Indigenous featuring Mato Nanji "Vanishing Americans"

 

When BKP sent this over he thought it was a collection of sorts (can't truly say "hits"), which would have made sense since it was hot on the heels (one year to the day!) of the previous album, but it was all new material.  Help me out here and click this link back to that post for the history. 

 

Thank you!  So without further ado...

 

I'm finding that most reviews are exceptionally positive, yet I'm afraid I'm going to have to pee on the corn flakes.  The album opens on a serious high note...

 



...and there you have the only Grade A track of the record's thirteen.  Hmmm, let's stick with that scoring system.  There are five "B"/good songs, three average/"C", three more at a D (these are the ones of the elementary-level lyrics which had me screaming at my recorder that I'd be happy to help upgrade to at least a teenager's ability), and one F (fart/turd/etc.) that was so consistently flat it amazes me that it escaped edit/re-record/delete.  Had the seven average-and-under tracks been instrumental, they would have been keepers.  Nothing wrong with the music/playing.  Wifey is listed as a co-writer on every track, and I am begging you, young man, to grow a pair and keep the pen out of her hand!  Let her turn a knob or something (great, now I've gone and pissed off producer extraordinaire Mike Varney).

So on a 4.0 grading level, this gets a 2.15.  That won't grant you entry into the Mad Rocker University of Music...

Monster Truck "Furiosity"

 

I heard this Canadian rock band through a British music magazine's website and deemed it worthy of a purchase.  Others outside of Canada may have experienced them opening for Slash, ZZ Top, Kid Rock or Deep Purple.  This is old-school, kick ass R&R!



Man, that vocalist is the star!  I pegged him at times sounding like Ian Astbury of The Cult or Angry Anderson and possessing the power of Chris Cornell but not the depth or finesse. 



Saw several reviews suggesting keg party/bonfire in the woods by the lake.  Yeah, I can see that. 

As far as keeping the entire record?  I think I'd find myself reaching for a Moxy disc or even The Sheepdogs before slapping this into the player, so I'll stick to retaining about a third of it this time with hopes for a more diverse follow-up next year. 

Lance Lopez "Handmade Music"

BKP sent me a couple of this guy's releases two years ago and I added several tracks onto my portable device.  Every time one of them pops up in the shuffle, I stop what I'm doing and think, "I need to get the latest release."  And here it is........some eighteen months after it dropped.  That's right, dear readers, release date was 03/2012 and I just bought it...at full price, no less (it's been close to ten years since I paid $16 for an audio CD or file).  That fact tells all my friends and former colleagues from the biz that Lopez must be the real deal, which he is, and it's a crying shame that he's not more known domestically.  Born in Louisiana and now based in Texas, Lopez has the history to be a star.  At age ten, he heard Hendrix for the first time and at twelve saw Stevie Ray (legend has it that SRV's mom cried when she heard Lopez play at a benefit concert, saying she knew her boy was still living through Lopez).  A couple of years later, he's moved to New Orleans with his dad and begins to play in clubs and bars with him.  At 17, he gigs in Johnnie Taylor's band and soon after he's in Europe playing with Lucky Peterson.  "Handmade Music" is his sixth studio album (plus one more live) in the past ten years.  Have you heard of him? 



They know him in Germany.  The big boy can play and sing!  That's this record's lead-in track.  It's more rock than the other two records BKP submitted, which were certainly blues-based.  Recorded at the famous Ardent Studio in Memphis with Jim Gaines manning the boards (SRV & DT, Santana, Steve Miller Band, Huey Lewis, Jimmy Barnes, etc.), this record will appeal to fans of Gary Moore, Joe Bonamassa, Indigenous, ZZ Top and Point Blank (gotcha on that one, huh?).  Now for the album's closing song...



Lopez composed half the tracks solo (including these two), co-wrote three more, and covers "Traveling Riverside Blues," "Black Cat Moan" and one song credited to Dan Hartman that I've never heard of.  This is one of those albums that you keep increasing the volume and hitting "repeat" on the player.

Do yourself a monumental favor and add this man to your collection.

OMD "English Electric"

I was completely surprised and pleased with their comeback album in 2010 and bought this fresh from the box.  The opening electronic voice warned, "the future you anticipated has been cancelled."  How right it was...

 

This record harks back to the groundbreaking "Dazzle Ships" in many ways, notably the loops and layers, one using voice mail systems, another a counting lesson, and one that declares "I want a house and a car and a robot wife."  This worked thirty years ago but not today.  And there isn't one song that isn't culled from another in their catalog.  For instance, "Helen Of Troy" is a reworking of "Joan Of Arc."  This is an edited version of the first single...

 

 

Album version is twice the length and it doesn't get old.  Should be on dance floors everywhere.  The electronics are crisp and clean, the vocals as strong as ever, but many of the tracks just don't stir the passion like HOM. 

 

They got this one right as it has just been officially released as the third single...

 

Oh well...I'll keep 15 of the 42 minutes.



Black Star Riders "All Hell Breaks Loose"

 

I really wanted to like this. 

