Rolling Hard Rock 2008 Thread

I never thought <I>Fish Out of Water</i> was indispensable. Squire used to play some of it during his solo spot during Yes shows on tour in the Seventies. I was never sure what the fish thing was with him. Was he a Pisces?

The story was that he took a long time in the shower so it was his nickname. Seriously.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7226757.stm

Hey George (or anybody): What are your thoughts on Legs Diamond? I got sent 12 (!!??) reissue CDs by them in the mail yesterday, and I have no idea where to start. (Well, actually, I'm starting with the debut, self-titled one, which sounds really great.) Any thoughts on which other ones to go for, and which ones to ignore? I'm clueless on the subject.

Otherwise, there are lots of recent CDs (mainly by no-name cdbaby bands) I want to post about here eventually, and I will, sooner or later, I promise.

Meanwhile, from the country thread:

LEFT LANE CRUISER -- Mentioned this Fort Wayne, Indiana blues-sludge-stomp duo upthread and linked to their myspace page. Anyway, I'd say I like Bring Yo' Ass To The Table better than most any Black Keys album I've heard (just seems to have more personality and actual songs that seem like songs not just riffs), though I don't know if actual guitar players will agree with me. Also seems better than anything I ever heard by Railroad Jerk, if not the Gibson Bros (the mid '80s Don Howland blues-punk ones not the late '70s Euro Caribbean disco ones). Anyway, funky enough with a good thick Billy Gibbons style tone and convincing ZZ haw-haw-haws at points, I'd say, and my favorite songs are the ones where they talk about pork'n'beans and mashed potatoes and the one where Amy's in the kitchen (which has the closest thing to a memorable melody, plus a good Dr. John style grumble in the voice.) Actually, there are mashed potatoes in "Big Mama," too, so I guess they like food. Also like the one where they drive to Wisconsin to meet Mr. Johnson. Good record, though probably a bit too monochromatic in its vamps to listen to it all the way through, from beginning to end. An EP could have sufficed, but that's fine.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=25297276

Also wound up liking the new Earth album (are all those Link Wray-sounding parts coming from Bill Frissell?) and, with more reservations, the late '07 Monster Magnet album -- the latter of which mostly for its more Hawkwindish space-rock parts ("Cyclone," "Freeze and Pixielate," maybe "2000 Light Years From Home") and, a little less so, it's "Wild Thing"ish garage-rock parts ("Solid Gold," maybe "Blow Your Mind"). "Slap In The Face" has a pretty cool, swinging riff, but an iffy chorus, I thought. Title track "4 Way Diablo" is almost a frantic kind of new wave. Closer "Little Bag of Droom" is an irritating kind of lounge croon, though maybe it'd sink in if I gave it more of a chance. Almost no stoner-metal, fine with me I guess.

Speaking of frantic new wave, I had hopes for these Jerseyites (especially since they were smart enough to limit themselves to an EP), but I thought they did too much Primusy prog-funk and Pixies nonsense, when I wanted more crazed surf-punk or something; vocals are clumsy, so more instrumentals or just plain funny songs could have helped a lot, I think:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/meltdowns

Interesting. My Joel Whitburn guide says that Legs Diamond never placed a single album even in the Top 200 in the States. But Jasper and Oliver's International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal calls them "undoubtedly the best 'undiscovered' group featured in this volume...an amalgam of American melody firmly entrenched with early 1970s British aggression...could easily be described as the North American alternative to Deep Purple. Unfortunatley, bad deals and bad finance led to their downfall."

Martin Popoff, though, basically says they started stinking after the first two albums. He gives the '77 debut a 7; '77 followup A Diamond Is a Hard Rock an 8; and then he likes just a couple cuts on Fire Power from '78, and he gives that 6, and Land of the Gun from '86 a 2. (That's in The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal; I don't have his '70s guide handy, though sometimes he does upgrade his position on certain '70s rock albums in that one.)

are all those Link Wray-sounding parts coming from Bill Frissell

Yeah, more or less.

Johnny Winter's Live Bootleg Series, Vol. 1 is an archival thing of him with his Texas trio, sounding like a bit prior to Johnny Winter And and his Johnny Winter Live arena-busting stuff.

Always at his best when rocking/interpreting others, a couple of gutbusters are "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Bony Maronie," and "It's All Over Now."

JW always clubs you over the head with his guitar rock mastery, so if you like that, you like this. Rhythm section, by definition, must always be ticking, able to lay it down like it's always on fire. Well and truly oiled and Texan with a capital T. Anyone doing retro in 2008 who hasn't figured out the necessity of boogie needs to listen to "It's All Over Now" from this.

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The first Legs Diamond album was the best. It has some killer material on it. "Stage Fright," "Satin Peacock," etc. Never liked the second one much. Fire Power was fair and had a Righteous Brothers covers I liked OK, predating soppy LA metal balladry.

Twelve Legs Diamond LP's though?! That's really pushing it. They were pretty much done after three everywhere except San Antone.

new deluxe street survivors coming out:

Ronnie Van Zant considered Street Survivors Lynyrd Skynyrd's greatest achievement. A year in the making, the album was recorded twice. Now, on the two-CD Street Survivors - Deluxe Edition - 30th Anniversary (Geffen/UMe), released March 4, 2008, the previously unreleased first version debuts alongside the incendiary final studio album from the original Lynyrd Skynyrd issued in 1977.

The package also features the never-before-issued last known recordings of the band, five songs performed live at a Fresno, CA concert less than two months before the group's famously tragic plane crash.

