For several years in the early 2000s, the Reverend contributed CD reviews to Jersey Beat music zine. It was a heck of a lot of fun, with JB editor Jim Testa mailing a package of punk and alt-rock CDs that I’d work up reviews for every month. Some of these reviews deserve representation in this archive…
AUDIO LEARNING CENTER – “Friendships Often Fade Away” With veterans of two Sub Pop bands – Christopher Brady from Pond and Steven Birch from Sprinkle – Audio Learning Center has street cred to burn. Joined by drummer Paul Johnson and working with Seattle producer Adam Kasper, the band has created an impressive debut with “Friendships Often Fade Away”. Pairing the hard-rocking grunge ambiance of early ‘90s Seattle sound with an energetic punk attitude and a musical complexity unmatched by many of their Pacific Northwest brethren, ALC has delivered a multi-layered, multi-textured collection of songs. Brady is a solid wordsmith, penning emotionally charged lyrics that cut to the quick with surgical precision and a deceptive simplicity. “Favorite” is one of the better expressions of band fandom that I’ve heard while tracks like “Winter” and “The Dream” offer insightful commentary on the human condition. Should I also mention that ALC make a lot of noise for just three guys? If you want a disc that you can sink your teeth into, check out “Friendships Often Fade Away”, Audio Learning Center’s ticket to indie rock stardom. (Vagrant Records)
POLE POSITION – XO An old rockcrit rule of thumb says that the more hyperbole you find lurking around in a band’s press kit, the less quality you’ll find in the record’s grooves. Pole Position certainly talks the talk, but do they walk the walk? Referring to their 8-song EP XO, the band’s press kit asks “is it too early to call it the album of the year?” It goes on to compare the band – the duo of the singularly named Daniel and Rui, actually – to Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Portishead, and a couple of heads to be named later. Where the rubber hits the road, or, more accurately, the laser hits the metal alloy, XO fails to excite. A mish-mash of turgid style and electronic ambiance, Pole Position fill every song with an abundance of synth squeals, cold rhythms, and muted vocals, music so laid back that you can’t tell if the band is coming or going. Once again turning to the press kit, Pole Position’s Daniel states that they are “contemporary musicians who believe in music as concept.” Maybe next time they’ll conceive of some more lively and original music. Is it too early to call XO the album of the year? Yes, it is… (Polar Music)
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Down In Front We’ve had all sorts of tribute discs and compilation albums covering just about every obscure songwriter or cult artist that you can think of. However, I don’t know of any project such as Down In Front, which pays tribute, of sorts, to punk figurehead/zine genius Aaron Cometbus ‘cause he’s the only common thread that ties together the various artists here. Down In Front offers twelve bands cranking out twenty-one songs that cover the complete gamut of punk musical theory, and I’m guessing that it’s Aaron kicking the cans behind every track. There’s lots of fine punkola in these grooves, too, with outfits like Pinhead Gunpowder, Sweet Baby, Shotwell Coho, and the Blank Fight providing the jams, Down In Front collected from ten years’ worth of low-budget 7” singles, obscure tapes and various EPs. If this sounds like your cup of tea, then I’d recommend that you get thee hence to No Idea and grab a copy ‘cause at a mere $6.00 for 21 slammin’ tracks, pure punk thrills have seldom been so cheap. (No Idea Records)
THE WORLD/INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY – Just the Best Party If you know from jump street that the music you’re creating doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting picked up by a major label, then why not have some fun with it? With Just the Best Party, the nine-piece World/Inferno Friendship Society does just that, commercial aspirations be damned, just raise a ruckus! Many of the songs on Just the Best Party have a sort of traditional Irish lilt to them, Jersey’s answer to the Pogues, but a careful listen to the dozen tracks here reveals a lot more. Arena-rock riffs stolen from Springsteen are paired with soulful horn-driven R&B, stately waltzes are delivered with punkish glee and staccato vocals punctuate new wavish pop rhythms and ragtime rave-ups. Songs like “I Wouldn’t Want To Live In A World Without Grudges” or “Zen & the Art of Breaking Everything In the Room” deliver cryptic lyrics while masterfully mixing musical genres – often within a single verse – providing the listener with food for thought. Amazingly, the World/Inferno Friendship Society pull off this grab-bag of styles and influences, every track on Just the Best Party snapping and crackling with manic electricity and barely-contained excitement. Musically adventuresome, stylistically maddening and yet entirely entertaining, Just the Best Party fires the first shot in defining a new alternative music for the new millennia. (Gern Blandsten Records)
Over the past decade and half a dozen albums, Atlanta-based roots ‘n’ blues outfit Delta Moon has quietly made a name for itself as a sturdy, Delta blues-inspired outfit. Driven by the creative vision of singer, songwriter, and guitarist Tom Gray (who, in another life, wrote the Cyndi Lauper hit “Money Changes Everything” while fronting 1980s-era new wave band the Brains) and his musical partner, guitarist Mark Johnson have built upon a hallowed Mississippi blues tradition by heaping on roots-rock, folk, and gospel flavors.
With the band’s 7th album, the refreshingly-erudite Black Cat Oil, Gray and Johnson continue to expand the band’s trademark sound by imbuing their already heady musical brew with a little bit o’ soul and some old-school rhythm & blues. The scrappy acoustic Delta blues influences from which the band takes its name are still obvious and ever-present, as are Gray and Johnson’s well-written and whip-smart lyrics, but in expanding their musical palette, if only a little, they open new doors of possibility for the band in the future.
