The Prog Collective "Epilogue"

I saw this as a RIYL on one of my music sites and could not believe the names involved:  John Wetton, Alan Parsons, Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire, Steve Stevens, Derek Sherinian, Tony Kaye, Steve Morse, Fee Waybill, Steve Hillage, and on and on.  "Well, this has to be good," I assumed (uh oh), and bought it unheard. 

The entire record now resides in the recycle bin and soon I will tap "Empty" to rid my computer of this total wasted effort.  Nope, won't keep a single note even though eight of the nine tracks top the six-minute mark, sort of an unofficial standard I've had for a few years as a show theme if I ever decide to go back on WPRK.  This album is full of the clichéd, generic "prog" ideas that essentially ruined the genre in my mind some thirty years ago.  Multi-tracked lame vocals abound.  God, I'm so disappointed in this, can you tell? 

The leader of this patchwork piece of shit is a dude who befriended the version of Yes from approximately two decades ago and was a card-carrying member for a few years.  Parts of this album have the Yes blueprint (five former Yesmen playing on it, duh...)  Since then he's mostly been involved with those tribute recordings that always used to sell a copy or two in our stores, you know, the songs of Pink Floyd/Journey/Lynyrd Zeppelin/ACDC-UFO...  And that's what this album basically is, a tribute to Bad Prog Rock.  But in an effort to be fair, I'll let the label try to sell you on it...



Oooof, time to dump the can...

Robbie Williams "Swings Both Ways"

I've liked this guy since his first American solo album.  Not everything has worked completely, but this will be the seventh full album by him in my personal collection.  Six covers of some classics and seven originals written for the big band treatment.  Williams reunites with songwriter Guy Chambers (Angels, Rock DJ, etc.) on a full time basis for the new songs after a decade-long hiatus which Williams was quoted saying, "There was no huge falling out, he was a bit of a knob and I was a bit of a pussy."  Notoriously egotistical, the opening track's lyrics fit the mold...



"Get out of my lane, you're not in my league," "there's no room in my bed but while you're here bow your head and you can shine my shoes."  Yeah, that pisses people off but I like it.  The man has earned the right.  His eleven #1 albums in Britain ties him with ELVIS, for crying out loud.  The only record not getting there peaked at  #2.

Here's the first of the covers, this from The Jungle Book...



I don't know much about the Murs fella but he's well-known in the UK and his latest album had a decent chart showing (#19) here in the States last year.  Michael Bublé guests on an original, Rufus Wainwright on the title track (and yes, it's very tongue-in-cheek......oooh, even that's funny), Kelly Clarkson duets on "Little Green Apples" (which I remember the Roger Miller version), and this is the one that made Mrs. Rocker happy...



"Who is the girl?  I like her voice." said wifey.  Beats the hell out of me but I must be one of the very few who don't know her.  2.3 million likes on her Facebook page.  Guess I'll be purchasing her upcoming album which I read has been in the works for twenty months.  Not sure if I like the way that sounds.

Hard to say if this has had an official release domestically.  I see "import" listed on most sites but I also found that $12 can put one in your hands from American companies.  Damn if I didn't find a deluxe version after making my purchase.  Four bucks for another eleven minutes......one tune is "16 Tons"......mmmmmmmmm.......

Buddy Guy "Rhythm & Blues"

I've always found myself drawn to Chicago-styled blues and Mr. Guy is the primary cause.  Multiple Grammy wins, R&R HOF inductee, disciples named Clapton, Beck & Vaughan...you get the picture.  I think it was 1992 when the NARM convention was in town and MTV's Unplugged series was in high gear.  One event was held in a Peaches record store where numerous artists (Sonia Dada, Gin Blossoms, etc.) played short, acoustic sets and then sat down with one of the Unplugged VJs for an interview (what was her name.......straight brown hair, dorky glasses, massive eclipse-causing ass....Kennedy!).  The artist lineup was supposed to be a secret but BKP and I had heard that Buddy Guy was closing the event, so fully boozed up we planted ourselves in the front of the area (no stage, just a 150 sq. ft. open floor space) where the artists had been performing and waited.  There were some concerned faces going back and forth through the curtain (sheet) behind the area and we knew something was amiss.  Then a roadie rolls out an amp from the back and announces, "Mr. Guy doesn't do unplugged," powered that puppy up and BG stepped through the curtain, attached himself to the speaker and proceeded to tear Kennedy and her MTV Unplugged brethren a bigger asshole than they already had, all just 15 feet in front of us!  Yeah, that was fun...

Now in his 48th year of recording music, BG dropped this double CD in the summer of last year.  I picked it up about six weeks later but sat on it for nearly three months because of its length.  I was embarrassed for waiting so long when I realized that a simple flush of the track with Kid Rock would allow for the rest to fit one disc.  The 77 minutes remaining are incredible for someone at the age of 76.  Sure, his voice is a little shaky at times (mostly on the Rhythm/soul disc), not as powerful as in his younger years, and there are a couple of guitar notes that are slightly off, but this is still a 9 on a 10-scale record. 

