Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2009

Weekend $1 purchase Coup De Grace by Mink Deville from 1981 is mostly not hard rock enough for this thread, except maybe "Love Me Like You Did Before" (only cut with Thom Panunzio rather than Jack Nitzsche co-production credit), and then only marginally and it's nothing special otherwise. Rest of the LP is sub-sub-Springsteen bar-band soul even less distinctive than the two Southside Johnny LPs I bought cheap copies of recently, with occasional glimmers of sax or Drifters-style Latin rhythm, and a more or less passable Arthur Alexander cover, but no riffs or songs as memorable as M.D.'s "Cadillac Walk" or "Rolene" or especially "Spanish Stroll" elsewhere. Strange how Willie Deville could look so eccentric with those Parisian features and that pencil thin mustache, yet usually sound so un-.

I never 'got' Mink DeVille, either. Had to have been an exclusively Manhattan thing. Had Coup de Grace and a solo album -- Le Chat Bleu? -- and neither got much play after I'd heard mostly what seemed to me to be a Parisian or Iberian peninsula
bar-type thing.

Was he big from Paris to Lisbon or in Barcelona?

I can definitely see/hear him as background in that Russell Crowe movie, A Very Good Year.

Well, just checked Amazon and Le Chat Bleu received five five-star reviews, so if you were into his voice, you must have thought it great. I completely missed it but he did, apparently, have enduring appeal in Europe. I do remember it was not, initially, released domestically, as my copy was an import.

no reason to listen to mink deville when you can listen to thin lizzy. or bruce springsteen, for that matter. or phil lynott solo. or friggin' tonio k, my hero. listening to tonio's amerika album recently, i was once again blown away by his tribute suite to kurt schwitters. so great! and years ahead of george kranz's tribute.

though, of course, george kranz's tribute is totally genius too. much respect.

I have totally been on a Tonio K kick lately! But I dunno, seems to be Amerika has nothing as great as Mink D's "Spanish Stroll" or "Rolene" (much less Moon Martin's "Rolene") on it, and neither does the La Bomba EP (which I like better than Amerika.) And both of those records obviously pale up against Life In The Foodchain, one of Scott's and mine's favorite albums in the history of the world. (But that goes without saying, right?)

Only George Kranz song I've ever heard is "Din Da Da," shamefully enough. I clearly need to hear more.

Le Chat Bleu received five five-star reviews

It gets four out of five in the 1983 blue edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide where Marsh calls it a "near masterpiece" and Deville a "late Seventies Mitch Ryder, with tripled angst." Pretty sure I've never heard that album; maybe I should. Marsh gives the other three albums up to that point three stars each. But that's under the D's; under the M's, both Mink Deville and Return To Magenta get four stars each from John Milward -- one of my favorite editing fuckups in record guide history. (Milward claims Deville "sounds like everyone from Lou Reed to Isley Brothers," which sounds interesting but I'm also pretty sure is bull.)

Speaking of Mitch Ryder, I noticed that Nugent covers "Jenny Take A Ride" on his new live double, paying tribute to a hometown hero with Johnny Bee helping on drums. No idea why he thinks BB King, Albert King, Freddie King, and Stevie Ray Vaughan constitute "Motown soul," though. But I did really like his "Bo Diddley" homage, and his "Soul Man" is more substantial than the brief one that was on last year's gratitious live album. Also, Ted yells "freedom!" a lot and covers the "Star Spangled Banner" ('twas a 40th anniversary show recorded at the Pontiac Silverdome last July 4.) Also brags a lot about his venison-barbecuing prowess. Very fun CD to blast with the windows down at all the bikers cruising through Austin for their convention this weekend, obviously. Though just as obviously, I'm pretty sure it won't get much play from hereon.

Oops sorry; not Silverdome, the "DTE Energy Music Centre," whatever that is -- apparently in Clarkson. (A clue!: If you type "Pine Knob" into Google, DTE is the default. Hey, I've been gone a while.)

speaking of mitch ryder...this video is the weirdest thing I've seen in awhile. from 79, w/backing band who look like the prototypical midwestern bar band of the period. and mitch is like... pardon the expression...mincing around on stage. is he gay? not that it matters. anyway i was looking for some footage of the 1970 DETROIT band and found this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MisLnQjKP00

oh and I've decided that the rockets' first album love transfusion is some kind of lost classic.