Delta Moon’s Black Cat Oil
A big drumbeat and locomotive rhythm opens “Down and Dirty,” a working-class tale of romantic woe featuring Gray’s slinky guitar lines and gruff vocals. The backing accompaniment is sparse, but the guitars are layered in thickly and offer a bit of swampy malevolence not unlike John Campbell’s trademark haunted blues sound. “Blues In A Bottle” is equally Mississippi muddy and kudzu-clad, with a smoky buzz ‘n’ rattle emanating from Gray’s six-string drone. Lyrically, the song is a clever but deceptively simple construct, but the emotion swells as violently as the song’s jarring fretwork, the instrumental break three-minutes in shattering the trancelike quality of the performance as Gray and Mark Johnson swap fiery guitar licks.
The album’s title track veers off only slightly from the first four, mixing up the previous swamp-blues ambiance with a little Memphis soul and a minimalist funk groove courtesy drummer Darren Stanley and bassist Franher Joseph. Gray’s solos here shine brightly, taut and wiry like a rockabilly king from the 1950s, reminding more of Jimmie Vaughan’s hot licks than Stevie Ray’s incendiary riffs. The song is low-slung and greasy, spiced up a bit by Gray’s Booker T-styled keyboard notes. The romantic turmoil continues with the story-song “Wishbone,” a gripping narrative where Gray’s gravel-throated vocals hypnotize, riding high above his barbed-wire guitarplay. The following “Black Coffee” picks up on the previous song’s late-night vibe, Gray’s fretwork resonating with bluesy echo on a semi-biographical diary of life on the road. Drummer Marlon Patton lays down a slight rhythmic shuffle as Gray picks out the lonely tune.
Write Me A Few of Your Lines
“Neon Jesus” is the album’s roots-rock heartbeat, the song evincing more of a high lonesome Bakersfield vibe than a Nashville/Music Row commercial ambience. Gray sets his considerable songwriting skills to work on a salvation-seeking, soul-searching hymnal, his yearning vocals backed by jangly guitar and a brassy drumbeat. It’s an introspective number, something you’d expect from, say, a Guy Clark type of scribe, but Gray pulls it off admirably. The lively “Jukin’,” by contrast, is a jaunty lil’ houserocker with an undeniable spirit and spry fretwork that blends the best of both juke-joint and honky-tonk traditions with a sly groove and a barely-subdued performance.
“Applejack” sounds a lot like Memphis to me, or a James Dickinson sort of bluesy, blue-eyed soul to be more specific, a fluid groove rolling out beneath Gray’s deep-fried vocals and Southern rock guitar that draws upon Duane Allman (reckless R&B) and Marshall Tucker Band’s Toy Caldwell (Dixie jazz-rock) but with plenty of Gray’s own unique vocabulary thrown in to mark him as a vastly-underrated stylist in his own right. The album’s lone cover, of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “Write Me A Few Of Your Lines,” bolsters this guitar argument, Gray’s fretwork crackling and popping like a downed electric line above Patton’s steady drumbeats, the singer capturing, and building upon the hypnotic North Mississippi Hill Country riffing style that McDowell passed on to R.L. Burnside and, by association, Luther Dickinson, Jack White, the Black Keys, and a generation of contemporary blues-rock players.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Tom Gray’s songwriting skills have never been at question, and he excels at the sort of lyrical and melodic stories told by the songs on Black Cat Oil. Small-town life and romances, the rigors of the road, the old South slipping beneath the steamroller of modern life – these are all grist for Gray (and Johnson’s) wandering pen. Musically, the album builds upon past triumphs, cautiously fusing the band’s trademark swamp-blues sound with other significant influences, creating an entertaining and engaging work that honors blues traditions while nodding vigorously towards new musical horizons. (Red Parlor Records, released May 22, 2012)
For several years in the early 2000s, the Reverend contributed CD reviews to Jersey Beat music zine. It was a heck of a lot of fun, with JB editor Jim Testa mailing a package of punk and alt-rock CDs that I’d work up reviews for every month. Some of these reviews deserve representation in this archive…
BLACK CAT MUSIC – “hands in the estuary, torso in the lake” Punk rock supergroups seem to be the rule rather than the exception these days and Black Cat Music are as much to blame as anybody. Hailing from the thriving San Francisco Bay music community, BCM was formed by former members of such beloved thrash-and-bang outfits as the Criminals and the Receivers. Unlike those long-gone outfits, these Black Cat boys seem as likely to mimic some black-clad Goth posse as they are to namecheck the Sex Pistols. “hands in the estuary, torso in the lake” is the band’s erstwhile debut, and if you’re looking for the trademark brand of bubblegum punk that Lookout! Records has built their reputation on, you won’t find it here. Songs like “The Valentine” or “The Cipher In the Snow” offer the sort of dark-hued poetry that Jeffrey Pierce created a legend with, Brady Baltezore’s existential wail revealing a tortured psyche and a lyrical obsession with life’s less pleasant moments. The band creates a nice ambience, hypnotically deceptive, steady rhythms sharply punctuated by Travis Dalton’s screaming six-string. Call it “thinking man’s punk” if you will, the sound of Black Cat Music heady sonic brew of noise, emotion, and passion. (Lookout! Records)
