Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Joan does "Cherry Bomb" on Leno last Tuesday.

I enjoyed Y&T's Down for the Count and Contagious for what they were at the time, and probably like "Summertime Girls" as much as anything that actually has David Lee Roth (and more than anything that he did solo). Never heard anything after that, and had no idea they were still around!

everyone is still around. seemingly.

Xpost re Cherry Bomb do for Leno.

Sure greases the live version that she had on video on the movie website a couple weeks back. The sound on the rhythm guitar ---- owwwww.

Speaking of a thread over, the Macc Lads. I find I have their entire output. If you've heard it, you know. If not, difficult to briefly describe in the relentless delivery of filthy Ogden Nash-isms
on sex with loose ugly women, defecation, Chinese restaurant race baiting, power drinking, perversion and over-eating set to hard pop punk rock. Which would seem to cover everything worth covering that way.

The last album they made even has arena rock in the same vein. Nothing US is quite the same. The Mentors don't compare at all. And the English slang and Macclesfield accent is a bit hard to get through until you've listened to it a lot.

The Pork Dukes were kind a like 'em only not as prolific or hummable.

Now I'm listening to the totally awesome song, "Village Idiot," followed by the bracing "Frogbashing" for the promotion of vacation and soccer hooliganism into which they insert the French anthem into the chorus of "Frogbashing, frog bashing, dirty bastards" as well as ...

The dirty gits eat invertebrates, burn our sheep, they need a good thrashing,
You see, the fact is, we're out of practise, its been too long since we went frogbashing.

The tarts over there, they're covered in hair, it's hard to know just where the gash is,
All French lasses have got moustaches and serve your beer in tiny glasses.

C'mon, you know that took work. These are from Alehouse Rock which, in retrospect, kind of
outdoes The Anti-Nowhere League in a number of areas.

A song about Rottweiler dogs from the point of view of the dog, who insists that "I can tell you
that I love you when your nose is up my bottom."

Good song about premature ejaculation, sung by a girl, "Two Stroke Eddie."

Start: "Hey, is that Eddie's cum you're wearing?"
Girl 2: "Uh-huh."
Girl 1: "Gee, it must be great riding him."
Girl 2: "Uh-uh."

"He had a problem with his timing."

So she dumps him.

Listening to the new Scorpions album, Sting in the Tail, now. Nice use of 70s talk box on the first track, "Raised on Rock" (not a cover of the Elvis song). A few other decent rockers on it, but four ballads out of 11 tracks is at least two too many, and ending what's been rumored to be their final album with an ultra-cheesy power ballad called "The Best is Yet to Come" (you can just picture them exhorting a drunk, bored state fair crowd to sing along) sends the wrong message. Also, they seem overly concerned with rocking - "Raised on Rock," "Rock Zone," "Spirit of Rock." "Slave Me" is a pretty good cross between their early '80s work and recent Ted Nugent, though. At best, this album has five good songs, so I can't really recommend it.

heaven forbid that the scorpions should be overly concerned with rocking!

Well, they didn't used to be so clumsy about it. Like they're trying to convince themselves, not just the audience.

Sounds almost like an album I'd like because of a dumb try-to-hard earnestness they don't need to peddle. Anyway, Phil's line on drunk bored state fair crowd made me laugh. I covered that demographic for half a decade in Allentown. Fun times. You ain't lived until you've heard a band's lead singer (any band, for me it was Krokus) shout, "Hey Cleveland! How ya tonite! Yah!" At the Allentown Fair Ground. Or at your local ag fairground. In retrospect, it was probably an unintentional compliment.

Now I just gotta give a preliminary shout about Myonga's pre-stupendoug-fame Bob Seger anthology.

I'm late to the party on it.

However, as I told Myonga in e-mail, I wonder why he let the major label beat the Wilson Pickett/James Brown out of him. Rhetorical question, obviously.