What you guys think of the Chickenfoot? I know Chuck isn't a big fan of the Red Rocker, but I found it a lot of fun. For pros jamming in the studio, without trying to be An Important Supergroup.

mitch is like... pardon the expression...mincing around on stage. is he gay?

Yep. Well, I'm not 100 percent, but I'm pretty sure Marsh wrote about this in the '80s, and Ryder may have even sang about it on that mid '80s LP that John Cougar produced, where he covered Prince...

Chuck isn't a big fan of the Red Rocker

Hey, I gave "Mas Tequila" a glowing review in the Voice when it came out a few years ago (along with Metallica's "Whiskey In The Jar")! Also like the first Montrose album. And "Why Can't This Be Love" even. So I'm not a big NON-fan, either...

Sorry. You just make fun of him a lot in Stairway (I believe the operative word was "Putz")! I thought it was a fair assumption. So what do you think of the Chickenfoot?

Reviewing that Nugent live one for AMG. It's an entertaining enough thing to listen to once (pretending they still broadcast concerts on the radio), but I doubt I'll be returning to it and it damn sure won't be taking the place of Double Live Gonzo! in my iPod. (Neither will Sweden Rocks, though that was a pretty good one, too.) I think I've mentioned this before, but when I interviewed Nugent last year he was able to rattle off just about every piece of gear Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels were using back in 1966; the guy's a serious gear geek.

You just make fun of him a lot in Stairway

As opposed to all the people I don't make fun of in Stairway? ...Well, okay, maybe I make fun of Sammy more than some. But I make fun of lots of bands that I don't actually hate of in that book!

Haven't heard Chickenfoot, though. (Or even knew they existed, to be honest, 'til you mentioned them.)

Hey George, I think you might like the Backsliders. Tough-gal singer, 10 songs in 23 minutes on new album, including a cover of "Keep A Knockin'" by Little Richard. Haven't decided yet how good it is, though. I liked their album from last year, but then never wound up returning to it after I reviewed it.

Their myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/thebacksliders

So what do you think of the Chickenfoot?

Haven't heard it except for the promos running on local TV ads for BestBuy. That sounded OK but I haven't bought anything by Sam Hagar in awhile. Actually, I bought all the albums on Capitol, when he was still calling himself Sammy and really was 'the Red Rocker.' In fact,
Sammy Hagar -- his second, might be my favorite album of his. Includes the touchstone party stuff, "Rock & Roll Weekend," "Cruisin' & Boozin'," "Red". Then there's "Trans-Am" and "Plain Jane" from Street Machine and "Turn Up the Music" and "Reckless" from Musical Chairs. Put them all together with his live cut of "I've Done Everything For You" -- which Rick S. must've sent him lots of royalties on -- and you have one really
great soCal sun hard rock and pop album. And that's all from his Capitol catalog.

Saw Ted acting in Toby Keith's Beer for My Horses -- a mostly dreadful and corny straight to video movie in which the biggest gags are supplied by Rodney Carrington who is about as funny as an audible wet fart. The biggest star was Ford's biggest pickup truck. Running gag in which the son of a Mexican drug lord is regularly knocked unconscious by Keith throwing an elbow into his face. The Nuge's part was as the movie's good guy posse speechless
weapons man. Must have been hard to do that, for Ted, not the weapon's part, but the
silences.

"In fact,
Sammy Hagar -- his second, might be my favorite album of his."

Are you including his stint in Montrose? Some of that stuff is so effortlessly good it's indescribable.

No, first album Montrose is classicly righteous, and that's in a league by itself, if only for "Rock the Nation" which really could have. Second, Paper Money, not nearly so good although "I Got the Fire" and the title cut, slammed together on a live YouTube clip of the band are fist-waving material.

That I Got the Fire solo is insane

The Backsliders' myspace page bit me, so I went to their domain. Am listening to the album now and it is, indeed, really good rock 'n' roll with a tough girl singer. And, blimey,
they can write songs. Twenty plus minutes is just the right length. But for some reason, their website design is toxic, too, crapping out on the LP play halfway through, or somewhere before "Keep a Knockin'." I smell too many Mac users spoiling the soup. They can't do anything right. Whoever Isotope Interactive is, the Backsliders should ask for their money back and
plus damages.

Liked "Maybellene Don't" a lot although the YouTube video of it doesn't do it justice. Just another desperate afternoon at a walk-in festival in Texas, I guess, turn down or you'll scare the kids in strollers. And why isn't the camera at the front of the stage? Fuck, it's not lkem there's a crowd one would get in the way of.