MUNITION – The Black Wave Chicago has a musical vibe all its own, from the city’s legendary blues clubs to a punk tradition that dates from Rick DiBello and the Swingers in the 1970s to Naked Raygun and the Effigies in the ‘80s. Munition is just the latest in a long line of talented Chicago bands and from the monster tunes they created for The Black Wave, their debut, these ears tell me that they’re poised on the brink of a major league breakthrough. With a tight musical chemistry and three-dimensional sound that belies their relative youth as a band, Munition mixes the aggression and attitude of punk with populist lyrical leanings and a massive, take-no-prisoners wall-of-noise that suggests that somebody has been listening to their Husker Du records. Axeman Donovan’s guitarwork hits you between the ears like a pneumatic hammer while Mark’s vocals chisel away at your subconscious with intelligently worded songs that tackle such heady themes as consumerism, alcoholism, and television. Most of all, Munition rocks with the reckless abandon of a young gunslinger who has yet to earn the first notch on his gun. (Failed Experiment Records)
SATURDAY SUPERCADE – Everyone Is A Target Remember a few years ago, when, in the shadow of No Doubt’s inexplicable success, ska-punk became the commercial flavor of the month? Now jump forward a couple of years to 2001, the year of the punk odyssey, when snotty, lightweight commercial punk won the hearts and minds of young American teens flush with cash and willing to feed the hungry maw of the rabid trendmongers that run the industry. Well, take equal parts of Blink-182, Sum 41, and Fenix, Texas and you’ll have Saturday Supercade, a band that predates the current major label obsession with marketable teen sounds but plays right into the hands of the starmaking machinery nonetheless. Everyone Is A Target is filled to the brim with cheap, faceless three-chord wanknoise that, while not unpleasant, doesn’t challenge your heart and soul the way that, say, Bad Religion or Rancid does. Saturday Supercade and their ilk are like a bucket o’ Halloween candy – familiar, pleasantly sweet, and partially satisfying. Inevitably, though, this sort of disposable punk will end up rotting away your mind much like the candy corrodes your teeth. (Liberation Records)
WINEPRESS – Complete Recordings The history of rock ‘n’ roll is littered with the aspirations and intentions of thousands of bands that deserved some modicum of success but found only indifference beyond their small but loyal following. Chicago’s Winepress was only around for a couple of years during the early ‘90s, but they left an indelible mark on the city’s punk legacy. Offering every Winepress recording made, collecting the tunes from 7” singles and album compilations, the Complete Recordings CD offers the former teenage band a chance to get heard outside of their hometown and adds a bit of legitimacy to their brief career. From a critical perspective, Winepress cranked out generic punk rock with pop overtones. From a music lover’s viewpoint, however, in their day and in their own way, Winepress was an impressive band. The youthful enthusiasm and kinetic amateurism found on songs like “Revenge of the Nerds” and “You’re So Punk” sounds absolutely refreshing in comparison to the slick, over-produced dreck oversold to us these days. Although there’s nothing on Complete Recordings that will make you toss aside your copy of London Calling, you’re looking for unpretentious cheap thrills and some satisfying tunes, check out Winepress. (Harmless Records)
Chicago blues guitarist Dave Specter has flown under the radar for much of his considerable career. Mentored by Sunnyland Slim’s great guitarist Steve Freund, Specter honed his skills by apprenticing under giants like Hubert Sumlin and Son Seals. When he finally stepped out on his own to launch a solo career, Specter continued to play in the shadow of larger-than-life vocalists like Barkin’ Bill Smith, Jesse Fortune, and Tad Robinson.
Throughout it all, Specter has quietly created a solid body of work, with eight acclaimed studio and live albums to his credit, as well as well-regarded contributions to recordings by Al Miller, Steve Freund, and Lurrie Bell, among others. Spectified, the guitarist’s first studio effort since his 2004 collaboration with Freund, Is What It Is, is an inspired collection of instrumentals that showcase Specter’s talents and place him firmly among such rarified company as Freund, Ronnie Earl, or Duke Robillard.
Dave Specter’s Spectified
Spectified opens with a bang, the soulful and slightly funky “Stick To the Hip” featuring an engaging recurring guitar pattern, a solid rhythm, and below-the-horizon horns from the Bo’ Weavil Brass, led by former Tower of Power trumpeter Mike Cichowicz. Keyboards, courtesy of John Kattke and Pete Benson, evoke the wonderful glory days of Booker T & the M.G.’s and Stax soul, the resulting mix a sheer delight, the song a rambunctious rave-up that stays polite while proving the listener and the band alike no little amount of joy.
By contrast, Specter’s “Octavate’n” could easily be mistaken for a Stevie Ray Vaughan outtake, the song resounding with slinky Texas blues-styled fretbanging, Specter’s lively tones jumpin-n-jivin’ like the parking lot of a Jack-In-The-Box drive-thru in suburban Dallas on a Saturday night as the keyboards add some energetic riffing of their own. “Soul Serenade” is another engaging instrumental, with a hint of Southern rock and a little twang in the grooves between Specter’s jazzy tones and hot licks, the shuffling rhythm complimented by a subtle horn arrangement. This is the kind of warm and fuzzy tune that, in more adventurous times, could have topped the charts; instead it will be embraced by blues fans with good taste and an open mind.