"Sock it to Me Santa," aside from the seasonal lyrics, is very good and it struck me as almost exactly
the same thing the J Geils Band was doing on its first two albums, only with a better singer. Shows how
much Seger and the latter were influenced by the same urban black r&B style. And "Yellow Berets" had
me laughing as well as scratching my head, since Seger is 11 years older than I am and was far more
vulnerable to the draft. Tonkin was a year after he turned 18 and he was in the Last Heard, if Wiki's
bio is right, when the war really began to escalate.

"East Side Story" is the "Gloria" rip everyone has to play. It's one of the base codons of US rock.

"Persecution Smith" is -- anyway as I hear it -- a dig on Bob Dylan, hippies and protesters one read about in newspapers, given more jab by the Yardbirdsy backing. It also makes me thinks, if you put it ten years forward, as applying to Patti Smith, only for slightly different reason.

He also does ? & the Mysterians really good and a rich man's early Van Morrison.

If rock n roll spawns singers like him any more early on, they all sadly have to go to Nashville.

Who's singing with Seger on "Love the One You're With"?

Man, it just goes into this merciless vamp! If you're in a classic hard rock band, you gotta be able to play a section like that. Or you'll never amount to anything.

Interviewed John Bush of Armored Saint; results here.

Who's singing with Seger on "Love the One You're With"?

That's Crystal Jenkins and/or Pam Todd, who released an R&B record "Pam Todd & Love Exchange" in '77.

From LA Times:

The Runaways, the '70s all-girl rock band, is having a moment. With performances from Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, Floria Sigismondi's cinematic ode to the baby vixens of the Valley is based on Cherie Currie's memoir of the time, "Neon Angel," originally published in 1989 and out now with new material. The lead singer who immortalized "Cherry Bomb" will read and sign copies of her sassy tome

Sassy tome it wasn't. Had a review copy back when originally published. Was dire and fairly dreadfully written. Imagine a script for Foxes only not funny, no good moments and the girl doesn't die in
the end. I'd think it must have a substantial facelift.

Short Billboard Currie interview distributed through Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62C00020100313

I saw a preview screening of this. Pretty standard rock doc. Don't do drugs, don't trust sleazy producers. Some decent performances. Great songs, of course. Probably worse a Netflix.

worth a Netflix

After seeing it on Friday, my thoughts on The Runaways:

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/03/21/twisted-steel-sex-appeal/

Kim Vincent Fowley song:

http://larecord.com/audio/kimfowley-kimvincentfowley.mp3

kim fowley is a freak, but god bless anyone who could produce "alley oop", "papa oom mow mow", AND "they're coming to take me away ha haaa!". he is a legend. (and that's just the tip of his freaky iceberg.)

"I've destroyed my credit." "I like to have sex with them, doubletalk them into it, make them
confused and then they run out of the house before the sun comes up so I can feed my cat and
go to sleep." "Burn victims were my best customers."

I gotta see this movie. But, like J3ff T. (and like I do with everything these days), I'll probably wait for Netflix to get it.

So what do people make of this new Uriah Heep album, Celebration: Forty Years Of Rock? Would sound great if I was a Martian, but it's almost all new versions of their old songs, and at least one of the new ones ("Only Human," the opener) didn't seem so good on first listen. Is there any real justification for its existence that I'm missing here?

And btw, note to Phil: I actually kind of like that Elephant9 Walk The Nile album, ha! Still not sure why you thought I'd have no use for it; guess you never noticed all the jazz fusion records in Stairway. Actually, if I have a complaint after two or three listens, it's that I'm thinking Ståle Storløkken's keyboards (Hammonds, Rhodes and synth) aren't prominent enough in the mix (see: Uriah Heep.) But maybe I just need to buy me some better speakers.

And oh yeah, also checked out Shakin’ Street's 21st Century Love Channel from last year via Rhapsody; didn't take notes (even in my head), but I can still vouch that it is every bit as worthy as George suggests above. (Rhapsody is also carrying a live album by them from three or four years ago, btw, but I haven't listened to that one yet.)

"they're coming to take me away ha haaa!".

Never knew Fowley had a hand in this! I love The Murmaids' "Popsicles and Icicles" too.