By 1977, the Jacksonville, FL band--singer Van Zant, guitarists Allen Collins and Gary Rossington, keyboardist Billy Powell, bassist Leon Wilkeson, and drummer Artimus Pyle--had scored four hit albums and become one of America's top concert draws. There was a new member, guitarist Steve Gaines, and the group could take its time with a new album. The first version was recorded at Miami's Criteria Studios in winter 1976 and spring 1977 with renowned producer Tom Dowd. But, dissatisfied with the results, Skynyrd returned that summer to Studio One in Atlanta, where "Free Bird" and "Sweet Home Alabama" had been recorded, and produced the released version themselves.

On Street Survivors - Deluxe Edition - 30th Anniversary, both versions are heard of "You Got That Right," "I Never Dreamed" and "Ain't No Good Life" (the original with background vocals by the Honkettes); three versions of "That Smell" (including a never-before-heard extended guitar jam); a previously unreleased "What's Your Name," and a song dropped from the album, "Sweet Little Missy," as a demo and a master of the also axed "Georgia Peaches." Replacing the two two deleted songs were "One More Time," a newly overdubbed track from six years earlier, and Merle Haggard's "Honky Tonk Night Time Man." A Deluxe Edition bonus is Van Zant's autobiographical rewrite titled "Jacksonville Kid," the last song he wrote and recorded.

from country thread; applies here too "Double Barrel" is a 1970 ska-talk hit from Dave and Ansil Collins):

Ross Johnson's Make It Stop! The Most Of is my album of the year so far, and I've decided (at least until I change my mind, if I do) that 10 2007 copyrights and four more 2004 or 2005 copyrights out of 24 definitely makes it an "album," not a "reissue." Maybe I'll go into more detail someday about why it's so great, maybe I won't, but suffice it to say that his acknowledgement of a hundred strains of '50-'70s pop and rock (Hasil Adkins rips, ZZ Top via Slim Harpo riff vamps, "Mr. Blue," "When The Saints Go Marching In"/"Dixie" [okay, that's pre '50s I guess] "Keep On Dancing" by Gentrys," "Pretty Flamingo," "Farmer John," "Double Barrel" as mentioned above) as wild dance music is pretty much the way I see things, and the hilarious inebriated shaggy-dog spiels and more than a few really gorgeous guitar workouts ("Last Date," "Theme From a Summer Place," "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying," "Senior Stroll") are free lunches full of gravy. I'm not even an Alex Chilton fan, never really have been (though maybe I should investigate his new wave era solo stuff more? Is that when he did "Bangkok," which I've always loved the Nomads version of?) But I totally love this thing. And the jokes about starting a new family before you've even finished with the first one you started are great.

(Favorite cut may or may not be the "Keep On Dancing" cover, with the talkover where the sockhop DJ voice starts asking the audience whether they've ever been beaten up, and that he has, and they might be, so they should keep on dancing but keep on looking over their shoulder. Then again, I always like songs where fights break out on dancefloors.)

Good stuff about Ross looking at nudie mags when he was a kid, too, and about how a nude party might be happening somewhere near you right now. Guy has a very funny dirty mind. And his medley of "Saints"/"Dixie" rocks like Chuck Berry's "30 Days."

Ross's myspace:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=275644278

Funny how The Gentrys keep getting mentioned on ILM. Everytime that happens I think of Jimmy Hart as the guy who used to feud with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. That was when pro wrestling was on Saturday afternoon local, the low-rent bottom-out-of-sight advertising slot. Back in the good old days when wrestlers made joke records instead of serious and semi-serious ones and being associated with them or the agecny was a kiss of death. He managed Randy Savage and Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart!

F-----' ay!

More from country thread"

Finally, I like some of the rockabilly stuff ("Midlife Crisis, Midnight Flight" -- amusing song), guitar jam stuff ("Stop Drinking," eight minutes, possibly about going on the wagon), soul-ish stuff ("Must Be Karma") and stuff where the guitars groove like "Midnight Rider" by the Allman Brothers ("Troubled Dreams") on this Alligator Records blues album Blood Brothers by Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King. Much of the rest of the album just sounds like stodgy old Alligator Records blues, who cares. But it might have enough cuts I like to pass.

No new-album songs on myspace yet, but still:

http://www.myspace.com/SmokinJoeKubekMusic

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

Best seat in the house?

Missed The Donna's "Bitchin'" late last year. Picked it up on firesale and they sound like they took good advice after the last two records of fiddling with a major label. Skip trying to be girly-girl in packaging and proceed directly to the embrace of your inner lumpy leather dirtbag. Girlschool took a similar tack. Lumpy leather dirtbags first, then took seriously label guidance and looking girly, something they couldn't do, and back to dirtbag for the closeout albums of the career.

"Bitchin'" is a fairly good one. Lots of anthemic rock music with groove, handclaps and 'na-na-na's. Guys don't drum in bands doing this stuff as well as the gal in The Donnas. If "Here for the Party" telegraphs with the title, is it evil? Not if you actually bring the party and they do. "Save Me" is worth a bullet point. It exactly captures the hit sound of Def Leppard. Before the singing comes in, you can't tell it's not them for the recreation of the patented arena-rock-in-a-box riff. Best song in the set, too.

Rockman Eighties hit parade sound explained here at my blog.

Witch -- <i>Paralyzed</i> Lots of tinny paper-on-comb/kazoo-like fuzztone guitar playing and twee through-nose singing. Describing it makes it sounds a bit worse than it is when on the receiving end. "Mutated" and "1000 MPH" sound like snotty '78 punk rock, someone imitating the Plasmatics or the Dead Boys. "Psychotic Rock" is the big snap-out number. The second half of it is taken over by a flanging effect that obliterates everything except a little bit of drum and bass, presumably the sound of someone being psychotically rocking.