Rumba & Tonic
With the indigo-hued “Blues Call,” Specter delivers what he knows best – a dusky instrumental that perfectly fuses a blues aesthetic with the imagination of jazz guitar (I’m thinking John McLaughlin or Al di Meola). This is break-of-dawn music, best heard by candlelight and preferably with something strong to drink…blues to the core, but sophisticated in a way that belies urban, urbane influences. The keyboards chime in around the three-minute mark with an extended solo that sounds fresh and yet familiar, influenced by the work of folk like Booker T and Isaac Hayes while adding something new and exciting to the vibe. “Alley Walk” is another rattletrap electric blues-burner with strutting rhythms and some of the raunchiest guitar Specter has ever played.
David Hidalgo of Los Lobos lends his talents to the “Rumba & Tonic,” creating a Tex-Mex atmosphere, the song a spry little sucker with great echoed guitarwork and some south-of-the-border pickin’, tinkling honky-tonk piano, ringing accordion, and a strong rhythm that will set your feet to moving. Specter and gang jump back to the Windy City for “Lumus D’ Rumpus,” a strutting Chicago blues shuffle with a walking rhythm and dashes of piano and drums on top of which Specter embroiders his imaginative fretwork, which ranges from jazzy licks to ringing riffs. Spectified closes out with “Alley Walk Acoustic,” revisiting the earlier number with far different effect, Specter plucking the strings Delta-style, sounding more like Son House or Charley Patton than the seasoned Chicago bluesman that he is. It works like magic, creating a mesmerizing sound that sticks in your mind long after the album has stopped playing.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Dave Specter is a phenomenal talent, to be sure, but he’s not a musician that is content to rest on the laurels proffered his earlier work. Spectified stretches out the guitarist’s repertoire with some daring new styles and tones, Specter revealing a few new tricks to tickle your eardrums while still providing quite a few moments of old-school blues that the fans of come to expect. While he doesn’t have a shelf full of awards to bolster his reputation, Specter lets the music do all the talking with the realization that if you play this well for this long, the accolades will come when they come. If you’re a fan of blues guitar, you owe it to yourself to check out Spectified. (Fret12 Records, released September 2010)
Let’s be as honest as churchmice here, shall we? The corpse that once was the Grateful Dead has long since been flayed, flogged, and laid to rest along with the hopes and dreams of so many ‘60s-era flower children. With better than fifty – count ‘em! – fifty live albums on the shelf (many consisting of two or three discs, or more), even the Dead’s long-standing reputation as a great performing outfit that typically underperformed in the studio is questionable in light of the growing body of evidence.
In the annals of hardcore Grateful Dead fans (a/k/a “Deadheads,” which the Reverend’s dictionary defines as “one who has smoked so many flowers as to make their musical judgment suspect), no live performance by the band is more legendary that the Dead’s journey to the sands of Egypt during late 1978 to play three nights in front of the Great Pyramid. Outside of the historical significance of the performances, there’s little here to recommend, however. A two-CD and one-DVD set in a nifty fold-out pop-up package with images of the pyramids, Rocking the Cradle: Egypt 1978 is a document of the band’s experience, but offers little else.
With audio culled from two of the Egyptian nights for the CDs, and video from one night’s concert on the DVD, the band sleepwalks through performances of songs from the upcoming Shakedown Street album along with a few older chestnuts. The usual spark of the Dead’s free-form live performances seems to be missing here, however, and highlights are few and far between. The band gets behind a cover of the New Orleans Cajun classic “Iko Iko,” slowing down the pace to that of a strutting fly-by with a loping groove and a couple of solos full of rich tones. “I Need A Miracle” offers a few hot licks threaded throughout the longform jam, but an obligatory performance of “Truckin’” suffers from a too-mellow vibe, reducing the song’s innate anarchic spirit to a hearty bassline and rushed vocals. Sadly, much of the rest of the album’s 18 tracks (and their DVD doppelgangers) are entirely somnambulant.
Don’t get me wrong here folks, and please don’t deluge Blurt editor Fred with barrels of hate mail – the Reverend simply adores GD albums like Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, Blues For Allah, even In the Dark – but methinks that you should spend your lunch money on one of those stellar efforts rather than waste your hard-earned coin on this snoozefest. You’ll thank me later… (Rhino Records, released September 30th, 2008)
The creation of Roughhousin’ was one of those happy mistakes that sometimes occur in blues music. Invited into the studio to record just a couple of cuts for an upcoming Alligator Records’ compilation of young blues bands, Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials cut loose with the same sort of energy and electricity that they brought to their frequent Chicago-area live performances.
While they might have been studio neophytes facing down the daunting recording process for the very first time, Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials were seasoned veterans of the competitive Chicago blues scene. With better than a decade of performing under their collective belts, Lil’ Ed Williams and crew had forged their houserockin’ sound in the same West Side blues cauldron as such musical idols and influences as Hound Dog Taylor, Elmore James, Magic Sam, and Williams’ uncle, bluesman J.B. Hutto. They may not have known studio etiquette, but they knew how to grab a stage and squeeze out sparks, and that’s exactly what they did one cold January night in 1986.
Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’
Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’ was born out of a free-for-all studio jam, and it sounds like it. “Old Oak Tree” leaps from your speakers like a saber-rattling buccaneer with plunder on his mind. Lil’ Ed’s rattletrap fretwork is met by a shambling, rambling rhythm that drives away any pretense while Ed’s vocals are almost an afterthought, pleasant but overshadowed by the intense back porch swing of the song. If “Old Oak Tree” sways with the wind, “Midnight Rider” tramples like a runaway freight train. Ed’s rapid-fire vocals are paced by scraps of white-hot guitar, and a locomotive rhythm that is as reckless as it is invigorating. Ed achieves a great guitar tone here, sounding like Hound Dog Taylor mixed with Chuck Berry, and the song could have just as easily heralded from the 1950s rather than the mid-1980s.