Got Forever, a 2DVD set by Free, in the mail last week; it hits stores today. (I think it was originally released in the UK in 2006, but Eagle Vision got the US rights.) It's got three songs from the German show Beat Club, five more recorded by Granada Television in northern England, some video clips, and on the second disc the band's full set from the Isle of Wight Festival (though there's only film of three songs - the rest is audio only with photos of the band scrolling screen-saver-style). Also interviews with the three surviving members circa '06 and some other stuff. Well worth it if you're a fan.

Runaways soundtrack is every bit as good as I thought from the movie. One thing that wasn't clear was that Joan Jett & the Blackhearts re-recorded the songs subbed by Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart.

That means redo of Cherry Bomb, California Paradise, Queens of Noise and Dead End Justice. The result is the backng is a lot more slamming than on the originals which is an improvement because no one actually had to be such great shakes as singers on them originally. QoN and Dead End Justice are really a lot better. The first because it was done on the second album and wasn't the do-it-live-in-the-studio
toss of the debut and was lesser for it. Dead End Justice because the riff was always really good and now the band bites down on it extra hard. Plus, the skit's included. In the movie, it's cut
out.

Plus there's Nick Gilder's "Roxy Roller" which I wasn't familiar with. Kicks off the album and it another cool tune.

Currie will be on Colorado at Vroman's in Pasadena tomorrow for a book signing. I'm going.

So if it's meant as an intro to the music of The Runaways to complete novices, it's mostly better than the 'essential' anthology which is stocked everywhere. If people listen to it, they'll get their
money's worth.

The new album by Cathedral, The Guessing Game, is extremely psychedelic and retro/vintage - tons of Mellotron. They started out a plodding doom act but got weirder and faster as they went on. This one reminded me a lot of Uriah Heep's 2008 disc Wake the Sleeper so if you liked that (I did) you'll probably like this. Lee Dorrian's vocals are...an acquired taste, but the riffs are solid, the trippy stuff around the edges works well and it's just generally a good heavy psych-prog album. It's on Nuclear Blast but it ain't metal.

A look at Currie's book, Neon Angel:

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/03/25/survived-the-road-to-ruin/

Today's recommended Shadoks reissue is Moses' Changes, a power trio blues-rock disc from Denmark circa '71. Pretty much sounds like very early Led Zeppelin, other UK heavy blues outfits of the time, etc., etc. Clean vocals, acid-fried guitars, cardboard-box drums. Six tracks in 35 minutes, all originals, which is kinda surprising; this is exactly the kind of album that you'd expect to feature an obligatory run through "The Hunter."

i wrote up changes for my decibel column. didn't i talk about it here? maybe not. thought i did. anyway, yeah, i've been playing it pretty regularly in the store.

Maybe I should've asked Forced Exposure for a Moses promo, but I'd been noticing that I've had a recurring problem with most of those obscuro Shaddocks late psych/early sludge reissues over the past few years -- tend to like them a lot at first, but then I file them and never put them on again, and a couple years later I decide they're taking up too much space. Maybe Moses would've been the exception, though, who knows.

Listening instead now to Johnny Winter And's Live At The Fillmore East 10/3/70, due out a few weeks from now on Collector's Choice. The thing really cranks. Rick Derringer ne' Zehringer's on board (apparently with a couple other former McCoys), and they do "Rock And Roll Hootchie Coo." Not To mention "Good Morning Little School Girl," a seven-minute "Highway 61 Revisited", an 18-minute marathon of Winter's "Mean Town Blues," and close with "Rollin' And Tumblin'" by Muddy Waters. Just seven songs in 67 minutes; you do the math. Long Richie Unterberger liner notes I haven't read yet too. Anyway, I don't much Winter on my shelf, much to my shame probably, so this'll do fine.

"I don't have much" etc. etc. etc. Actually, longest song on there is a 22-minute "It's My Own Fault," apparently a B.B. King number.