Nah, too arch for me. But if the tinny and screeching fuzztone rock sound floats your boat there might be much for you to enjoy here.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/dictatorssmall.JPG
Big pro wrestling fans when it was on local cable and no one wanted to buy advertising. Ross the Boss (far left) is smirking because he knew he was laying down the best electric guitar in show business, buddy boy!

The Dictators' Every Day is Saturday rewards the nutty rock and roll fans who actually heard the jokes on the band's debut, Go Girl Crazy, and liked them. Thirty-three years ago.

It packages up the demo made under for CBS/Epic before The Dictators had played one live show. It clinched a record deal and under the guidance (and the term's used loosely) of Blue Oyster Cult's management, the band went into the studio and cut Go Girl Crazy, a flop of still astounding proportion.

The cover of Go Girl Crazy was a scene DD knew well -- locker room in a dingy and beat-up high-school with some shmuck, "secret weapon" Handsome Dick Manitoba, showing off an old-timey wrestling uniform. Yes, kids and adults, we did wear uniforms that looked THAT awful. The only thing we didn't have was the piece of brownish paper, the one with "Maricon!" scribbled on it, tacked on the wall.

Inspirational lyrics, from "Master Race Rock" -- remember this is 1974 and such songs just weren't done, classic rock being business of the most serious kind: We're the members of the master race! Got no tact and we got no grace. First you put your sneakers on, goin' outside to have some fun! Don't forget to wipe your ass, oh no! Set to a guitar riff that kills.

Mirrored

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

A blooz harp story

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

Picked this up a couple days ago as a reissue. Store proprietor, older white man behind counter, recommended it: "Raven has been issuing very good things."

If you're a fan of the crushing guitar of Leslie West, these are where the mark is made. Both albums charted, Nantucket Sleighride getting the highest. Climbing has "Mississippi Queen" as the kickoff track. Essentially the best of Mountain, missing only "Blood of the Sun" which next to "Mississippi Queen" and "Never In My Life" was their third most pulverizing track.

Bonus material is the title track from "Flowers of Evil" and a folk psych redo of "Travellin' In the Dark" by Bo Grumpus, whose vinyl debut I'd wager Scott must have.

Awesome.

I need to pick up those Mountain albums. I have Flowers Of Evil around here somewhere, along with the West Bruce & Laing album.

Got two good South American hard rock albums today - new stuff: El Cuy and Obskuria. On the German label World In Sound, but mine were mailed from Brooklyn. Wrote about them on the blog.

King Crimson archival live set, "The Great Deceiver," out of print since 1992. Covers the band's '73-'74 line-up, which was David Cross, John Wetton, Fripp and Bill Bruford. Very much a hard rock act crossing into loud and crashing prog metal, it outdoes most of the Crimson studio albums up until Red which was the only non-live thing that approached the band's stage power. In the US Crimson released USA which is from the same period and also pretty good. If you're at all a fan, the reissue of the latter a few years back was also noteworthy.

I'm listening to a show from Providence right now and "Larks, Pt. 2" is massive. Wetton's bass is very powerful and crunching, a fact remarked upon by Fripp in the journal and liner notes included with the package. Cross furnishes violin and mellotron and was fired after the tour, seemingly because he became irritable over the fact that the guitar, bass and drums walked over his contribution. That's not so apparent on the live recordings, which are very good, but it is fair to say that part of the instrumentation was secondary next to the trio of Fripp, Bruford and Wetton. In fact, one notices that on a lot of this Wetton actually outshines Fripp, his use of the bass fuzz-wah being particularly effective. Plus he was a good lead singer. He left Crimson in 1974 to join Uriah Heep for that band's Return to Fantasy which even fans must admit is a dismal record. At the time it must have seemed like smart move, Heep being a much bigger seller than Crimson.
Listening to this material in 2008, it's hard to figure out why Crimson weren't more successful in '73-'74 than they were.

Anyway, great package.

Half way in through the Providence show, KC begin to dig a major hole in the air. "Easy Money," a long improv called "Providence," and an electronically shrieking "Fracture" at which point Bruford yells, "Last round, keep going!" and they begin "Starless."

Spooky Tooth -- Nomad Poets Reunion gig live stuff from Germany where they wisely remain fans of the genre. Of course, no Greg Ridley, he being dead. And Luther Grosvenor also apparently decided to sit it out.

But that leaves Gary Wright, Mike Kellie and Mike Harrison which, being the lead voices and such, makes it sound exactly like the early Seventies from which the entire set is taken.

"Waitin' For the Wind," "Better By You, Better Than Me," "Tobacco Road" and "Evil Woman" all had substantial pre-AOR FM radio currency. Wright's voice is immediately recognizable and he stays away from making the band do "Dream Weaver," or it's not included. Lots of heavy B3 and assorted vintage keyboard sound and the guitarist is not undermixed. "Better By You" is Judas Priest's old lawsuit song in which two dipso American fans decided to shoot themselves in the head after allegedly being told by the song to "do it." One succeeded, the other turned himself into a horrid-looking jawless ghoul.

The heavy slowed-down attack of Spooky Tooth is preserved. All the songs are about being loused up, depression and dieing slow. Spooky Tooth were no sunshine boys. "I despise yooooo! But I love you because you're my home," they sing on "Tobacco Road." Invigorating, they haven't lost a step even though they all look like duffers who sit on park benches and throw scraps to pigeons.

Archival reissue -- Derringer's Live and If You Weren't So Romantic, I'd Shoot You on BGO.