There's a fragment of a show from SXSW that shows 'em digging into a Yardbirdsy-style
real good.

Damned by faint praise in USA Today. They should've not sent the review copy. Thanks, Ken, I'm sure they thought.

USA Today April 24, 2008

THe Backsliders, You're Welcome (out now): Dallas band with a highly promising singer in Kim Pendleton and a few impressive songs, mostly front-loaded (the remainder slide down into mere adequacy). Definite growth potential.

-Ken Barnes

Damn. It is damn near impossible for me to type a message into the ILX reply box without it scrawling off the side of the screen and forcing errors.

A couple old records randomly pulled out for replay while unpacking boxes recently turn out to accidentally work as matched pair. But one is better.

The Janitors Thunderhead EP, In Tape UK, 1986 -- gallant but failed apparent Brit attempt to keep up with mid-American fake-hard-rock pigfuckers of the Killdozer/Scratch Acid persuasion, but with an even more inept singer and rhythm section and sense for writing tunes. Topics, inasmuch as they can be made out, concern stuff like (of course) mass murderers who (of course) kill with their bare hands. Still, pretty beefy for Brits at the time, especially guitarwise; they may have even passed for blues-based if you let blues mean Beefheart or the Birthday Party. Side openers "Thunderhead Johnny" and "Really Shining" are the most memorable tracks. Singer is an off-tune one-note whiner in usual '80s Brit fashion; sounds like the guy in Age Of Chance. Prodcuer Jon Langford from the Mekons and Three Johns (the latter of whom did catchier if less self-consciously quasi-dangerous loud quasi-rock) was spending a lot of time in Chicago at the time; I'd be surprised if he hadn't been exposed to say Big Black, or some of the noisy Touch 'N Go bands from then. Many of whom (just like Green River etc from Seattle) seemed refreshing from an indie-rock perspective at the time for not being wimps, but few if any of whom actually made convincing hard rock.

There's way more convincing thunder on Thundermug's 1973 Strikes, which I bet I picked up for $1 somewhere along the line because of their name, and because the band members on the back all look like total hang-dog hippie slobs, one of them with a neck beard, and the fattest one wearing a ponytail. Turns out, according to Martin Popoff, they came from London, Ontario. And they really do get that big-bottomed BTO buffalo-burger hockey-rink funk into their sound -- in "Jane 'J' James," "Where Am I," the start of "Garden Green" before it goes more hard pop. "Africa," too, though as the title suggests that one pulls of some nifty fake jungle polyrhythms (and may or may not mention "the colored man," I'm scared to go back and make sure.) Closer "Bad Guy" has the most bad-assed sound, approaching heavy Nazareth. And they do Beatles and diddybop harmonies elsewhere, when the mood suits them, plus a loud Kinks cover and something called "Mickey Mouse Club" that I gather might be political. Overall -- idiosyncratic, confused, rocking, with hints of prog and glam like they didn't know what they were. I like it a lot -- wondering if George or Scott have ever heard it. (Popoff liked it, too; gives it a 5 for heaviness and 8 for quality, and compares it to not only BTO, but also early Trooper. Though if I'm reading him right, his copy has different side-openers than mine. Maybe they shuffled the track order for American release, which was on Epic.)

the 2nd thundermug album is pretty collectable. harder to find.

thundermug means toilet, right? in some places. probably canada. or chamber pot.

xp Another inspiration on the Janitors at the time might be the Screaming Blue Messiahs, also from the UK and signed to Elektra; they put out their debut LP in '86 but an EP the year before (and some guys in the band had released an album as Motor Boys Motor as far back as 1982). Janitors feel sonically noisier, but that's the only way they're better -- Messiahs had more boogie, a singer, tunes, lyrics.

" And they really do get that big-bottomed BTO buffalo-burger hockey-rink funk into their sound..."

^I love this

also, the U.S. copy of Thundermug Strikes is actually songs from their first two albums. Strikes and Orbit. for instance, "Mickey Mouse Club" is on Orbit.

I sold a Moxy album yesterday! This guy said, "where did you get all this weird Canadian stuff from?" and i said, Moxy aren't weird, they're cool!

i bought myself a present on ebay. the only album by Texas band Houston Fearless. ten bucks for a sealed copy. 1969 hard rock. i dig it. a minor album. great rockin' cover of "mr.soul" on it.