There was a period of time when the Blue Sky artists owned US hard rock. Johnny Winter And, Johnny Winteor solo records, Rick Derringer solo, Edgar Winter, Edgar Winter's White Trash, Edgar Winter Group, etc.

Shout Factory put out a 2CD Johnny Winter best-of last year. 35 tracks, all raucous guitar shit.

I think my favorites of his are his debut, Johnny Winter And and Johnny Winter Live.

Startingly big audience for Cherie Currie at Vroman's in Pas. Essentially packed at the premier
book store, the gig in town on Friday on Colorado, Rte. 66.

Much larger than the tally for the showings of The Runaways movie next door at the Laemmle on Colorado. If you had a book signing, you'd be pleased if a crowd of around 140+ and that's a little conservative, showed up, 90 percent or higher with books in hand for signing. I stood in line for an hour easy to get my copy signed.

Phil's Cathedral/Uriah Heap comparison got me to listen to the latter for the first time in my life. I don't know if the comparison would have occurred to me on my own, but I like both records, so that's cool.

The other new quasi-metal album that to me passes for solid Hard Rock is Of Rust and Bones, by Poisonblack. Closer to the Uriah Heap than Cathedral, as there's not much wackiness, but it's soulful and measured and roaring at once. Like a heavier UFO, maybe? Or a darker HIM.

Have yet to identify any Upper Midwest Christian Militia Hard Rock bands (though they've gotta be out there -- c'mon, Washtenaw County and Sandusky? I wonder if they ever do manuevers at Cedar Point.) So meanwhile I have been listening to lots of mid '70s to mid '80s stuff on the pub/powerpop/new wave/hard rock cusp, such as these (all recent $1 purchases except for one*), which I'd rank in this order:

1. The Cretones Thin Red Line (Planet 1980) -- Did George recommend these El Lay dudes before? I hope so, 'cause I like this a lot. Very powerchorded and great melodies. Ronstadt covered three songs on Mad Love later that year, including two of the three songs with "love" in the title and one of the three with ladies' names in the title. Other two of the latter, "Everybody's Mad At Katherine" and "Mrs. Peel," might be my two favorites just for sounding the most idiosyncratic. Album got to #129; "Real Love" got to #79 as a single. Rick Johnson liked them a lot too, judging from a review in his book. Guitars have a lot of proto-Springfield/Adams toughness in them. Got their second album for a buck recently, too; hoping it's this good.

2. *The Romantics The Romantics (Nemporer 1980) Didn't just buy this; I apparently got mine for 93 cents at the Book Trader (in Philly I think?) a bunch of years ago. And a bunch of years before that, it got a ton of radio play in Detroit, though apparently not as much nationally, where it got to #61 and "What I Like About You" only to #49 -- much smaller hit than their four-years-later #4 "Talking In Your Sleep," though in retrospect "What I Like" seems like their much more famous legacy song, thanks I guess to play in movies and at sports events. First local hit in Detroit though was "Tell It To Carrie," a sweet slow one that came out as a 45 on Bomp in '78. But first single overall was apparently "Little White Lies" on Spider Records in '77. I'd say that was the fourth-most-played song in Detroit off the LP; third-most-played being "When I Look In Your Eyes." Also pretty sure they did the red-suit thing before Loverboy. Always seemed to me like Italians and Hamtramck Poles -- good greasy Catholic boys -- though I've never verified that theory. Also they're as much "garage rock" as "powerpop" truth be told -- here they cover the Kinks, but the real proof was on their kinda flop later-'80 second album National Breakout which I actually like (especially for "Tomboy," "Stone Pony," "21 And Over") more than this one. Favorite non-single on the debut (for Mitch Ryderish dance groove) is probably "Girl Next Door."

