Album Review: Calidoscopio’s Scorpio Rising (2024)

Cultural ‘Cassandras’ have been bemoaning the state of rock ‘n’ roll for much of the past two decades. Critics all but declared the genre D.O.A. at the turn of the century and have since ignored evidence to the contrary in the form of red-hot albums from rockers like Joe Grushecky, Redd Kross, Jack White, Guided By Voices, and Dream Syndicate, to name but a few, over the past couple of years. There are newer R&R acolytes the road and in the studio, too, young soul rebels like Beach Slang, Fontaines D.C., Wet Leg, and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Rock ‘n’ roll isn’t dead and buried, it’s not even in a coma; it just went underground, much as it did during the disco years, or in the commercial aftermath of grunge.

Among the plethora of underground bands genuflecting at the altar of rock ‘n’ roll are what I like to call the “Children of Nuggets” (or maybe the “Grandchildren” at this point, as the 50th anniversary of the release of the original, influential Nuggets album has come and gone…). These are bands that, while influenced by the sounds of the swinging ‘60s – pop, rock, blues, garage, and psychedelic – are nevertheless putting their own spin on vintage vibrations, not only breathing new life into antiquated styles, but creating new paths to take these genres into the future. One such “grandchild” that is blazing new trails is Rochester, New York’s Calidoscopio, a multi-national, trans-oceanic outfit fronted by producer and multi-instrumentalist Dave Anderson and including German guitarist Oliver Hilbers and drummer Knuth Hildebrandt.

Calidoscopio’s Scorpio Rising

Calidoscopio released its fantastic debut album Get Ready! back in 2021, about which this scribe wrote at the time, “Calidoscopio’s Get Ready! provides a mind-bending trip back to the future with a timeless sound that is both familiar and yet innovative.” Giving the LP another spin prior to penning this review, I stand by my words. Scorpio Rising is the band’s sophomore effort, four years in the making and, if anything, more mind-blowing than its predecessor. Leaping right out of your speakers with the opening track, “I’m Higher Than I’m Down,” the listener is caught in a sonic-swirl that bodychecks your senses like a proto-Hawkwind, blending Seeds-like garage-rock riffs with hyper psychedelic space-rock flourishes that leave you reeling from the first note to the last.

Giving no quarter, “Shadows of the Moonlight” is more garage-y in feel, with a steady cacophony of drumbeats and an infectious guitar riff that falls prey to a killer solo that cuts with tooth and claw. “Burn A Hole” pairs clever lyrics with a novel vocal delivery above a steady rhythmic track with sparse six-string flourishes. Opening with a clamorous instrumental din, “You’re Gonna Make Me” combines a Sky Saxon aesthetic with ringing, and often-times clashing instrumentation and distraught vox to create a bluesy vibe. A classic tale of romantic woe that is as timeless as rock ‘n’ roll itself, “Gypsy Girl” brings a wan folkish pacing to an emotional ‘tears on my guitar’ performance, two powerful minutes of anguished heartbreak.

Magic Panacea

Cut from similar romance-gone-wrong cloth, “I Want To Be Alone” delivers a complex, textured instrumental arrangement running like an angry river beneath Anderson’s tortured vocals while Hildebrandt’s shotgun cymbal work and cascading drumbeats drive the emotional heartbeat of the song. With a vibrating sonic wavelength and dense production fitting the moment, “Shanghai Girl” rocks from post to post with chiming fretwork and locomotive rhythms. The throwback rock of “She’s Bad” reminds of Duane Eddy with nearly-hidden vocals and a loud, twangy guitar sound that bounces from speaker to speaker. Picking up the pace just a notch, “Magic Panacea” brings a dose of psychedelia to the party, offering up a buffet of delicious git licks above an energetic drumbeat, including a gorgeous ‘50s-style solo that evokes James Burton’s influential work back in the day.

Downshifting to allow the listener to catch their breath, “Here Comes The Sun” captures a darker, atmospheric vibe at odds with the song’s seemingly upbeat lyrics. The dichotomy helps drive the song across new stylistic turf and makes for an exciting, mind-bending performance. The title track is pure, pedigreed psychedelic rock with a razor edge and lysergic lyrics, four-minutes and eleven sugar cubed seconds of joyful music-making with dueling guitars and thundering drumbeats guaranteed to take your head to a better place. Closer “Kicked Out-Kicked In” is unrelenting in its onslaught, a monster, guitar-driven garage-fire that couldn’t hit any harder if Anderson and Hilbers actually smashed their guitars over your head.   