The first couple of songs on Roughhousin’ are just a warm-up for the machinegun staccato to follow… “She’s Fine, She’s Mine” is pure swaggering blues Sturm und Drang, a meaty Bo Diddley backbeat married to a dark Delta undertow, Ed’s malevolent vocals complimented by flurries of scrapyard guitar and the meanest drumkit tango you’ll ever hear, courtesy of Louis Henderson. While Henderson smacks the skins like a World War III bombing run, bassist James Young lays down a steel-beam rhythm and rhythm guitarist Dave Weld provides tactical support for Ed’s soaring notes. By contrast, “Everything I Do Brings Me Closer To the Blues” stomps and stammers at a snail’s pace, a potent blues dirge with Ed’s mournful vocals creeping into your ears and down your spine like an icy, windy Chicago morning. While Young and Henderson lay the smackdown on a solid houserockin’ rhythm, Ed lights a fire with some of the smokiest, greasiest, sharp-stick solos that will ever grace your eardrums with their presence.
Mean Old Frisco
“You Don’t Exist Any More” is a modified blues boogie with rock ‘n’ roll undertones, Ed’s vocals taking on a blustery tack, the rhythm section duckwalkin’ recklessly through the performance. Ed’s guitar is somewhat subdued here, a few nasty slide licks thrown in now and then above the fray, but when he cuts loose with a slam-bang solo, he does so with authority, and even second gitman Weld is invited in for a short, sharp shock. A pair of well-worn but inspired covers help round out Roughhousin’, the first being a bluesy, forceful take on Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s R&B rave-up “Mean Old Frisco.” Ed’s heartbreak vocals are accompanied by a wall of sound, scraps of Henderson’s shuffling drumbeats and rattling cymbals heard in the thick mix alongside Young’s throbbing bass line. Ed’s slide-guitar mangle here is simply stunning, cutting like the knives you see for sale on late-nite TV, imbuing the song with some non-verbal emotion.
Memphis soul giant Rufus Thomas’s signature song “Walking the Dog” is provided an appropriately raucous interpretation, the Imperials’ sly, funky rhythms peppered with Ed’s hot guitar licks like a shotgun blast. Young throws in a walking bass solo that kicks serious tushie, Henderson kicks the cans for a short solo, and the band altogether sounds like they’re having as much fun as a Friday night club gig. Nearly hidden in-between the two aforementioned covers is Ed’s original and excellent “Car Wash Blues.” Opening with a bluesy intro that channels every hard-workin’, hard-times Chicago bluesman from Muddy Waters and Elmore James back to Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy, not to mention Uncle J.B., Ed’s autobiographical tale of woe is a true streetlife serenade, hardcore West Side blues from a man and a band that have lived them. Ed’s vocals are dramatically anguished, his slippery slide-work sounding as world-weary and defeated as every man and woman who has ever had to get up before the crack of dawn to make a dollar. The band mostly stays out of the way, providing a sturdy foundation for Ed’s powerful performance.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’ lives up to the hype, a career-building debut album that would launch a longstanding career. Lil’ Ed and his crew still crank out righteous, houserockin’ jams on stage and in the studio, but while they’ve made some good-to-great records in the 25 years since the release of Roughhousin’, they’ve never been able to match the sheer electricity of these unfettered performances. Serving as a bridge between the Chicago blues of the 1950s and ‘60s and the contemporary blues scene of the 1980s, Roughhousin’ was the album that proved that blues music knows how to party. (Alligator Records, released 1986)
The blues world lost a major talent in Michael “Iron Man” Burks when the 54-year-old guitarist died unexpectedly in May 2012. Burks had all but finished his fourth Alligator Records release at the time of his death, the posthumous release of Show of Strength a reminder that our time here is short, and we have to make the most of what time we have left…a philosophy that Burks evidently lived to his final day.
Burks earned his “Iron Man” nickname by delivering hours-long, physically-demanding performances night after night, his soulful vocals matched by a fierce, unique guitar style that would leave audiences breathless. A charismatic performer, nobody left a Michael Burks show without a smile on their face, and the artist would climb behind the wheel of his van and drive hundreds of miles to his next show. A true blue-collar bluesman, Burks was the real deal...something more than proven by what is sadly his final album.
Michael “Iron Man” Burks’ Show of Strength
Show of Strength opens with an icy cold riff that sounds like Eric Clapton channeling Albert Collins. “Count On You” is a perfect example of Burks’ melding of hard-edged blues and smooth-as-silk soul, the song’s title a deceptive play on words that masks the emotional anguish of the romantic betrayal laid out in the lyrics. Burks, a vastly underrated vocalist, does an unbelievable job of choking back the tears with fierce determination, the words punctuated by the wide slashes of colorful guitar that serve as a vehicle for the song’s anger and frustration. It’s an enormous performance, and while a talented band adds instrumental flourishes in the background – like Wayne Sharp’s ethereal keyboard notes – this is Burks’ show and he commands the spotlight.