3. Screaming Blue Messiahs Bikini Red (Elektra 1987) I slammed this in Creem when it came out, which I apologize for; it's a good album, though still kinda thin, songwise and soundwise, compared to '86 debut Gun-Shy. I think their novelty hit "I Wanna Be A Flintstone" pissed me off at the time, partly because they'd done a much more churning song called "Here Comes The Flintstones" five years earlier when they were still called Motor Boys Motor and still had a lot more backwoods Beefheartian twistedness in their sound. ("Walk The Dinosaur" by Was {Not Was} struck me as similarly stupid caveman sellout in '89, iirc.) Still, these guys were clearly one of the only (maybe the only? -- well, Motorhead, maybe, but they'd gone more metal by then) band of Brits carrying on the rebel Bishops/Feelgood pub-r&b tradition so late in the game, and they sound especially good when they get some rockabilly in their rhythm, like in "55-The Law" and "I Can Speak American," though in the latter they insist on pronouncing Lois Lane's first name "Louis". Though maybe that's part of the joke; singling out "Charlie Chann" as an American word is kinda goofy too.

4. Moon Martin Mystery Ticket (Capitol 1982) Yeah, him again. Another brainy weirdo who Rick Johnson and I share fandom of. First side mostly ethereally whistling ozone rockabilly, similar maybe to what Chris Isaak would do a few years later, only better; traceable back to Roy Orbison, probably. Most boogieing stuff is in the middle of the album -- "Firing Line," "Dangerous Game," "Don't You Double (Cross Me Baby)." A step or two down from his earlier solo LPs, but passable. This'd be his fourth I guess; doubt I'd ever go any further than that.

5. Tom Robinson North By Northwest (IRS 1982) Probably the most marginally "hard rock" of any of these. Really didn't like this on first listen, but it's grown on me as a kind of quasi very early Peter Gabriel album or something, in terms of high-tech rhythms, songwriting, and production. Barely any of the motorway oi! shout stomp from his '78 TRB debut is left, but honestly most of that was gone by TRB's second album (which I know longer own). Have never heard the supposedly post-punkish '80 Sector 27 album that Christgau loved so much. And the guy's got plenty of off-key Billy Bragg sap in him that gets on my nerves, but also a little Richard Thompson maybe. And the first side is better than the second side -- opener "Atmospherics (Listen To The Radio)" could've been a cool new wave hit. He does an okay ballad about a dead (boy?)friend (Martin, who he first sang about on the debut) and another okay ballad to drink to on New Year's Eve. But the drinking music now is real cry in your lager down the pub stuff. Keepable, but just barely.

6. The Searchers Love Melodies (Sire 1981) This might sink in more if I spend some more time with it, but so far I'm a little disappointed. Real cool idea: Jangly mid '60s folk-pop Liverpublians (of "Needles and Pins" and "Love Potion #9" fame) given new lease on life for Merseybeat-loving new wavers via songs provided to them by the Motors, the Records (two Will Birch credits), Moon Martin. But the two best tracks, as far as I can tell and as much as I hate to admit it, come from more famous John Fogerty ("Almost Saturday Night") and Alex Chilton ("September Girls"), neither of which has a hope of touching the originals. Loudest song is probably closer "Another Night," which the Searchers themselves wrote. Didn't chart; in fact, Whitburn reveals they had a self-titled album the year before that got higher, to #181.

7. Dave Edmunds Subtle As A Flying Mallet (RCA 1975) Okay, I am totally damning lots of these with faint praise, aren't I? But actually, I'm keeping all of them, and this is on par with the Moon Martin, Tom Robinson, and Searchers ones. Still, another disappointment, mainly because it's mostly just Edmunds by himself, sans band, covering fairly ubiquitous early '60s oldies like "Baby I Love You" and "Da Doo Ron Ron" (the genders in which he doesn't change), plus Ray Charles, Mel Tillis/Web Pierce, and Public Domain ("Billy The Kid") songs. Actually, now that I look, "She's My Baby" is at least credited to "Lowe." But perversely, Nick Lowe's band Brinsley Schwarz don't join Edmunds until the two Chuck Berry side closers, "No Money Down" and "Let It Rock," and those two squash the other tracks like a bug. Maybe if/when I listen more to the rest I'll note more cool guitar, and it's possible that Phil Spector covers in '75 were kinda gutsy. But Edmunds just really sounds better with a band. Of the '70s solo LPs I've heard by him, this is easily the least great. Then again, the others are so good that that's not that horrible a thing.