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20060509/4877841590.jpg

finally got a really nice clean copy of the first Isis album. for 50 cents!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xQ-zn51BoTk/Rc_zdBHdk7I/AAAAAAAAAAs/cWEWfy3EzKo/s320/Isis-Isis.jpg

For half a buck you can't go wrong, I guess, but I remember that record being pretty dire. I probably sold mine about the same time I got rid of Fanny's "Rock and Roll Survivors,"

i had a crappy copy of the isis album and i liked it. it's kinda bonkers. how often do you get to hear all-female psych/jazz/funk/folk/rock albums anyway.

This album I bought for $2 last year (and wound up not totally hating despite itself) sort of applies (notes from the '08 buy-that-for-a-dollar thread):

The Deadly Nightshade F&W (Phantom, 1976 -- all-woman -- all-lesbian, maybe? -- power trio. I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to be very good, but they look really badass on the cover, plus they apparently do songs about Mary Hartman and an Irish bar, and they cover "Little Old Lady From Pasadena")

Deadly Nightshade F&W = "Funky and Western."

Deadly Nightshade almost mind-boggingly shitty so far; not all that funky or western -- and closer to show-tuney than folky, despite the discofied program music of the Mary Hartman theme (which may or may not be a cover); covering "Dancing in the Streets" is entirely pointless, maybe not worse than Bowie/ Jagger but definitely a lot worse than Van Halen's.

almost look like they could be a metal band on their LP cover by the way, especially given their very goth-metal name).

the isis album is totally funky. and has great guitars. and wicked flute solos. if someone doesn't like horns or horn rock i can see them not being into it. but, seriously, suzi ghezzi was an awesome guitarist.

plus, i think they pre-date Les Rockets as an all silver rock band.

plus, meco did the strings. and shadow morton produced. and allen toussaint produced their second album. and they have a song called "do the football". and one called "cocaine elaine". and bongos. and they thank three dog night and Crawdaddy on the back cover. and they are completely naked.

Christgau seems to prefer Isis, too:

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=isis

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=deadly+nightshade

you gotta hear the epic "servant saviour" by isis. serious p-funk/hendrix shredding guitar solos by suzi.

i'm really glad to hear this again after years.

now i'm listening to the first album by Talas, Billy Sheehan's old band, but i think i have to take it off cuz it's pretty bad. the no-budget production is horrible. they try and sound slick for a dollar and it just sounds like a dollar being wasted.

Alright, listening to the clips available on youtube, Isis is better than the BS&T knockoff I remembered. Probably as good/better than some of the half-dozen Cold Blood records I own. Plus, Scott's description = LOLOL!

"I probably sold mine about the same time I got rid of Fanny's "Rock and Roll Survivors"

Another really dire record. If you actually liked some of Fanny's first four
albums, this one's really bad by comparison. 'Course, not quite the same band, anymore, either.

I wrote about Talas up above (see permalink below), but by "debut", Scott, do you mean their 15,000-run self-released debut from '79 (which I've never seen; only know it existed because of Popoff's book)?:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2009

(x-post) I think I would still rep for Fanny's "Butter Boy" single (It's been years since I heard it, but it was no "Charity Ball" in any case.) Can't recall another note of the music on R&R Survivors. Like the naked/silver Isis cover, I may have been swayed by Patti Quatro's legs. She is apparently as tall as her sister is short.

isis album is WAY better than that fanny album. i have that fanny album for sale in my store. and i have suzi quatro albums for sale in my store. AND i have a mike quatro album for sale in my store. i'm covered when it comes to that family.

"Scott, do you mean their 15,000-run self-released debut from '79"

yeah, that one. it's bad.

this album is really good though. listening now. yes, i did receive my four zillion tapes in the mail today.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zvKZzfB66eE/RtM9TSutxvI/AAAAAAAAAJs/jqetw_L1QWs/s400/Assassin_Interstellar%2BExperience.jpg

assazzin's cover of "pipeline" might even be better than JFA's version.

2.0 out of 5 stars comical overtones but with fairly solid music, May 21, 2009
By Funeral of Gravewurm (VA) - See all my reviews
a somewhat poor follow-up to the great "Upcoming Terror" album. ok so the music is decent enough overall (even with the surf-rock cover song), but the lyrics are just unfocused and not very metal-minded. "Junk Food" ? why would a serious thrash band write a song about junk food? Well because they weren't serious. In similar vein to the band Tankard who started out strong, just went in a more comical approach to their thrash...not bad, but not as strong as the debut.