I’ve often joked with friends that there are only ten or twelve prog-rock
musicians in the United States and Europe but, between them all, they comprise
two dozen or so bands. Considering the cross-pollination between artists and the
limited commercial possibilities available in the progressive rock world, it’s
no surprise that musicians such as Mike Portnoy, Neal Morse, Roine Stolt, and
such maximize their potential by getting involved in as many musical projects as
possible.
Wobbler’s Hinterland
The truth is, prog-rock and its kissing cousin, prog-metal, may entail
more roster-swapping and creative collaboration than does mainstream rock
music, but this is mostly because the talents of the artists involved, their
love of the music and a seemingly endless well of creativity results in a lot
of great music being made. As the prog-rock genre becomes more popular with
younger audiences both here and abroad (hell, I don’t think that it ever fall
into disfavor in Japan), a new generation of young bands has begun to appear.
Talented musicians weaned on classic ‘70s-era prog-rock as well as second-wave
bands like Spock’s Beard and the Flower Kings, the third wave of prog has been
launched with welcome new faces like Circus Maximus and Norway’s
Wobbler.
Introduced to an appreciative audience at the 2005 NEARfest
art-and-prog-rock festival in Pennsylvania, Wobbler follows up its dynamic
summer performance with Hinterland, the band’s anticipated debut album.
The results of Wobbler’s first effort is nothing short of stunning,
Hinterland a magnificent tour-de-force combining elements of
Scandinavian folk and old-school progressive rock with classical composition
and instrumental virtuosity. Keyboardist Lars Froislie engaged the services of
a number of vintage instruments like a Hammond C3 organ, Mini-Moog, Rhodes
electric piano, and Mellotron to recreate the sound and fury of classicist
proggers such as Yes and King Crimson while the rest of the band has woven a
subtle tapestry of sound with symphonic overtones and rock roots. Guitarist
Morten Eriksen’s fretwork reminds one of Jethro Tull’s Martin Barre while
frontman Tony Johannessen’s vocals are warm but capable of reaching subtle
heights.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
The emphasis on Hinterland is on the music, however, and Wobbler
has excelled at the construction of a dense, multi-layered and multi-faceted
collection of songs that are long on Froislie’s considerable keyboard wizardry
and short on pretension. The band has forged atmospheric compositions of
amazing ambition and depth, combining disparate musical elements to create a
new and exciting strain of progressive rock. Wobbler has shot for the stars
and struck a bullseye, Hinterland an incredible debut, certain to bring
the band acclaim as typically reticent prog-rock lifers sit up and take
notice. We look forward to hearing more from this talented and innovative
group of musicians. (The Laser’s Edge, released September 5th, 2005)
Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2005
Jason & the Scorchers frontman
Jason Ringenberg
is a pioneering Americana legend who has also enjoyed a critically-acclaimed and
modestly-successful solo career that kicked off with 2000’s
A Pocketful of Soul, which was followed by 2002’s
All Over Creation. In between these efforts, Ringenberg pursued a third
distinct career as “Farmer Jason,” recording goofy yet deceptively sly albums
for kid (and their parents). He took some time off after 2004’s
Empire Builders, reunited with the Scorchers for 2010’s landmark
Halcyon Times album, and then returned to his family and life in
Tennessee.
Jason Ringenberg’s Rhinestoned
The offer of an “artist in residency” program at Sequoia National Park
in California proved to be too alluring to pass by, however, and with newfound
clarity and purpose (and a bunch of new songs), Ringenberg came roaring back
with 2019’s incredible
Stand Tall album. The Roots of Stand Tall appeared last year, the album a sort of
“making of” trip and, when 2020 rolled around, Ringenberg had songs left over
that didn’t quite fit onto Stand Tall. In a press release for his new
album, Jason states “these weren’t enough to make another record, nor did I
have the fire to embark on another recording project.” When the Covid lockdown
started, though, Jason says that “songs began to pour out. I felt increasingly
excited and driven to record again. I put a guitar and recorder by my bed. I
was ready to jump on any idea like a Revolutionary War Minuteman waiting to be
called by Paul Revere.”