Fwiw, in the appendix in the back of Marooned, Phil says that with Screaming Blue Messiahs, bald leader Bill Carter came up with "the best rock his country mustered in the '80s," and he actually hears the riffs on the followup as "faster and more ferocious," especially in "I Can Speak American," "I Wanna Be a Flintstone," and "Jesus Chrysler Drives a Dodge." I dunno, to me they sound sanded down, somehow. Maybe it's the production. I've got an old 4-song Peel Sessions EP by them, too, recorded real early, in '84; need to put that in the play pile. Bet I never see that '82 Motor Boys Motor LP again; should have kept it.

Poker Face, to answer your question, I think -- linked to by hutaree.com. You go out to their website, they have no comment except to say they think the government is framing the hutaree. Since the hutaree are white christian identity crazies, they're straight out of the world of The Turner Diaries, which was the best-selling paparback for the National Alliance/National Vanguard. And years ago there were a number of bands into that but they were mostly from the neo-nazi punk side of things. There was even a label that issued the stuff, Panzerfaust Records, I think. Also, recall the two little blonde girls named after the poison used in the gas chambers? They were xtian identity folkies, though. So this morning while the FBI is making another hutaree arrest, Fox News has some birdbrain on from right wing talk radio who plays a tape of some black women chattering about getting their obama money, whatever that is, probably either welfare or unemployment checks. And then the radio host starts going on about the government being a 'blood-sucking tick on the butt of America.' I would not be surprised at all if this type of thing eventually blows up in their faces in the next year or two. It doesn't seem much of a stretch to think that eventually one of these angry white nut terrorist arrests or snap-outs is going to net someone who is a Tea Party member or who squeals about Glenn Beck telling him to restore the tree of liberty.

When Krugman can essentially call Fox and the GOP the property of nuts white bigots, a lot of this stuff is now more mainstream than it was during the Clinton administration. Stories about white people stockpiling guns and canned foodstuffs seem almost commonplace now and these people all have one thing in common -- they actually want the end to come on.

I liked the Cretones, both the debut and the Linda Ronstadt album where they were the backing band. Never got a copy of the second one.

Totally remember Poker Face -- from Bethlehem, PA, no less. ("One of the Lehigh Valley's longest standing Local Original bands... about 15 years.") Definitely wrote a couple show previews based on their homemade CDs while I was at the Voice; unsearchable now, especially since the Lady Gaga song but I doubt those preview briefs were ever archived on line in the first place. And yeah, there's lots on their Myspace page -- Camp FEMA conspiracies right out of Alex Jones; rants insisting "most organized Jewish groups" "are constantly acting AGAINST Americas interests -- Its time to expose them for the scumbags that they are... THEY are complicit in crimes against our country" (i.e., the same obsessed hardcore anti-Zionism seemingly flirting with anti-Semitism just like every other show on the Genesis Communication Network -- which admittedly also has equally wacky End Times shows insisting that Obama's abandoned Israel just in time to prove anti-Christ predictions of Revelations accurate); Birther stuff ("the illegal alien needs to address and LEAVE the position of POTUS"); Truther 9-11 conspiracy stuff; "James Traficant running again - The real Ron Paul with Balls: Finally - a real American patriot who has balls to stand up to the zionazis running our government." Hard to say how much is actual Poker Face guys talking, and how much is parrotted from elsewhere. Either way, they oughta tour with Shooter Jennings.

I recall their music being potentially interesting, but never actually good. Myspace sez: "Paul, Dennis, Brett, and Rich formed their love of music from such influences as: Kiss, Styx, the American Youth Symphony and Chior Orchestra, Weather Report, Todd Rudgren, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Al DiMeola, Meatloaf, Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin, UFO, and Judas Priest...Similar to the acoustic hard rock sound of Alice in Chains or Days of the New, while keeping their roots firmly planted in the melodic classic rock stylings of Boston & Pink Floyd."

http://www.myspace.com/pokerfacemusic

Lots of back and forth about Hutaree on their band Chat Board today.