After charting #1 in the Sixties with the McCoys and "Hang on Sloopy," Derringer wouldn't do like numbers again until his first solo album. Part of the Blue Sky Mafia, he must have been on most every record by Edgar and Johnny Winter up until 1972. Struck out in hard rock act of same name, featuring an ex-Dust man, Kenny Aaronson and Vinnie Appice on drums. The studio records, of which there two until he changed personnel, didn't sell. Lack of success interpeted to rise of punk rock and New Wave, although I'm not buying it. They just didn't get any radio play.

Live was a different matter and the recording of it included on this was their highest charting LP, prob'ly selling to many who'd seen on tour and been sold on the spot. The first fifteen minutes are without mercy, pumping bombast mixed with Derringer's tunes which tended to be fairly full of hook. "Across the Universe" is the exception, an extended guitar and drums blurt in which everyone tries to outrace and outplay each other.

Mike Chapman produced Romantic which went toward for a punk rock vibe, tunes being shorter and faster, although played by the usual slew of session aces. Picked up Myron Grombacher on drums, replacing Appice who went into Axis ("It's a Circus World and I'm an Animal") and later Black Sabbath. Songwriting co-credits to Alice Cooper, Patti Smith and Dan Hartman. Almost a power pop album although it's too guitar loud to fit the bill for most fans of the genre. Sounds a lot like what Pat Benatar would do on her first album, perhaps because she inherited Grombacher, Kenny Aaronson and Neil Geraldo who, while not on the album, went out on tour with Derringer to support it.

Features worst interpretation of "Lawyers, Guns & Money," ever. Rick wasn't good at being subtle or wry.

Best tune is "EZ Action" -- "Does your daddy know you're hot? Has he noticed what you got? Does your teacher know you're cool? Does he keep you after school? With a just glance his way, you'll get yourself an A" In his mid-thirties, at least, when he wrote that.

After the Derringer albums had run their string, he went to work producing and playing for Weird Al. That worked out pretty good.

Dutch reissue of UFO's first for Chrysalis, Phenomenon Comes with bonus track and booklet explaining -- in depth -- the transition from "space rock" band on Decca, big only in Germany and Japan and nowhere else to acquisition of Michael Schenker during a Deutsch date with the Scorpions.

Bernie Marsden was guitarist slated for the album but he didn't mesh with the band, being bluesier than fit the gang's taste. They went to Rockfield with Marsden and recorded some tracks which were discarded after they'd hooked up with Schenker. This disc includes two of them, "Sixteen" as well as "Oh My," later re-recorded with Schenker.

Lengthy notes includes quixotic reviews and comment.

"The singles didn't seriously trouble the charts..." it reads. In the USA ... Phenomenon received unexpectedly glowing praise in Rolling Stone... Billboard, too, was effusive: 'Phil Mogg may well be one of the best straight rock singers to have come out of Britain since the initial musical invasion a decade ago...'"

Review from Sounds 1974: "Don't listen to the first two tracks on this album, they're awful. But if you do hear them, don't let them put you off the album cause it's quite good and shows promising flickers of what the band could develop into. This band have changed line up quite a few times since they were 'the first band to break in Japan.'" What can I say about them, they're just a tight little heavy rock unit. It's so boring writing about rock groups because you keep having to repeat superlatives like 'terrif' and 'amazing' but that's neither here nor there..."

The bonus cuts constitute about one old-style album side and are all good, making this a reissue to get if you're a fan of Phenomenon

i just got a new UFO dvd in the mail. didn't watch it. i have been listening to rick derringer lately though. did my hero bobby caldwell play on that live album? i think i used to have a copy, but not anymore.

came home and BLASTED deep purple's made in europe today during my lunch break and all was right with the world. what a fuckin' album. coverdale haters be damned.

No, Vinnie Appice's on the live Derringer CD. Bobby Caldwell, Rick and Chuck Ruff, too, are on Johnny & Edgar Winter Together which also got the deluxe treatment from BGO in 2007.

The 2007 Euro Chrysalis/EMI reissue of UFO's No Heavy Petting is also plush. Half an LP worth of outtakes, most of which are good, a cover of the Small Faces' "All Or Nothing" which is not something they should have covered. The album didn't chart in the US but it's one of those you have if you're a big fan. The songs and hard rock dynamic are virtually perfect. Rich in lyric, Phil Mogg is at the top of his game and Schenker doing his best to take it to the next level. They cover Frankie Miller -- "A Fool in Love" -- which comes out as something Bad Company should have had the brains to do. Miller's "Have You Seen Me Lately Joan" is in the extras and I wasn't familiar with it. Sounded good in UFO's hands, though.

Danny Peyronel's "Martian Landscape" closes the record, an ode to his homeland, Argentina. You wouldn't know it unless told. It's one of those things that would have been a mediocre folkie coffeehouse tune but Schenker takes it over. His guitar arrangement makes it orchestral and anthemic.

The clippings are a hoot, including one from Sounds in which the critic gripes UFO were too LOUD, adding they dressed in American football pads onstage. Entertaining but hard to believe. No press photos of bands in football pads although Schenker did wear thigh-high white leather girl boots just like Overend Watts used to in Mott the Hoople.

new limited-edition popoff book looks cool. wish i could afford these things. hopefully, someone will compile them all when he's done with the 70's. cutting and pasting from his e-mail:

Ye Olde Metal: 1976

This is the follow-up to Ye Olde Metal: 1973 To 1975 and Ye Olde Metal: 1968 To 1972. Like those, it’s also limited to 1,000 copies, signed by me, and it’s numbered.

Dudes, this one is occasionally pretty controversial, and damn it, this is my era – I loved talking to these guys, writing this thing.

For those not in the loop yet, what I’m doing with this is detailed examinations of classic old albums, using new interviews with guys in the bands, maybe a little available press here and there. These are looks at these albums that are way more exhaustive than any commercially viable (!) book would ever dare. You know me, I just love getting the stories, no matter how many people care anymore. We’ve got more photos than last time as well, plus some 45 sleeves and cool old original ads etc. The book is 241 pages, full trade 6” x 9” dimension, and stuffed with trivia folks ain’t never heard before – I guarantee it.