Not much in the way of videos out there in support of this record.  He's been doing a month-long residency at his Legends club on Wabash all month, so hopefully something comes from that.  Here's a VEVO (just wait out the 15-second ad...the man should be paid) for the opening track which features instrumentation not normally associated with BG...



Horns, that is, Muscle Shoals Horns, to be exact.  Also found on three other tracks.  I loved that there were 279 "thumbs up" and zero down on that video.  Since I've mentioned that I jettisoned the track featuring Kid Rock (the man hasn't had an original musical idea in years), other guest artists remaining were Beth Hart, Keith Urban (it works, too), up-and-coming Gary Clark, Jr., and the guys from Aerosmith.  BG actually sounds better than Mr. Tyler on their track. 

I made a note to check the songwriting and production credits since their were so many lyrical references to the city of Chicago and growing older ("...but I'm young at heart"), knowing that BG isn't exactly prolific with the pen.  He does have about five co-writing mentions, but the name that kept popping up was Tom Hambridge.  The name set off a soft chiseling sound deep in the recesses of my cobweb-covered musical brain chamber but nothing was shaken loose.  Later on in another notation, I suggested to myself that I may have heard some Roy Buchanan in a segment or two.  Sometimes I scare myself.  Tom Hambridge was the drummer and singer for Roy Buchanan's band in Roy's final years.  Hambridge later wrote & played some "hits" for Susan Tedeschi's Grammy-nominated 1998 debut, co-producing with the lady.  He's been involved with Mr. Guy on his recent Grammy-recognized blues recordings.

What else is there to say?  This is a great album.  How it wasn't nominated for a Grammy this year could only be due to the combined blues category.  Shame, shame, shame...probably won't watch the damn show Sunday...

I'm closing with a track that closely resembles a statement I've made for decades, "Why do they call it Blues when it makes me so happy?"

Steven Wilson "Drive Home" EP

I normally wouldn't post on an EP but this one is fifty minutes long, making it equal to or greater in length than at least six future full-length posts.  It also doesn't hurt that the title track is culled from one of last year's best albums and concert event.  He has edited the song to a radio-friendly length of 4:10 from the album version here...



Next is a track from the Raven sessions that did not find its way onto the record.  A short (?!?!?), quickly-paced, predominantly instrumental piece which made me think someone had been listening to ELP or Gong for inspiration.  Then there is an orchestrated version of Raven, which was certainly more expensive to make, but well worth the effort.  The final 35 minutes contains four live tracks from the recently wrapped tour stop in Frankfurt.  There is a limited edition Blu-ray with the EP which includes this...



Never one to be idle, Wilson will be doing 5.1 surround sound remixes on titles by XTC, Yes and Jethro Tull before settling into the studio this summer to record his next album.

I can hardly wait...

Tony Joe White "Hoodoo"

BKP sent this along and it deserved a shot.  The man wrote "Rainy Night In Georgia," for crissakes!  He has to be at least seventy years old because I was probably eleven when "Polk Salad Annie" was a hit...chomp, chomp, chomp...  He was a Louisiana native doing the swamp-rock thing but CCR was having more success with the genre at the same time.  He disappeared for essentially a decade and a half before landing a sweet gig with Tina Turner on her "Foreign Affair" album.  He wrote the title track and the Top 40 hit, "Steamy Windows," had two more co-writing credits and played on the record.  It gave him renewed visibility in the European markets, which served him well through the 90's.  Now he is on Yep Roc records, which is home to several esteemed artists (Chuck Prophet, Gang of Four, Josh Rouse, Liam Finn and Paul Weller, to name a few), but I'm afraid that didn't help the quality of this newest record.

From what I gather, the label left him alone to do his thing, which is admirable on their part, however, the stripped-down approach/"let's hit record and see what happens" mentality yielded what some would call a laid back vibe.  I call it dispassionate.  There wasn't anything here to stir me to further spins.  Mumbled lyrics, slow-hand guitar...boring.  By the time I reached the back third of the record, I was almost lulled to sleep, but then the tempo increased on track seven, and by God, White sounded exhausted at the pace before the song was half over!

I'm going to keep one song for posterity's sake, the longest one on the album...



WAKE UP!

Tedeschi Trucks Band "Made Up Mind"

I waited on doing this post for a reason.  I gave myself more spins than usual over a longer period of time.  One close friend said there wasn't a loser on the album.  85% of the WORLD thinks this is an excellent release.  But when BKP texted, "another incarnation of Bonnie Raitt," I was afraid I knew what he meant.  I don't own any Bonnie Raitt because she traveled the "all-too-familiar" highway, you know, the safe road.  That's what has happened here.  Mama Tedeschi has grabbed the wheel and steered the car right down the center lane for safety (read: sales) reasons.  It's the same problem I had with her solo career.  As far as the Y chromosome component of the band name, his solo career never had a sales design applied, but his path, albeit off the trail, had a unsettling sameness of direction, great to see live, ho-hum on disc.  When they combined camps for "Revelator", the results were tremendous.  Now it's back to "safety on" position.  "Too contrived" was one of my first notations.  I even broke it apart into one and/or two track pieces to see if it sounded better..............nope.