Pokerkid: Who is the douchebag Lackomar? never heard of him, or his so called SEVM? He looks like a FED. And yes we saw the ABC hit piece yesterday..

Pokerkid: He sounds schooled on what to say from the anti-Americanites of the ADL & SPLC. Kinda reminds me of the actor that was put forth on 911 to describe how the towers came down when no-one knew what was up. The American people need to wake up, Your government is not YOURS but of the GLobalists.

Pokerkid: Do yourselves a favor and look up PROJECT FALCON, COINTELPRO. theres nothing new under the sun. Today the Hutaree on BS charges, tomorrow it will be you and me.

Pokerkid: Lut - sorry i forgot to answer this.. The reason why Hutaree has a link to us, is because when someone asks to use our music for videos, bumper music for your talk show etc... all we ever ask is that you let folks know whose music it is, and how to find us. They did. Like 1000s of others have. We are the musical story tellers of the coming Revolution the Government is purposefully creating by their illegal and unConsitutional actions. Our forefathers are rolling anround in their graves. This is NOT their America.

kyuubikiller: Hutatree on BS charges? Apparently they were conspiring to murder law enforcement officials. I wouldn't call those anything short of crazy. Lock em up, they can play guns and robbers in a jail cell.

Anon7506: lol only leftists believe that people actually target innocent people and hope it will inspire people to overthrow the government

Anon7506: all they are going to get charged with is illegal weapons charges and no one is going to care the

Anon7506: that they will drop charges on the other things and u will never hear about them again

Anon6411: take the guns, god, and violence out and throw in a little peace and anarchy; and then Hutaree has my support!!

BubbaHoss: when people think the police are the enemy, we have a HUGE problem.

BubbaHoss: Police as a whole are NOT support of the Geovernment.

BubbaHoss: When the Socialist Governement keeps PUSHING god lovimg Americans, we WILL stop and PUSH BACK.

Review of their most recent album from George's old stomping grounds, the Allentown Morning Call:

http://blogs.mcall.com/lehighvalleymusic/2009/11/local-soundtrack-peace-or-war-by-pokerface-a-political-statement-in-hard-rock-.html

A CD release party is scheduled for Dec. 19 at Lupo's Beef & Ale, 2149 Reading Road, Allentown. 610-820-5570.

Washtenaw? nah these guys (the Michigan ones anyway) were from Lenawee. The old guy leader and his son are apparently from my hometown, Adrian, MI. can't say I'm surprised, there are a ton of xtian nutters there.

One raid Saturday night was in Washtenaw though, apparently:

http://www.annarbor.com/news/fbi-conducts-raids-in-washtenaw-lenawee-counties/

http://www.heritage.com/articles/2010/03/29/manchester_enterprise/news/doc4bb100b96fa47055933801.txt

"One of the individuals charged lives in Washtenaw County and is a Manchester Township resident...The largest raid in the region took place in the greater Ann Arbor area at a funeral that several Hutaree members attended. There were also raids in Adrian, as well as in Ohio and Indiana."

ah! did not catch that originally. I only saw Adrian, Clayton and Blissfield.

It's a well known fact, particularly if you worked there, that Morning Call editors would say nice things about Hitler if he'd had a Lehigh Valley connection.

Unintentionally priceless quote from someone who used to work there, now doing free-lance:

There is a goofy brilliance on “Peace or War: Songs for the Revolution,” and I mean that as a compliment. In a time when so many bands sound alike, these guys are following their own road.

From the Poker Face front page:

At the present time, Poker Face has no comment on the situation developing/unfolding
with the Hutaree folks.

But given the governments track record against we the free, it makes us suspect
government motives first, not the Hutaree.

"Poker Face has been dubbed the leading truth/freedom band in the Union. Through the use of various multi-media sources, this four piece band has made it their mission to expose the lies & scandals coming out the Union's Capitol."