The chapters this time (less of them but they are quite a bit longer)

Max Webster – Max Webster: my fave Canadian band of all time. Amazing album – I got Kim in here, and Terry and the band’s mysterious lyricist Pye Dubois

Scorpions – Virgin Killer: I talked to Klaus, Rudy and Uli about this record, the blasphemous German cover art etc., the concept of a “virgin killer”

Point Blank – Point Blank: Rusty, John and Philip talk about being Bill Ham’s second banana ZZ Top

Angel – Helluva Band: one of the greatest albums of all time; amazing stories about the business muscle behind the signing of the band. Frank and Mickie dish the goods

Rex – Rex: OK, Rex is one of the most entertaining guys I’ve ever talked to. His stories about the mob and singing on the lunch room tables… funniest thing I’ve heard in years. A lot of Leber and Krebs in here too

Moxy – II: Buddy and Earl on struggling in Canada and then saying, screw it, and playing heavy next time

Teaze – Teaze: heaviest Canadian album of the ‘70s – bloody ‘ell, you should know about it

Lone Star – Lone Star: What happens when your whole band becomes scientologists? Plus you’ll love Kenny’s Peter Grant/Led Zeppelin story

Starz – Starz: OK, Rex is the best, but his brother Michael Lee is pretty funny too. Cool Kiss/Sean Delaney crossover stuff here

Ted Nugent – Free For All: OK, the best story in here, bar none. I talk to the whole band on one of the most cherished albums of my youth. I’m jaded, so it doesn’t matter, but I hope this 16,000 word expose doesn’t destroy your faith in the Tedinator

Boston – Boston: I had the privilege of talking to Brad Delp at length about this album before his shocking suicide. Tom provides some great stuff as well. As tribute, Brad is on the cover of the book

Foghat – Nightshift: bloody LOVE this album, and Roger and Craig do it justice

Kansas – Leftoverture: talked to Steve, Kerry, Phil and Robbie here. Good overview of what Kansas was getting at, and Steve let’s us get a good look at his state of mind

So yeah, he next one in the series will cover 1977, and it’s well along, actually. Then, 1978 and 1979, one per year likely well into the ‘80s, at least. But yeah, the idea is that this is a pretty strange, obscure thing to try, and the hope is that people will “collect ‘em all,” the whole thing making a l’il heavy metal encyclopedia set as they show up, a series, a cool bunch of collectible books.

All right, listening to Howlin' Rain's Magnificent Fiend is a jump-on-the-grenade-and-I-threw-my-money-away-on-a-spec-buy-for-this moment.

Hey, 54 seconds of Chicago opens this one! Then it's "Dancers at the Endof Time" with a fuzz guitar that places it for fans of the Amboy Dukes prior to Tooth, Fang & Claw and Call of the Wild and who thought Ted Nugent was really messing things up.

If it's retro, some of it sounds like the Moody Blues records you didn't buy, some of it like Humble Pie, that version of the Pie that spent half their sets playing folk rock before they realized they were getting shelled in the US for not plugging in the electric guitars and turning it up. Some Firefall, without the guys who could sing harmony. Some Little Feat without as much funk, no slide or songwriting.

Not much, if any, bringing of the rock.

"Howlin' Rain's newest album, Magnificent Fiend, seems to present this question with its combination of psychedelia, blues, funk and classic 1970s arena rock," writes someone from the University of Wisconsin school newspaper in Madison. Leave out the arena rock (unless, naturally, your idea of arena rock in the 70's is the Doobie Bros. without hit singles or hooks) and most of the blues part, any you're a lot closer to the nut of it.

"Howlin Rain harks back to the classic rock of the Grateful Dead, Traffic and the Band," writes someone from the Palo Alto Daily News. And that's a sensible thing to put to paper.

Strong Cali-hippie vibe and the don't listen to the lyrics or you'll be in that laff riot area inhabited by second and third tier bands from the late Sixties who'd stick enthusiastic faux gospel and soulman singing onto their tracks.

I totally get why Rick Rubin likes this. Ah well, I tried. Maybe it'll grow on me.

For those with tastes exactly opposite mine, apply the 360 rule and you'll find much to like on this, I'm positive.

Famous rockstar won't send advance copy But it was in BestBuy!

maybe you can get your money back!

i still like that record. and i think it has hooks!

frampton was the one who put the folk in the pie. which is why he left. cuz steve wanted to rock out with his you know what out. thank god for that.

oops, that was me, scott. not maria.

Not a big loss. There's way worse stuff in the scratch pile than a pastoral Cali-fried hippie record. I will say the guy on keys really glues the performances together. When the sidemen on horns come in, Howlin Rain almost passes for Chicago. Of course, then the guy sings.

He wishes we all live well on the back sleeve. I think we can all get behind that.

Anyway, speaking of California, I think I'm going to pull out the first two Spirit records and play "Fresh Garbage" and "Dark-Eyed Woman" a couple times.

okay, fine, no howlin rain for you, but i think you'll dig the new album by Gideon Smith & the Dixie Damned on Small Stone. South Side Of The Moon. Chuck would like it too. Even has Jeff Clayton of Antiseen playing washboard on one track.

The Best of the A's marks the first incidence of the late Seventies-early-Eighties Philly band on CD.

If you're from southeast Pennsy and remember them fondly, it's definitely for you, available through Nukefizz. One of their regional trademarks on posters and album art was saddle shoes, if I remember correctly. The singer made the mistake of wearing them for one set of promo shots which are included in the CD booklet.