 

I had just turned eighteen (the legal drinking age at the time) and "The Boys Are Back In Town" had begun its run across radio through the summer of '76.  I ordered the cassette configuration of "Jailbreak," so I had to wait a few days to get it.  John at Custom Sound asked, "Do you know this is their sixth album?"  Wha wha WHAT?!  The tape arrives and "Boys..." isn't even the best track on it.  The title song and album's opener smokes and the final two tracks, "Cowboy Song" and "Emerald," left me wanting more.  Decided to order the previous album but it was only in 8-track (never owned the first one) and vinyl, so with my impending move to Florida to begin college, I opted to wait.  Three months later I began my career at WPRK over the long Thanksgiving weekend and had plenty of time to myself as I was the only student available to run the station (somewhere on this blog I've told that story...I think).  I touched every album in that basement and previewed anything that looked interesting.  I reached the "T" section on Saturday and there they were, three of the previous Thin Lizzy albums.  I still say "Fighting" is one of the great rock albums of the 70's.  Another three months pass and on February 21, 1977, I get to see them open for Queen at the Lakeland Civic Center.  I need not elaborate...

 

I followed the band to its end in '83 and purchased spin-offs and solos.  No one was shocked when Lynott died in '86 since the band was known for its drug & alcohol abuse and Irish anger.  They were the first hard rock band to use twin lead guitars, influencing rock/metal artists for decades to come.  Scott Gorham was/is the main constant to the Thin Lizzy name though it was guitarist John Sykes (final TL album, Whitesnake, Blue Murder) who kept the Thin Lizzy name alive with reformations.  That's when they caught flack for using the name without Lynott around.  Fast forward fifteen years...

 

Gorham gets some of the old band members together again and new material starts to emerge.  The decision is made not to use the Thin Lizzy name for it, hence Black Star Riders.  I understand that Lynott's widow is still alive, and for her, this was the proper call.  But what we have here in this new record is a Thin Lizzy album.  There are a couple of blatant rip-offs of old TL songs (one is "Southbound" on speed and steroids) and the vocalist (previously in New Model Army and The Almighty) reproduces the Phil Lynott-style as well as the kid in Journey does for Steve Perry.  So color me confused.  If you're not going to call it Thin Lizzy, then don't give me Thin Lizzy in another wrapper thirty years later! 

 

And that's a Thin Lizzy song if I ever heard one.  But I wanted something new and different if you call yourselves Black Star Riders.  It's one thing to toe the line with the past sound, but to employ it for 85% of the record?  Call me a musical snob (Ms. Rocker does all the time), but I'm not as bad as an old colleague of mine who damns a band to the trashcan if they change a drummer (KG, you there?).

This is one of the keeper tracks.  Audio quality is suspect but the visual is up-close...



Gorham may not be able to rock the long blonde locks anymore at age 62 but he can still play!  The rest of the band (including credited gigs with Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, Y&T to name some more) can play as well. 

The first clue to all the confusion came from my computer's music program which labeled this album "Various Artists."  As such, I'll keep four tracks.  If it had been a Thin Lizzy album, I'd have kept it all. 

The Boxer Rebellion "Promises"

 

I couldn't remember why I knew this band's name but I sampled and purchased anyway.  It sat in my music file until I saw a quick interview with them from the Hyde Park Summer Festival this past July.  They touched on their history, which revealed the source of my cognizance.  They released their second album exclusively through digital formats in 2009 and the British charts couldn't recognize it without physical sales, a big deal at the time.  It later became the first digital-only release to chart on Billboard.  They also had a couple of songs in a movie where the music/soundtrack was better than the film, "Going The Distance" (I was stunned that the Cake song wasn't included).   

 

 
Jay promotes the band as "London-based" but doesn't expand on the fact that one guy is from Tennessee and another from Australia.  There is much to like in this album, such as the chiming U2-ish guitars and the 80's New Wave-ish keyboards.  I noted a little dredg and some Killers during the latter songs on the record.  This is one of the two tracks I will keep...

Looks like all their fans in the UK and the States bought the record in its first week of release.  They are having their best chart success in the Netherlands and are currently touring there in support.

 

Lots of potential and worth a future listen.   

Bernard Fanning "Departures"

Powderfinger was one of my favorite Australian discoveries of the past fifteen years.  Been a sucker for a pop song since I was five and the Aussies as a country have provided me with a substantial number of my beloved bands of all time, one of which was INXS.  I'm not saying that Powderfinger, or its vocalist, Mr. Fanning, sounded like INXS and Michael Hutchence, but they fit into that unique sensibility which was, and is, Aussie pop/rock music.  Little did I know that their last album from late 2009 would actually be the last. Two months after that post the band announced a final tour and closed the door.

This is not Fanning's first solo project, however.  The band took a short break in '03 and he put out an album that I didn't discover until 2007 when the band's next project after their hiatus was released.  I sought it out for a sample spin and discovered what was basically a country album.  Too radical a shift for me at the time, but Fanning earned accolades such as "Australia's Steven Stills."  I did not hesitate, though, when I spotted this new post-band-breakup record a few months ago.  Thankfully, he went back to the power-pop/radio rock roots of his band.  Unfortunately, it didn't gel for me after repeated spins.