While “Count On You” opens the door to Show of Strength with a mean uppercut, it’s by no means the only knockout punch the album has to offer. Burks’ original “Take A Chance On Me, Baby” is a deliberately-paced, slow-to-mid-tempo traditional blues plea, the musical equivalent of a controlled burn as Burks’ fiery vocals are matched by his scorching fretwork and a deep, loping groove that his longtime rhythm section of bassist Terrence Grayson and Chuck “Popcorn” Louden maneuver like a formula one race car.
Cross Eyed Woman
The guitarist engages in a little call-and-response with the band on “Can You Read Between the Lines?” Burks’ vocals are a little more energetic here, mixing up Memphis soul and Southern rock atop a funky rhythm, his imaginative solos a little more Dixie-fried than usual, his fluid guitar lines echoing Duane Allman more than obvious influences like Albert King. If Burks looked towards the South for that performance, he seems to have looked across the ocean for “Cross Eyed Woman,” a muscular blues-rock barn-burner that sounds more like 1960s-era Free or Cream than like Burks’ typical traditional blues fare.
Laying down some of the meanest slide-guitar licks that you’ve ever heard, Burks’ blustery performance on “Cross Eyed Woman” is supported by a truly malevolent instrumental backdrop, the band – especially Sharp’s Jon Lord-styled keyboard riffs – flexing like the first winds of a hurricane. The song’s long instrumental lead-out, complete with high-flying Burks solo, will thrill blues guitar fans everywhere, displaying the guitarist’s mastery of the form and knowledge of all facets of the blues.
Feel Like Going Home
After three albums with Alligator, Burks was coming into his own as a songwriter, and nowhere is this more evident than on the autobiographical “Little Juke Joint.” A slow-burning blues jam that benefits from Scott Dirks’ spirited harp playing, the song is based on Burks’ family’s Bradley Ferry Country Club juke-joint back home in Arkansas. Burks plays lively above a shuffling groove, flurries of notes hitting your ears like a boxer’s body-blows as the singer recalls good times – and bad – as he colorfully describes the beloved family establishment, warts and all. Another Burks co-write, “Since I Been Loving You,” is a hauntingly beautiful tale of love and betrayal delivered with a slow-dancing blues tempo, the guitarist’s anguished vocals complimented by his mournful guitar notes and Sharp’s sobbing keyboards. Burks’ textured solos here definitely add to the vibe of the song, his playing full of emotion and muted but apparent strength.
Show of Strength closes with a cover of country legend Charlie Rich’s “Feel Like Going Home,” the song taking on an eerie prescience in the wake of the guitarist’s unexpected passing. Burks delivers an incredible, gospel-tinged vocal performance above Roosevelt Purifoy’s tasteful, elegant piano arrangement. Burks’ voice sounds weary, ready to quit this world and prepared to accept the grace offered by the afterlife. His short guitar solos are perhaps, the best that Burks has ever put on tape – strong but not flashy, reverent but loudly vocal, drenched in mixed emotion and resolve, ready to accept the future whatever may come. It’s an incredibly moving and powerful gospel-blues performance by an enormously talented artist.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
To his credit, Alligator’s Bruce Iglauer, who co-produced Show of Strength with Burks, chose to leave the album as the two men had intended, as he says in the liner notes, “not as a memorial to a friend and bluesman gone, but as a living, breathing statement, sent straight from Michael’s heart and soul. Although Michael is not here, the music he recorded is indeed his show of his immense strength and spirit. It will live on, confirming forever his status as one of the greatest bluesmen of his generation.”
The apex of a career cut short far too soon, Show of Strength is a career-making milestone of an album, which makes me all the angrier that it’s also the last music we’ll ever hear from the talented singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Throughout it all, Burks’ performance shines like a supernova, both his singing and guitar playing displaying great confidence, elegance, and melody, the man obviously pouring everything he had into Show of Strength. As a swansong, none could do better… (Alligator Records, released August 21, 2012)
For a teenaged music fanatic, Nashville in the early ‘70s was a magical place.
As a high schooler who looked just “adult” enough to sneak into bars and clubs
like The Villager, Sam’s Pizza Place, and the Exit In, I witnessed performers
like Guy Clark, Jimmy Buffett, Townes Van Zandt, Waylon Jennings, and David
Allan Coe honing their craft on stage.
Flash forward a couple of
decades when, as a grizzled local music critic, I found a similar magic in the
Nashville rock scene of the early ‘90s. Artists as talented as Tommy Womack,
Will Kimbrough, and Will Owsley, among many others, hit many of the same stages
as their forebears, as well as a few new clubs, trying to forge a career in the
“Music City.” Of all of these young talents, none burned hotter or shined
brighter than singer/songwriter
Todd Snider.
Snider passed away this week at the age of 59 after a bout with
pneumonia. He’d suffered through a rough couple of weeks that would likely have
been fodder for one of his brilliantly insightful story-songs: assaulted outside
of a club before a performance in Salt Lake City, Snider ended up in the
hospital. After being treated for his injuries, Snider thought that his release
was premature and got into an argument with hospital staff. Police were called,
and Snider was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, threat of violence,
and suspicion of criminal trespassing.
He was released from custody on his own recognizance earlier the following
morning, and the rest of his remaining tour dates were canceled. Returning home
to Tennessee to rest and recuperate, Snider fell ill with undiagnosed walking
pneumonia, and landed in the hospital where things took a turn for the worse.