Has all of the first album, which was the very best of the lot, except for "Parasite" and "Teenage Jerkoff." I would've preferred they kept the latter in favor of stuff from the final EP in '82. The debut was and remains and exceptional record. The writing is stellar.

Now lumped in with power pop, the A's weren't a good fit for the genre. The first album was taut, on sulfate in a good way and very hooky, but rather more into hard rock than the standard example. "Who's Gonna Save the World" was one natural climax, sounding a lot like something Queen might do. They also stuffed "Twist and Shout," with their own words, into the middle of a song called "Grounded."

"After Last Night" has the singer failing at "bedroom politics," a euphemism for a fuss and inability to perform. So he gives his book to his girlfriend but she falls asleep "cuz the writing's too deep."
Some of this material is on YouTube including a Beeb Whistletest vid performance of them doing "Who's Gonna Save the World," intro'd by MMR's Michael Tearson, a name remembered by anyone who was in two hundred miles of Philly radio.

Second record was short and had a glammy vibe. Mott the Hoople "All the Way from Memphis" pianner on "Johnny Silent." "I'll Pretend She's You" was one of their best songs and they even took good stabs at jangle rock for "Electricity" and Mellencamp/Springsteen on "Heart of America." The latter had a snide quality too it if you listened close: "We have our dreams/But they're never realized." So they can't wait to watch "America on TV."

Third record, an EP, they were hardened rock pros and it sounds big and early Eighties, which meant sort of Miami Vice-y and polyphonic synths, which their keyboardist had kept to a minimum in favor of piano and B3 on the first two records. It might've worked for someone like Phil Collins or Daryl Hall, but not them. And that was the end of it.

Live they were really good. However, I never saw them anywhere but in concert bars, not infrequently at at the Jersey shore. Guitarist went on into Patti Smyth and Scandal's biggest record, The Warrior, and played for the Jagger and other celebs.

They were a bit early in terms of what became successful nationally out of Philly. The Hooters had a couple of hooky pop & hard rock numbers which were reminiscent of the A's.

Ian Hunter Behind the Shades Recorded live in London 2004 with Mick Ralphs on axe. As close to Mott the Hoople as you can get sans the platforms and Seventies physiques. Mott's live albums tended toward major classic rock guitar throwdown. This is no exception. The riffs are bludgeoning, particularly on "The Truth, the Whole Truth & Nothing But the Truth" which, incidentally, is off Hunter's first solo album.

Opens with "Once Bitten" which eclipsed "Dudes" and "Memphis," also included. And how 'bout the riff from "Rock 'n' Roll Queen"? If you didn't have much of Mott's stuff in your collection, this wouldn't be a bad place to start. Hunter also popularized those big black sunglasses that old people with macular degeneration wear, so now that he's old, he's right in style. No pics included, so you can't tell what anyone looks like.

If you had a choice to make between a UFO live CD by the new band and this one, you'd pick this. If you had a choice between this and Leslie West doing a good live performance in 2008, you'd pick this. If you had to choose between this and the Dics archival release upthread, you might be inclined to go with this. Close in terms of impact, but the Dictators never had anything like "Dudes" which Hunter can still bite down on without winking at the audience.

"Cleveland Rocks" in no way sucks and it raises a smile imagining it stomped into the floor in front of an audience in London. Must've also made him a fair pile after attachment to Drew Carey. Sounds like everyone got their old Marshalls and Tonebender fuzzes out of mothballs as the performance crackles with the tones of them all the way through.

That sounds fantastic

It's fairly ruling and substantial. Didn't expect much since it came in a truly nondescript cover. There's not a moment of phoning it in on the performance.

I mentioned on the metal thread that the new Ted Nugent live album, Sweden Rocks, is a great roaring power trio album, and (because it's recorded in Sweden) offers an hour of pure rockin' and a minimum of Tedly between-song bullshit.

That is, absolutely zero political content. Plus a 90-second run through "Soul Man" that's kinda amusing, and a very nice eight-minute take on "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang." Only two songs ("Raw Dogs & War Hogs" and "Still Raising Hell") from Craveman, and otherwise nothing post-1980.

It's been delightful having a used record store in walking distance of the house -- Penny Lane across from Pasadena City College. It caters to the PCC and Caltech students. And it's mostly major label, classic rock, punk and some metal. But the bread and butter is Tower Records style but with ten to twelve dollars knocked off the asking price. I can walk down to it a few times a month and browse and almost always find things I'd like to revisit.

Yesterday's:

Girlschool Play Dirty The reissue copy with two "new" recordings done before the death of Kelly Johnson. This was the album they recorded before she left and was produced by Noddy Holder and Jimmy Lea of Slade.
They gave it a glam sheen along with drums recorded ala Def Leppard. It's blaring and has a number of songs fans always enjoyed although it didn't do well. They had fans although not enough to continue buying deep into the catalog. And they were less successful domestically although they had a great word-of-mouth rep as a live night out.

"Breaking All the Rules," "Play Dirty," "Surrender," a cover of "20th Century Boy," and "Breakout" -- they liked shouting variations on the word break. Girlschool were always interested in breaking something.

Bonus stuff is the single "1234 Rock n Roll," which they didn't like but which sounds just like The Sirens, or rather The Sirens version of it sounds just like theirs. The redone numbers are "Tush" and "Don't Call It Love" and they don't stink compared with the vintage performances.
It's an easy record to listen to in entirety.

