

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

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

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

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