The result is Ringenberg’s finest solo
album to date, Rhinestoned. The man himself says “the songs rolled out
rather heavy. I reckon that was to be expected, with a world grappling with a
pandemic and the United States embroiled in racial strife.” A historian in his
own lyrical manner, Jason easily ties together events from yesteryear with
contemporary themes to create a strong song cycle that has one foot in the
past and an eye towards the future. Rhinestoned kicks off with the
Dylanesque “Before Love and War,” a poetic rocker that shines with
producer/guitarist George Bradfute’s shimmering fretwork, Fats Kaplin’s
sweeping steel guitar, and emotionally-charged vocals. Ringenberg’s “The
Freedom Rides Weren’t Free” is another up-tempo rocker with brilliant, timely
lyrics that reflect the “Black Lives Matter” protests while speaking of the
sacrifices of the Freedom Riders, who fought for civil rights in the early
‘60s. Jason delivers a powerful vocal performance for a song into which he
invests a lot of heart and soul.
Nashville Without Rhinestones
Ringenberg has lived in the Nashville area for better than 40 years, and
dabbled in the country music field, so he knows what he speaks of in
“Nashville Without Rhinestones,” a folk-styled song with lyrics spoken, rather
than sung against a rolling instrumental backdrop. Jason bemoans the loss of
the “old” Nashville not in the manner of some aging crank, but rather as a
traditionalist who isn’t so much criticizing the city’s progress as much as
mourning what it’s leaving behind. “Out on the horizon, I see a sinking ship,”
he sings, “filled with hillbilly ghosts on their final trip,” nodding to the
Music City’s rich cultural heritage by playing “an old LP” from 1963, 1953,
1943, etc., throughout the lengthy history of country & western music.
Jason pays further tribute to the “Old Nashville” with a charming cover of the
Carter Family’s country classic “The Storms Are On the Ocean.” A duet with the
incredibly-talented Kristi Rose, their two voices recreate pure magic in the
grooves.
Only Ringenberg could take an antiquated hymn
like “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” and turn it into a rock song, but with a
little vocal assistance from two of his daughters (Addie and Camille), and
soaring Bradfute guitarplay, the song manages to be both reverent and joyfully
rowdy. Ringenberg’s “I Rode with Crazy Horse” is one of the album’s most
interesting songs, with its germination in a dream. Says Jason, “I woke up and
immediately hummed the words and melody into my phone recorder. I am
enormously proud of that song.” A rollicking story-song, Ringenberg states
that its “story is loosely based on an old Lakota/Oglala legend that one of
Crazy Horse’s cousins rode and fought beside him through every battle, even to
his death at Fort Robinson.” Riding a timeworn C&W beat like a galloping
horse, the story unfolds into a fascinating tale accompanied by Bradfute’s
ringing guitars and a locomotive rhythms courtesy of drummer Steve Ebe’s
relentless percussion.
Stoned On Rhinestones
The semi-autobiographical “My Highway Songs” is the perfect antidote to today’s
insipid “pop country” music with Ringenberg’s high-lonesome vocals sitting atop
a twangy yet lush instrumental soundtrack, the self-reflective lyrics of an
aging rocker wondering if “there’s a place in the world for my highway songs?”
The music is simply gorgeous, with Kaplin’s weeping pedal steel standing out,
and the song itself is worthy of a tradition built by Hank Williams and Johnny
Cash. Speaking of which, Jason’s cover of ol’ Hank’s “You Win Again” is a
beautiful contemporary take on the honky-tonk gem, Ringenberg imbuing the song
with plenty of pathos and heartache while the band choogles on behind him. A
cover of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils’ song “Time Warp” (from 1975’s
The Car Over the Lake album) is a swinging nod to country music’s
influence on 1970s-era Southern rock.
With “Stoned On Rhinestones,”
Ringenberg takes a sly look at the allure of country music stardom, his humorous
lyrics bouncing off a rockin’ hillbilly musical backdrop to cleverly (and
honestly) describe both the ups and the downs of a life on stage. The grand
romantic ambitions of “Keep That Promise” could easily have been a Jason &
Scorchers tune, with guitarist Warner Hodges shooting off sparks while Jason
sings of star-crossed lovers. As it is, Bradfute and company do a fine job
raising the roof, providing stinging fretwork and a dense rhythmic canvas for
Jason to paint on. Rhinestoned closes with “Window Town,” another poetic
lyrical turn that obliquely speaks of the difficulty of personal relationships
in the modern world. The soundtrack is hauntingly beautiful, masterfully
blending country and rock with filigree guitar and pedal steel (and Kristi
Rose’s harmony vocals) playing off a solid rhythmic foundation.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Jason says it better than I ever could, stating that “taken all
together, this is a record populated by old souls and ghosts – both people and
places. The main song cycle of Rhinestoned examines my relationship
with a changing Nashville and its role in country music.” Although many of the
album’s songs look backwards, they’re also contemplative of the future in a
time of doubt and apprehension. Recorded during the Covid era with the
attendant social distancing, and ably assisted by guitarist and producer
George Bradfute, in whose Tone Chaparral studio the album was recorded,
Ringenberg and his collaborators nevertheless managed to crank out a timeless
and enduring collection of spirited country-rock music that is both uplifting
and entertaining…and who could ask for better in these trying days and times?