Rory Gallagher Tattoo One of his "must haves." You have to hear "Cradle Rock" as an example of how to turn a power shuffle that mostly is a continuous vamp gets turned into an actual song rather than a jam. Gallagher had a gift for turning R&B figures into gruff hummable tunes limned by guitar explosions. He lined his albums with them, set off by ragtime pieces and folk stuff that always got out of there before you got sick of it. "Just a Little Bit" is a bonus cut from a recent reissue, a live in the studio for a few friends while on US tour that is another extended vamp where Gallagher runs through his considerable catalog of boogie licks old bluesman lyrics at 100 MPH.

If you see this record and like stuff in the white boy blooz (except there's not actually any slow blooz on "Tatto") genre, you should buy it. It refuses to disappoint.

Mudcrutch s/t TP indicated in recent bookend articles in the NY Times/LA Times (hey, lessee how much we can make our articles look like they're joined at the hip from press junket!) that Mudcrutch songs were written real fast. Sometimes in an afternoon. And while that's sometimes OK, in this case it sounds it.

"This is a Good Street" -- 1:34 of TP and pals singin' how it's a good street. (Eyes roll.) Coulda been "This is a Good Sandwich" except two syllables make it hard to fit into the metre.

A lot of it sounds like an old Outlaws record which is OK, too, except no "Green Grass & High Tides." "Crystal River" doesn't really qualify.

"Six Days on the Road" is lightweight Georgia Satellites or bad Faces depending on your age and POV.

Much of this doesn't rock nearly as hard as you would have expected a bar band in Florida to have rocked in the early Seventies. "Lover of the Bayou" works at it a bit.

Major problem is TP phoning it in even when he doesn't realize he's phoning it in. Being as it has Mike Campbell and some other Heartbreaker aces on it, the sounds are ace but the lyrics -- tripe. How many times has Tom done his "I Won't Back Down" shtick? On this it's for "Scare Easy" cuz Tom's "a loser at the top of his game" and y'know, he won't scare easy. One wishes he would break into "y'know it don't come easy" and a cheerful song by Ringo Starr but it's just not gonna happen.

It's all very amiable and laidback summertime, so maybe "Shady Grove" -- which sounds like the Outlaws from their second or third albums -- will be the hit that guarantees he'll do another couple of these. Naturally, it's recorded very classic and gorgeous and no one born doesn't like Mike Campbell on guitar.

"Bootleg Flyer" is the most Heartbreakers-like from the vintage era of the band.

"Ahh, ladies give a drunkard a chance," sings Tom on the last song on the CD. Nope, nope, nope, no girls partying in Florida these days are gonna do that, especially listening to this.

Why, oh why, did I buy this?

PS -- It's not really that awful. It just isn't anything except TP and buds being hayseeds which they probably were definitely determined not to be back when they actually were Mudcrutch. If you liked Pure Prairie League or Asleep at the Wheel records in the 70s-80s, maybe you'd really like Mudcrutch. If you like Shooter Jennings on his most recent, I suppose this is same kind of stuff without the Dire Straits cover.

I'll grant "This is a Good Street" might be a fumbled stab at something drily humorous.

Sheesh, if want someone doing angry hayseed, get the Ian Hunter thing upstream and listen to the songs not mentioned, which are his Bob Dylan imitations.

Sheffield overjoyed to hear new Def Leppard album, <I>Songs from the Sparkle Lounge</I> -- now in stores and lads aren't looking bad in booklet photos.

Now for the bad news.

It's hard to listen to and kicks off with one number which guarantees those of low patience will immediately shitcan it. "Go" is shturm and drang and annoying bass sample and edgy melody, one to make you anxious, anxious for it to be over.

"C'mon C'mon" has glammy handclaps and a Gary Glitter stomp and it still is only meh.

"Cruise Control" is another modern annoyance. Some crap thing made to sound slinky like Prince (except they've no business sounding like Prince and sticking a vocalizing mama into the middle of this for no reason other than they can) and psychedelic in other places or a Steve Stevens solo album, something like that. Awesome wah-wah solo but no one listens to four minutes of this style for such a thing. Hey, wait, it's growing on me....naw, just said that to trick ya.

"Hallucinate" sounds like Def Leppard ought to sound which is like the Donnas sounded on the LP upthread. There's the Rockman arena guitar sound and an honest-to-God obvious hook, the first one on the record at cut number seven. Did the band go into the studio determined not to write songs? Or did they surmise there were too many good songs on their last album of cover versions and they owed their fans a break?

"Only the Good Die Young" has the lads trying to do John Lennon hair metal, which a lot of people like (cf. "Rockford" Cheap Trick) to do and hear. So, generously, this is Enuff 'Z' Nuff and fair.

"Bad Actress" is old-fashioned NWOBHM bludgeon riffola DL-style but there's only two songs left when it finally deigns to arrive.

"Come Undone" is more John Lennon hair metal only now they've overdone it. Def Lep seem to know instinctively when the song is duff because that's when Phil Collen is called upon to stick in an incinerating wah-wah solo that almost saves it. If you listen a couple times and gain familiarity, it does save it. But you gotta like incinerating wah solos for that to happen.

More wah-wah on "Gotta Let It Go" and gratuitous sequenced Trash-80 drum track. Eh. It's art and drama.

Better than Mudcrutch but it's an apples and oranges comparison.

"Love" -- one track I forgot to mention. It's ELO! Or Queen! Or something in between.

Power of Rock and Roll write-up by xhuxk. Is that a good album or what! When Vollmer goes Googling, he'll now probably see it higher. You still need to hear Wild in the Streets -- their best Eighties album.

Dick Destiny & the Highway Kings me -- on YouTube from way back in '89 in a Bethlehem slum.