Snider had been touring in support of his critically-acclaimed 15th album, the
bluesy High, Lonesome, and Then Some, which had been released in
September on his own Aimless Records label.
Snider was born and
raised in 1966 in the Portland, Oregon area and attended college for a semester
in Santa Rosa, California. He moved to San Marcos, Texas near San Antonio in
1985. It was there that he’d have a life-changing epiphany after seeing the
legendary country outlaw Jerry Jeff Walker perform at a local club. Despite not
knowing how to play a guitar, or even owning one, Snider decided then and there
to become a songwriter. He began penning his wry original tunes, and playing
writer’s nights at local clubs while developing his sound.
Finding an
invaluable mentor in San Marcos club owner Kent Finlay, Snider was introduced to
the work of songwriters like Guy Clark, Shel Silverstein, and his future boss,
John Prine. Snider began to develop a following in San Antonio and Austin clubs
and eventually came to the attention of Memphis musician and songwriter Keith
Sykes, a member of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band. Sykes convinced Snider to
move to Memphis, where he took up a residence at The Daily Planet club and
quickly built a loyal following as he continued to crank out songs.
After a development deal with Capitol Records in Nashville fell through (the
label likely didn’t know how to promote Snider’s quirky, unique material), Sykes
approached Buffett, his former boss, and managed to get Snider a deal with
Buffett’s Margaritaville Records label, which was then distributed by MCA. The
label released Snider’s 1994 debut album, Songs From the Daily Planet,
comprised largely of material Snider had performed at the Memphis club. The
album resulted in a minor hit with a ‘hidden track’, “Talking Seattle Grunge
Rock Blues,” while humorous tracks like “My Generation (Part 2)” and “Alright
Guy” received widespread national airplay on the syndicated Bob & Tom radio
show.
More than a mere novelty act, Snider was capable of writing
powerful, emotion-inducing songs like Daily Planet’s “I Spoke As A Child”
and “You Think You Know Somebody.” Sales were good enough to prompt a follow-up,
and Snider’s sophomore effort, Step Right Up, was released in 1996 with
Viva Satellite arriving in 1998. Snider had issues with his label,
however, as Margaritaville left MCA before the release of Viva Satellite,
and the major label retained the rights to Snider’s work. As was typical of the
MCA at the time, they subsequently released Snider from his contract after they
under-promoted the album.
Quickly bouncing back, Snider signed with
Nashville singer/songwriter John Prine’s independent Oh Boy Records label, where
he’d do the best work of his career. He released his fourth album,
Happy To Be Here, in 2000 with studio contributions from Nashville
talents like guitarists Will Kimbrough and Pat Buchanan, NRBQ bassist Joey
Spampinato, and multi-instrumentalist Peter Holsapple (The dB’s, R.E.M.). The
R.S. Field-produced New Connection was released in 2002, followed a year
later by Snider’s first live album, Near Truths and Hotel Rooms,
featuring Snider, his guitar and harmonica, and a guitar case full of
stories.
Snider’s fourth and final album for Oh Boy was 2004’s classic
East Nashville Skyline, arguably the singer/songwriter’s best work.
Recorded with friend and bandmate Will Kimbrough and a studio full of talented
young Nashville studio hotshots, East Nashville Skyline offered up
finely-crafted, intelligent story-songs like “Play A Train Song,” “The Ballad of
the Kingsmen,” and the wickedly-funny, autobiographical “Tillamook County Jail.”
After East Nashville Skyline, Snider took a jump towards the major
leagues, signing with the Universal Music-distributed New Door Records.
Snider
recorded just one album for New Door, working again with Kimbrough, who
co-produced 2006’s The Devil You Know, with another friend, Tommy Womack,
adding guitar to the album. Although critically-acclaimed, and a damn fine
album, New Door didn’t have the resources to properly promote
The Devil You Know. A solo Snider performance at Grimey’s Music in
Nashville was recorded and released by New Door in 2007 as
Live With the Devil You Know At Grimey’s Nashville, which would mark the
end of the singer/songwriter’s tenure with New Door.
Launching his
own independent Aimless Records label with the 2008 EP Peace Queer,
Snider recorded a one-off album for Yep Roc Records – the Don Was-produced
The Excitement Plan – before returning to his own imprint with laudable
efforts like 2011’s double-CD Live (The Storyteller), which positioned
Snider as a stoner sage to the left of Will Rogers, 2012’s acclaimed
Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables and the same year’s
Time As We Know It, a tribute to Snider’s original musical inspiration,
Jerry Jeff Walker. Through the years, Snider has also contributed performances
to several tribute albums for such personal heroes as Billy Joe Shaver (whose
son Eddy played in one of Snider’s early bands), Kris Kristofferson, Peter Case,
and Kinky Friedman.
Hooking up with Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools, Snider formed a jam
band “supergroup” in the Hard Working Americans in 2013, adding the late Neal
Casal (The Cardinals) on guitar and Duane Trucks (guitarist Derek Trucks’
younger brother) on drums. The Hard Working Americans released a pair of
studio albums in 2014 and 2016 as well as a pair of live albums, the first of
which – The First Waltz – included a full-length documentary film about
the Americans directed by Justin Kreutzmann. The group has since recorded a
yet-to-be-released album of material written by Snider.