(Courageous Chicken Records, released March 5th, 2021)
Widely-considered as the “Godfathers of Power-Pop,” Badfinger’s storied career
dated back to the early 1960s. Formed in 1961, the band ran through names like
the Black Velvets and the Wild Ones before settling on the Iveys. A typical
British R&B outfit, the Iveys played Top 40 chart hits, Motown,
psychedelic-rock, blues, and soul while touring with better-known outfits like
the Who, the Yardbirds, and the Spencer Davis Group. They would come to the
attention of the Beatles and, signed to that band’s Apple Records label, would
change their name and start the long slog of moving out of the long shadow of
their benefactors.
No Dice was the second album recorded under the
Badfinger band name and features the “classic” line-up of guitarists Pete Ham
and Joey Molland, bassist Tom Evans, and drummer Mike Gibbins, all of whom
share vocals at one time or another. It’s an odd album, and not what fans
might expect, in spite of the power-pop blueprint “No Matter What,” an
engaging slice of guitar-driven chart candy that would become the band’s
second Top 10 U.K. and U.S. single. Although a lot of the album’s exercises in
rock ‘n’ roll reflect the uncertainty of the changing decades (as well as
upheaval in the Beatles camp and Apple Records), there are a number of gems
hidden in these grooves.
The Ham/Evans co-write “Without You”
would become a big hit for Harry Nilsson a year after Badfinger’s hauntingly
beautiful and sublime version. The rollicking, country-tinged “Better Days”
offers up some stellar fretwork and harmony vocals while the rockin’ “Love Me
Do” one-ups the Beatles with a stomping ‘50s throwback soundtrack. Evans’
“Believe Me” is a Paul McCartney solo track by any standard with plaintive,
yearning vocals and lush instrumental accompaniment and “We’re For the Dark”
closes No Dice with an elegant folk-pop tune boasting of elegant guitarplay
and Ham’s warm vocals. Oddly enough, only “No Matter What” was released as a
single off the album, although there are easily a couple of other worthy
candidates here.
Badfinger peaked
commercially with the band’s 1971 album Straight Up, which would ride the Top
10 U.S. hits “Day After Day” and “Baby Blue” to a #31 position on the
Billboard albums chart. Financial mismanagement, personnel changes, the demise
of Apple Records, numerous lawsuits, and other issues plagued the band until
its break-up in 1975 following the death of Pete Ham by suicide. Broker than
broke, Badfinger members Molland and Evans re-formed the band in the late ‘70s
and released albums in 1979 (Airwaves) and 1981 (Say No More) before breaking
up again, each man touring with their own version of Badfinger in the early
‘80s. Despondent over an argument concerning royalties, Evans took his own
life in 1983. Joey Molland continued to lead Badfinger, in one form or
another, into the 2000s while also releasing several solo albums. (Apple
Records, 1970)
If
Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album, released in February 1970, was a shot across the
bow of music biz politesse, then their sophomore effort, Paranoid, tore
down the gates and announced that the freebooters were here to rampage and
plunder. Released a mere seven months after their debut, the album represented a
large creative leap forward for the foursome of Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), Tony
Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass), and Bill Ward (drums). The touchstone for
several subsequent sub-genres of heavy metal – as well as a foundational album
for the metal genre altogether – there’s literally not a bad song to be found on
Paranoid.
Kicking off with the anti-war dirge “War Pigs,”
Iommi introduces his heavy, riff-based guitar technique to a legion of stoners
while Ozzy’s sepulchre vocals perfectly match the Sturm und Drang of Butler’s
lyrics. Producer Roger Bain added some sound effects to the mix while Ward’s
explosive drumbeats drive the song’s lyrical narrative. The result ranks among
the top two or three most influential metal songs ever recorded. The breakneck
title song – literally thrown together in the studio at the last minute to pad
out the album – shows the band channeling arcane forces with a thrashy descent
into madness that would make “Paranoid” perhaps the most influential heavy metal
track of all time (or only second, perhaps, to Deep Purple’s “Smoke On the
Water”). Sabbath wasn’t content with merely resting on the success of the first
couple of ball-breakers on Paranoid, nosirree…they go on to dredge up the
most devastating sonic sludge that they could conceive of in the proto-metal
daze of the dawn of the new decade.