Do not misunderstand......she sounds great.  His guitar work is restrained yet effective.  The songs are just....too perfect.  Trucks stretches out just once late in the album.  This is the song in a shortened, acoustic setting (the tour bus)...



Listen to that woman wail!  Trust me, the studio version rocks.  This is another video from the road, too, and it's the second keeper track...



Last, but not least, is the title song.  When you add it all up, it comes out to about 30% worthy of staying in my vast musical inventory.



When I hear her sing, "I've got a Made Up Mind," I believe her and I'll bet that was the mindset for this album, too, her way.  Bet she helped hubby make up his mind to quit the ABB.  Might have had a hand in Warren Haynes quitting too, for that matter......

Dead Letter Circus "The Catalyst Fire"



Ended up liking their debut album more and more after posting briefly on it three+ years ago.  For those of you didn't bother to click the link and take 40 seconds to read it (I said it was brief, didn't I?), this is the line that stood out when I cleared 40 seconds off my docket to refresh my memory, "...it suffers a sameness from track to track on a complete listen."  And there you have the problem with this album.

From what I gather, "Catalyst Fire" went to #2 again on the Aussie charts and they've toured with Muse and Linkin Park.  This album brought My Chemical Romance to mind and they only worked once for me, too.  My computer's music player labels it Hard Rock while they call themselves Alternative Rock, and I'm going to say it's By The Numbers Rock.  I'm only keeping two tracks, neither of which are featured, so far.  One has the vocalist in his falsetto phrasing like Jon Anderson
while the tune itself could have been a Yes song from an alternative universe when they would have been a rock band.  Here is the latest single and video...





I purchased the import version, of course, and I've learned that the American release has three extra tracks, two of which are acoustic versions of the first singles.  Am I disappointed?

Not really...

Pat Travers Band "Can Do"

Discovered Mr. Travers debut album during my run as the only rock DJ at WPRK during the Thanksgiving holiday break, 1976 (twenty-three hours by my damn self allowed for plenty of musical research of the thousands of LPs in the library).  I played every one of the covers from that album during the weekend; "Magnolia," "Boom Boom...," " Mabelline" and "Hot Rod Lincoln."  When "Puttin' It Straight" came out the next year, I was a certified fan.  "Life In London" is one of Rock's great opening tracks.  Now that I think of it, I've probably seen him in concert more than any other artist, most recently a few months ago at B.B. King's club when he fronted the exceptional house band for an extended set, all for the low, low entry fee of $5.  You know, I met a lot of artists during my radio and music retail career, had drinks with several, even caught a buzz with a couple others, but I was never "star-struck."  Somewhere around the turn of the century, a good friend was managing a nightclub just a few miles away from my home.  He called and said I should come down because a local major-label band I knew was rehearsing for an upcoming tour.  The club was closed so he came to the door and escorted us (wifey came along because she liked what I had played for her) inside.  He got us a drink and placed us in the shadows to watch for a few minutes.  When the band (damn, by now I had hoped I would recall their name...) took a short break we sauntered over to the bar where my friend was speaking with a couple who were seated at the end.  "Phil, there's someone here I want you to meet," he beckoned and waved me over.  The house lights still weren't up so the place was cloaked in semi-darkness.  "I want you to meet my friend, Pat Travers..." and PT sticks out his hand and says, "I understand you've been a fan since the beginning...thank you."  I shake his hand and reply, "blee boop greq I hirw osjet whanna molk usef."  Yep, start-struck, speechless, embarrassed.

So let's get to this new record.  It didn't arrive at my favorite digital music store until four months after its release and I was chomping at the bit.  As a follower of PT's Facebook page, I had read all sorts of glowing reviews and comments, trumpeting the return to his late 70's sound.  And they were right about the switch from blues (the tack he took in the early 90's to rejuvenate his career) back to rock, but I can't say that "glowing" will be the term I'm going to use to characterize the album, which opens with the title track, and here it is from his New Year's Eve show (with Todd Rundgren, no less...no, I didn't go for 200 reasons) at the same BB King's Club...



The studio version has an gawdawful drum mix.  Sounds like the damn snare is wrapped with tambourines.  Thankfully, it wasn't that way through the entire record or I would have tossed it out the window.  Since the album harks back to the good ol' days, quite a few of the lyrics elude to them, as well....."those were the days," "that was then," "when we were young," "long time gone..."



I used this clip due to its great audio quality (compared to all the other crap out there) and the live performances of the new track and the other two staples.  The man's still got it on stage and the other kid on guitar is pretty f*#king good, too.  Travers penned ten of the album's twelve tracks.  One of the others was written by a member of the Spin Doctors, I think, and the one gratuitous cover, which PT has always done, usually a respectable effort, is an abominable attempt at "Here Comes The Rain Again" by Eurythmics.  Whoever agreed with him that this was a wise choice needs to be shot!  Almost tossed the disc out the window anyway!  I can not express to you how bad it is.  You don't do a rock-ish cover of this New Wave synthpop icon. 

The final third of the album is what netted "Can Do" a spot in the library.  It closed the race with a strong finish, earning a "show" placement....but only by the slimmest of margins.