That's single one.  Good video and hook. 



This is a clip of the title track and one he's financed, apparently.  After reading about the timing of the album as a whole (his dad had passed away and there were historic floods in his hometown), I knew there would be a song like this.  Too mournful for my tastes, and I can handle sad quite well. 



There's that INXS-styled sound I mentioned.  Newest single.  Some of it works, too.  Therein lies the problem.  A good chorus here, a great riff there, fine lyrics in that one, hot sax solo (though I kept thinking it was a direct rip of the SNL opening theme).......they all come together on only one track for me and it's none of the three above.  If I could break these songs into pieces of a musical puzzle I would be able to put together a few fine tunes.  Now maybe I'm too harsh on it coming from the States (and I can't find an imminent release date for it domestically) but the album has sold well Down Under, debuting at #1 and still charting today. 

I'm holding out for a Powderfinger reunion...

Streetwalkers "Rip It Up At The Rainbow"

This is one of the bands from back in the original Mad Rocker days of late 1976-77 that I played the bejesus out of.  Their album was called "Red Card" and I had never heard of them whilst residing in southern, middle Tennessee.  No surprise there.  I was hooked from the very first song...



Christ, what a voice!  I had no idea who Roger Chapman was.  Neither did I recognize the guy on slide in the video above, John "Charlie" Whitney.  My eighteen-year-old mind was blown and I HAD  to learn more about these guys.  Discovered an earlier debut album by them and also their previous band called Family. 



Nope, Streetwalkers was more to my liking.  Taped (cassette...I was way ahead on that curve) a copy of the first album and admired the credited performers.  Where do I start?  Well, let's just go alphabetical so nobody gets offended.  Boz Burrell:  Bassist/singer in King Crimson before, started some band called Bad Company right after; Michael Giles:  Also King Crimson and had just played drums on a Roger Glover solo project; Ric Grech:  Was in Family (again, didn't know that) but more known as the bassist in Blind Faith and Traffic; Tim Hinkley:  Had tinkled keys on a few records before and went on to do so with Al Stewart, Humble Pie, the aforementioned Bad Co., Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy (I'll tie those in shortly); Neil Hubbard:  One of his first bands included a guy who later became Elton John, was also in the core bands on Jesus Christ Superstar OC and Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and later spent many years with Brian Ferry/Roxy Music;  Linda Lewis:  Vocalist who worked on Cat Stevens' Teaser & the Firecat and Catch Bull At Four as well as Bowie's Aladdin Sane;  Max Middleton:  Jeff Beck Group; and John Wetton:  Also in Family, Rare Bird, and was a recent addition to Crimson for Lark's Tongues in Aspic.  Whew!  Needless to say, the first album was excellent with all the guest contributions.  For "Red Card," the band added Bobby Tench as a permanent member (that made me laugh knowing there was only one more studio album done before the band split up), who played guitar and sang with the Jeff Beck Group and another hot band at the time, Widowmaker.  The drummer on the record was Nicko McBrain, lasting only the one album before doing two with Pat Travers and then making a name for himself with Iron Maiden.  For the last album and tour (horrible live album...sound quality terrible and performances reeked of obligation knowing they were finished due to the rise of punk in the UK), the drummer was David Dowle and bassist was Mickey Feate.  Dowle later became a member of Whitesnake in its bluesy, pre hair-metal incarnation and Feate and Tench became part of Van Morrison's band for his masterpiece, "Wavelength."  Chapman had a respectable solo career in Germany and the UK and Whitney essentially disappeared from the music scene. 

Now that the history lesson is done, you can see there was a large amount of talent in the band...yet zero success in the States.  One reviewer of the "Live" double album said it would "only appeal to the band's half-dozen fans in the US."  Well, I was one of the six and I didn't like it, either.  A news blurb several months ago heralded (bemoaned) the discovery of two live shows from the same tour that produced the lousy original.  Somebody dug them out of the trash, cleaned up the recordings and declared them superior.  Riiiggghhhttt...  Still, I checked the set lists and found them the same except for the track "Dice Man," which spoke to me because I loved dice games and craps and one of the lyrics was "makin' me loose, drinkin' Tennessee juice."   Hence the purchase of Rainbow and not Demontfort.  The twelve-plus minute version is the record's highlight among highlights.  There may be some slight flaws in the masters which couldn't be corrected, but they do not dull the performance.  As I listened, I heard Chapman's voice grow eerily similar in places to the power and warble of another great rock singer who would debut with his band the following year.  Any guesses?  What about Jimmy Barnes of Cold Chisel.  Let's hear one more...



It's very difficult to believe that this album and these videos were culled from the same tour which produced the crappy one from 36 years ago.  Their label had tried to catch the same wave that was carrying along fellow roster member, Thin Lizzy (there it is...finally!), in spite of the punk movement, and it didn't pan out.  I now believe that Mercury Records spent as little money as possible on the original live recordings and the band knew it and tanked the shows.  There is way too much evidence here to support my belief.