The hallucinogenic psychedelic
mindfuck of “Planet Caravan” is directly responsible for the creation of bands
like Saint Vitus, Kyuss, the Obsessed, and Electric Wizard while the plodding,
metal-clad golem “Iron Man” has taken on legs of its own beyond Paranoid.
Songs like “Electric Funeral” and “Hand of Doom” display a heretofore unknown,
uranium-strength level of heaviness and radioactivity while the album-closing
“Fairies Wear Boots” (with its intricate musical intro often listed separately
as “Jack the Stripper”) cranked the amps to absurd levels, Ozzy’s epochal vocals
matched by jackhammer rhythms and Iommi’s six-string pyrotechnics. A new wind
was blowing in from Merry Olde England, driving Paranoid to #1 in the
U.K. and #12 on the U.S. albums chart, eventually selling more than four million
flapjacks on its way to making Sabbath international rock stars. (Warner
Brothers Records, 1970)
So sad to hear about the death of Cleveland rock 'n' roll legend Michael Stanley. Although he never broke nationwide with either his Michael Stanley Band (which recorded a handful of great "heartland rock" albums for major labels like Epic, Arista, and EMI back in the 1970s and '80s) or as a solo artist, Michael kept on rockin' as a DJ for a local FM radio station for 30 years...
The Michael Stanley Band were faves of mine as a "Rust Belt" kid before, and after moving to Tennessee, and I liked Stanley's solo albums whenever I ran across them in the wild. Some years ago, he reached out to me by email after I'd written a positive review and we had some nice conversations. Stanley was never really famous (outside of Ohio), but he was a rock 'n' roll lifer. R.I.P.
If only for the classic song “Money Changes Everything” – covered so completely
by Cyndi Lauper – former Brains keyboardist and songwriter Tom Gray deserves
induction in somebody’s hall of fame. Unfortunately, by the time of that song’s
enormous success, the underrated band had disbanded and Gray moved from Atlanta
to Nashville to pursue a full-time songwriting career. He must have discovered
that Nashville isn’t the sort of creative mistress to nurture a gifted
wordsmith, as Gray returned to Atlanta and ended up forming the acoustic roots
band Delta Moon with
neighbors Gina Leigh on vocals and guitarist Mark Johnson in the early ‘90s.
Gray’s infatuation with traditional blues and roots-rock began to gain the band
a following, the threesome subsequently adding noted blues bassist Jon Schwenke
and drummer Scott Callison.
Goin’ Down South is Delta Moon’s
third album and second studio effort, the record illustrating the impressive
musical chemistry between the players as well as the band’s firm creative grasp
on a wide range of material. An entertaining mix of rootsy originals and
inspired covers, including Mississippi bluesman J.B. Lenoir’s “I Want To Go” and
hill country legend R.L. Burnside’s “Goin’ Down South,” the album is an
intricate mix of Delta blues, Southern-fried country funk, and roots-rock. Gina
Leigh is a gifted vocalist, belting out the bluesier numbers with passion and
finesse while Gray’s gruffer vocals are better suited for the more subdued and
countryish material.
It’s the songs that make or break an album,
though, and Delta Moon’s carefully considered material stands tall. “Poplar
Grove” is a disturbing tale of rural vengeance, Gray’s mournful vocals
complimented by his pedal steel playing and Mark Johnson’s nimble fretwork.
“Stone Cold Man” is a swamp-flavored blues track featuring Leigh’s amazing
pipes, the band delivering a funky groove behind the vocals. The unusual choice
of the David Bowie/Iggy Pop tune “Nightclubbing” to cover is a risky move pulled
off with skill by Delta Moon, the band interpreting the Teutonic cabaret of the
original as a smoky blues shuffle. “Shake Something Loose,” written by Gray with
fellow traveler Randall Bramblett, is a rocking number that bubbles over just
short of rowdy.
Delta Moon has attracted a lot of
attention from the blues/roots music segment of the industry, but based on the
strength of Goin’ Down South, I’d say that they could just as easily
appeal to the jam band audience as well. The band has two skilled
multi-instrumentalists in Gray and Johnson; Schwenke and Callison are a solid
and flexible rhythm section; and between Leigh and Gray, Delta Moon’s vocalists
can pull off a diverse range of material. Delta Moon may not meander off into
twenty-minute extended jams (tho’ I believe that they could), but they evince
the sort of rural southern “down-home” innocence and instrumental skills that
have made bands as disparate as moe, Phish, and Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
favorites on the festival circuit. Don’t believe me? Check out
Goin’ Down South…it’s all in the grooves. (Deep Rush Records, released
June 15, 2004)