A
charismatic and charming performer, Snider was seemingly made for TV, and he
performed on all of the late-night talk shows of the ‘90s and early 2000s,
including Late Night with Conan O’Brien,
Late Show with David Letterman, and
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as well as several music-oriented
programs like ABC’s In Concert and Austin City Limits. Snider
released his sorta, kinda memoirs,
I Never Met A Story I Didn’t Like: Mostly True Tall Tales, in 2014 and
contributed a chapter on his mentor, Cheatham Street Warehouse club owner Kent
Finlay, for a 2016 book on the musical entrepreneur’s life.
Over
the years, Snider co-wrote songs with a number of Nashville talents, including
his frequent musical partners Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack, as well as
Keith Sykes, Billy Joe Shaver, Jason Ringenberg (Jason & the Scorchers),
Dan Baird (The Georgia Satellites), and Gary Bennett (BR-549) and had songs
recorded by country artists like Jerry Jeff Walker, Cross Canadian Ragweed,
Robert Earl Keen, and even legendary ‘60s hitmaker Tom Jones.
The Hard Working Americans (Todd second from right)
Snider’s eclectic and personable songwriting and performing style isn’t
everybody’s cuppa. He’s brutally sincere and speaks openly about his battle
with substance abuse. His humorous and often-times satirical songs reveal
something of the human condition at the core while his more serious fare is
emotionally-charged and thoughtful. Snider was too often categorized as a
“novelty” act because he infused his folkish story-songs with humor and wit,
reducing funny-cause-they-could-be-true songs like “Beer Run” or the satirical
“Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues” to comedic status without recognizing the
skill it took to weave these tales.
In my 2004 review of Snider’s
East Nashville Skyline, I boldly wrote that “considering Snider’s
entire oeuvre (and I have heard it all), it’s time, perhaps, for a bit of rock
critic heresy: Snider is this generation’s Dylan. Snider’s rootsy blend of
rock, folk, blues, and country echoes that of rock’s greatest scribe.” I stand
by my words, and Snider has done little in 20+ years to make me reconsider. A
talented and vastly underrated singer, songwriter, and performer, the recent
release of High, Lonesome, and Then Some proves that Snider still had
something to say and songs to write.
As news of Snider’s death
reverberated throughout the Nashville music scene and beyond, tributes poured
in and stories were shared by many of his friends and musical collaborators.
Former Georgia Satellites frontman Dan Baird wrote “whether you knew him or
not, the fact is our world has lost a true creative ball of cosmic chaos.”
Producer and musician Eric Ambel (of the Yayhoos and the Del Lords) wrote
“thank you for the beautiful songs and stories and for championing so many
wonderful artists while you were here with us.”
Former Snider band
member and frequent musical collaborator Tommy Womack wrote in his tribute for
The Nashvillian, “Todd Snider was the most naturally talented person
I’ve ever met. I first saw that from looking at his face while he performed.
Later, I saw it while looking at his keister as a member of his band. He could
have coasted on that talent, but Todd never coasted. About anything. He was
either driving 200 mph or he was in the pit bay being lectured to by doctors
who thought they were dealing with some sort of mere mortal.”
Smilin’
Jay McDowell of the country band BR-549 remembers “I moved to East Nashville
in 1994. It was purely because it was the cheap part of town. There were very
few restaurants or bars. So, you crossed paths with people regularly. It
seemed every time I turned around, there was Todd. He never said hi, he just
always said, “B R 5 4 9” in that crazy way of his,” adding “I’m sure gonna
miss that guy.” Peter Holsapple wrote “grateful to have gotten to record with
Todd Snider in 1999. Such a remarkable songwriter, what a terrible
loss.”
Behind the mask that hid Snider’s pain, he had a
(perhaps) accidentally profound take on life, closing East Nashville Skyline
with the poppy “Enjoy Yourself,” reminding his fans to always “enjoy yourself,
it’s later than you think.” Read Tommy Womack’s full tribute to Todd in The Nashvillian
Jean Beauvoir is the proverbial multi-talented “jack-of-all-trades,” an item all too rare in these days of somnolent superstars, jaded lipstick-stung video vixen, and millionaire session men. Beauvoir swapped licks fast and furious with the nastiest of metalheads, punks, and rockers as guitarist/bassist for Plasmatics and Little Steven’s Disciples of Soul. His production credits include board work done for the Ramones and Lords of the New Church and, with the release of Drums Along the Mohawk, he showcases his considerable skills as a performer.
With all of the material written, produced, and performed by Beauvoir, Drums Along the Mohawk is a beguiling debut disc; at first listen, seemingly no more than your typical AOR cannon fodder, a couple of rockin’ numbers followed by the obligatory ballad. Drums is much more than this, though…it is instead a deceptively complex cycle of songs with many layers of instrumentation underscoring Beauvoir’s unique and distinct vocal style (which, not surprisingly, resembles a strong hybrid of mentor Steve Van Zandt’s nasal twang and Prince’s earthy funkiness).
The songs are interesting, self-contained vignettes, ranging in style from the rocking “Feal the Heat” (used as a theme for Sylvester Stallone’s summer film Cobra) to the reggaeish, rollicking “Rockin’ In the Street” to the beautiful, emotion-evoking “Sorry I Missed Your Wedding Day.” The result is that while certainly not a trend-setting album, Drums Along the Mohawk delivers a solid, enjoyable 40 minutes of music…what more could one ask for? (Columbia Records, released June 1986)
Review originally published by Nashville’s The Metro magazine...