Since they started in 1989, they were in action when I was at the Call, so I probably saw them at the Airport Music Hall or other venues. Can't remember anything about them, though.

Incidentally, one of my pieces got picked up by Alex Jones a week or two ago, mainly because infowar apparently thought it conveniently fit into their weird conspiracy theories. Which is kind of the hallmark of a lot of US white identity extremism -- they always kind of pick and choose their news to fit into their cut-and-pasted formulations of tyrannical government and conspiracy.

Btw, the SPLC "anti-Americanites" that the Poker Face guy refers to on his Myspace board are the Southern Poverty Law Center; maybe that was obvious to everybody else, but I don't think I'd seen the abbreviation before, and didn't realize they were so demonized. Though I guess it's no surprise, given their tracking of militias and white supremacist groups. Blurbs on the Poker Face blog accuse them of "running damage control for the Federal Government" and, if I'm reading it right, even go so far as to connect the Law Center with the Oklahoma City bombing.

tape of some black women chattering about getting their obama money, whatever that is, probably either welfare or unemployment checks.

Hell, maybe it's even less evil than that -- like, say, tax refunds.

Anyway, I played a couple more old LPs. Liked Sue Saad and the Next's self-titled one even more than that Cretones debut, which also came out in 1980 on Planet. And as tough-gal corporate new wave hard rock goes, it's also a lot better than the Ellen Foley LP I picked up last year, and probably on a level with Benatar's first two. Especially love "It's Gotcha" and "I I Me Me" on the first side, which do lots of tricky, almost proggy changes at nearly punk-fast tempos. No idea if the Next were a label creation of studio musicians or not (Richard Perry produced fwiw), but they could play. Side Two has more straightforward, blues-based bar-band rock with powerpop hooks, "Your Lips-Hands-Kiss-Love" flaunting the most blatant sex appeal, but I hear a few coulda-been hits. Album never got higher than #131 in Billboard, though.

Even better -- and really, the kind of album this thread was made for --is my favorite hard rock album lately, namely Bad Boy's Back To Back on United Artists from 1978. They came from Wisconsin and seem to get compared to Cheap Trick a lot, which I can kind of see given the way they mix pop tendencies with sometimes eccentric loud arrangements, not to mention being Midwesterners, though I'm not sure Cheap Trick would ever be the first band to come to mind for me. Most of the first side is sort of high school '70s softball-rock, somewhere near Earth Quake maybe, with Who chords in "Accidental" and Beach Boys summer tuneage in "Girls Girls Girls." But then toward the end of that side they get heavier -- "Keep It Up" is some pretty awesome '70s Aerofunk, with a groove also not far from Nuge's "Free For All." And the second side gets even more metal, "I Just Wanna Love You" reminding me of the Hounds; "No Stopping Me Now" maybe yeah Cheap Trick's heavy side; and then closer "Take My Soul (Rock & Roll)/Out Of Control" a doomier eight-minute epic. Earl Slick guests on guitar on that one, and "Keep It Up" and "Rock and Roll Blood" (the latter written about a teen runaway by veteran keyboard guest Barry Goldberg who gives it Mott-style piano), so Slick's a big factor in fleshing out the sound. My copy ($1 last month) came intact with Bad Boy's press photo, inner sleeve (real Dazed and Confused looking dudes), and two-page publicity bio, which explains that this is their second album; first, The Band That Made Milwaukee Famous, apparently came out in '77.

Popoff doesn't like them as much as I do, but he compares them to Starz and Piper, which make sense, and lots of other bands (BTO, April Wine, Trooper, Moxy, Kiss, Dictators, David Johansen solo) where he might be stretching things. (Well, Kiss probably inspired them somehow I guess; how couldn't they?) Also says they made a couple albums later, which I gather weren't as good since he leaves them out of the books I have. Jasper and Oliver call them "a very heavy pop-rock band resembling Cheap Trick crossed with Manowar," which is somewhat hilarious. Adds that Steve Hunter guested on the first LP. None of the albums charted.