Phil's exactly right on Nuge's live set in Sweden. Good trio, excellently mastered -- not too hot so it distorts unnaturally. Much reminiscent of the trio that played on Tooth, Fang & Claw. Best tunes are "Snakeskin Cowboy" -- its sinister riff is superbly turned in. Rendition of yelping "Hey Baby" with someone imitating Dereck St. Holmes.
And the band evens put the vintage background vocals back into "Stranglehold." Ted's bread and butter is live work so as compared to his last live one, Full Bluntal Nugity, this is shorter but not inferior. FBN has the Ted's Michigainiac in the US shtick, the latter doesn't except for the man telling the Swedes they must have a bit of Detroit in them.

And the 2007 reissue of Robin Trower's Bridge of Sighs is worthy if you need a remaster. Includes a BBC recording of the band with two superb cuts -- "Confessin' Midnight" and "Gonna Be More Suspicious" -- which are as funky as heavy Seventies hard rock ever got. This was one of Trowers specialties, perhaps a carryover from The Paramounts, his old R&B band. Can't say enough about those two tunes outside of the excellence of the original album as a whole. It's his best made better by addition of some history.

Plus, the singer -- Jimmy Dewar. He could have been singing a phone book and it would have sounded cool.

Ha, that Dick Destiny clips rules, George.

As does Nantucket's Long Way To The Top, from 1979, which I bought for $1 or two last year and only just finally got around to concentrating on this week. Weird that they opened the album with a cover of a three-year-old AC/DC song, and even named the album after it. Maybe they were banking on U.S. fans not knowing it was a cover -- had High Voltage even come out in the States at that point? It never charted; Let There Be Rock went to #154, Powerage #133, and by '79, of course, AC/DC were picking up Stateside steam after Highway to Hell went #17. Nantucket never wound up charting an album themselves, though, which surprises me; I swear I remember them getting some late '70s AOR airplay in Detroit, though maybe I'm confusing them with the band New England. (Weirdly, Nantucket apparently were based in North Carolina, even despite the lobster-fishing theme of the LP cover -- at least, that's what their address on the LP is.) Second side gives me a sort of first-Loverboy album vibe -- some hard pop-rock, some tentative hints at reggae rhythms that don't cut into the rock, freebie hidden acapella closing cut.

Definitely liking Nantucket more than the double best-of Rainbow LP I bought for $1 over the weekend, though maybe they just need to grow on me. Good guitar parts, obviously, plenty of skill involved, but they still sound cold and clinical and stupid. Probably I just need to spend more time with it.

Puhdys' 10 Wilde Jahre -- Metal Mike sent me this a year or two ago, and didn't play it until this week. George had pointed out on another thread that they're in that Jasper/Oliver book. Anyway, judging from this (best of?) LP, they definitely had their own sound -- fairly hard-rocking, intermittently pompish, German schlager music, or something. Though, for all I know, there were lots of German bands doing the same thing in the '70s, and I've just never heard them. Weirdly, the other Pudhys LP Metal Mike sent me, Rock n Roll Music, is all blue-jeaned, English language cover of not remotely obscure '50s rock'n'roll classics -- not sure yet how much asskick they get out of those, whether they wanted to be Stackwaddy (who, um, I'm still not sure I've ever heard) or just Sha Na Na.

Now, my Billboard review of the new White Lion:

WHITE LION
Return of the Pride
Producers: Mike Tramp, Claus Langeskov
Airline
Release Date: Apr. 29
Toward the tail-end of the ‘80s, the calmly cracking campfire tone of singer Mike Tramp – born in Denmark, and brandishing a blond mane worthy of his band’s name – set White Lion apart from the hair-metal pack. Back now with a new, keyboard-augmented lineup, Tramp’s best when he’s most ambitious-- “Battle of Little Big Horn” and the eight-minute “Sangre De Cristo” are complex compositions, exuding a spooky history-book buzz. “Live Your Life,” “Gonna Do It My Way,” and “Finally See The Light” are pristine hard pop, made anthemic with Thin Lizzy changes and choruses hooked like the Who or Bay City Rollers. Jamie Law’s powerchords thrash loud enough to compensate for intermittent moments of mush. And while live reprises of a pair of 20-year-old hits feel extraneous, the Bad Company riff opening “When The Children Cry” is a neat touch. As hair-metal comebacks this spring go, more fun than Whitesnake’s for sure. (C.E.)

New Night Ranger CD ends with two acoustic updates of their old hits, too, a sort of Zep-folked "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" being more useful than "Sister Christian," oddly enough. Rest of the album has some good metal and pop-rock on it; not sure how much.

It's spelled "Puhdys," by the way, and they're apparently from EastGermany. (And they're more a rock band than schlager band, if I wasn't clear. Like, hard rock with schlager rhythms maybe. Though maybe that just comes from singing in German. I bet lots of bier was consumed at their shows.)

(Wait, did Stackwaddy actually do '50s covers, or am I confusing them with Showaddywaddy or somebody?)

Stackwaddy tended to do covers of tunes by Jethro Tull, Jeff Beck and blues/R&B men although I also did "The Girl from Ipanema." They also tended to retitle them like the totally awesome "Meat Pies Have Come but the Band Ain't Here Yet." Showaddydaddy did the 50's rockabilly Sha-Na-Na-like thing. Stylistically, the bands were polar opposites. Showaddydaddy had hits. The Stackwaddies were a John Peel discovery and didn't.

Nantucket's lobster thing was amusing, having more to do with their noreaster whaler name. Long Way to the Top was all right. The album just before it was better, having a more natural less produced southern pop and boogie sound. Recall I reviewed the reissue for the Voice with Ten Benson's release of a few years ago. They had a song called "Girl You Blew A Good Thing" which backed off on an obvious opportunity to go on about oral sex which, naturally, a southern band of more gravity -- like Blackfoot, would have taken fully by the horns.