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

With Scorpio Rising, Calidoscopio displays an evolution in sound and a willingness to explore previously-undiscovered corners of rock music that have remained hidden for decades. Yes, the band pursues an overall musical direction that, at first blush, may seem derivative and/or revisionist, but nothing could be further from the truth. Dig a little deeper into Scorpio Rising and you’ll find the method to the band’s madness, heretofore unrealized creative avenues where others fear to tread. No matter your age, if you dig bands like the Seeds, the 13th Floor Elevators, and the Electric Prunes, you’ll find a lot to love in the grooves of Calidoscopio’s Scorpio Rising! (Jargon Records, released July 19th, 2024)

Buy the album from Bandcamp: Calidoscopio’s Scorpio Rising
 
Previously on That Devil Music: Calidoscopio’s Get Ready album review

CD Review: Greg Prevost's After The Wars (2024)

After the break-up of garage-rock royalty the Chesterfield Kings in 2009 (accept no weak-kneed substitutes!), band frontman Greg ‘Stackhouse’ Prevost returned to his roots and launched a solo career with 2012’s critically-acclaimed effort Mississippi Murderer that has resulted in four bodacious collections of git-driven blues-rock that is equal parts Johnny Winter and early Rolling Stones with a double-shot of Lightnin’ Hopkins to clear your head.

Of Prevost’s previous album, 2021’s Songs For These Times, I wrote that “the singer, songwriter, and guitarist has crafted an impressive collection of material that not only defies previously-held expectations but also explores the possibilities of roots ‘n’ blues music.” Flash forward three years and Prevost’s much-anticipated fourth solo effort, After The Wars, which represents a quantum leap forward in the artist’s creative evolution that, even after 40+ years, proves that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Greg ‘Stackhouse’ Prevost’s After The Wars

With After The Wars, Prevost expands his musical palette beyond scrappy blues-rock to incorporate folk, country, and even psychedelic-pop for a dozen songs that provide the listener with a mini-history of the last six decades of music while pushing beyond expectations with every single of them. Opening with the obscure Felix Pappalardi/Mountain song “Traveling In the Dark,” Prevost eschews a hard rock approach in favor of a feathery, shimmering psych-folk arrangement that emphasizes the song’s lyrics, delivered in a wan voice above a lofty acoustic guitar strum that belies the distraught lyrics.

Throwing listeners a curveball, Prevost delivers a spry reading of the traditional Gospel tune “Twelve Gates To the City,” best known for its rendition by singer Don Lewis. Accompanied by singer Danielle Colbert-Parrish, whose vocal talents elevate Prevost’s grittier vox to heavenly heights, it’s an inspired and fiery performance peppered by Prevost’s raging harmonica fills. The original “No Hallelujah For Glory” is a sort of gospel-blues tune with a lively six-string pull and Texas blues-styled vocals and mournful harmonica while a cover of cult-rocker Roky Erickson’s “I Have Always Been Here Before” offers a fresh perspective on one of the underrated songwriter’s best tunes, delivered with reverence and energy in a psyche-folk style.

Prevost’s relationship with obscure ‘70s rocker Armand Schaubroeck – owner of the world-famous House of Guitars store in Rochester NY – dates back decades to when Greg worked at the HOG, so his cover of Schaubroeck’s “Babe We’re Not Part of Society” isn’t totally unexpected, but is nevertheless a welcome surprise. Two flash minutes of raging vocals, fiery harmonica, and jagged guitar strum underlines Schaubroeck’s original vision with reckless abandon, and although I can’t find the song on any of Schaubroeck’s albums, if you dig it, maybe you’ll check out the recent CD reissue of Schaubroeck’s classic 1974 album A Lot of People Would Like To See Armand Schaubroeck…Dead.

Roadkill Rag

By contrast, Prevost’s cover of the Buddy Holly rarity “Learning the Game” is downright pastoral in its delivery, sort of a pop-psych construct with gorgeous strings and an arrangement that draws out the romantic nature of the lyrics. The original “Roadkill Rag” is a blustery, up-tempo blues-rocker with echoing guitar licks, growled lyrics, and a ramshackle performance befitting both juke-joint and honky-tonk. A cover of Johnny Paycheck’s “Apartment #9” is totally unexpected, yet cleverly fits into the album’s track list, the honky-tonk tearjerker gliding to Nashville on the wings of Al Keltz’s subtle pedal steel guitar. Prevost’s twangy vocals hint at another musical direction; maybe he’ll cover a David Allen Coe song next album?

Riding out on some elegant guitar and harmonica work, “Apartment #9” effortlessly segues into a cover of Phil Och’s late-career folk gem “No More Songs.” Accompanied by Karl LaPorta’s beautiful, low-key piano, Prevost imbues what is basically a funeral dirge for Och’s career with dignity and presence. “Dust My Blues” breaks the tension with an up-tempo reading fueled by soaring harmonica riffs and howling vocals. The album’s title track is a sort of extended song cycle that blends Prevost’s imaginative four ‘suites’ with David Bowie’s glam-infused psych-rocker “Memory of A Free Festival” in the creation of a mesmerizing head trip that has more in common with 1969 than 2024.

Stream-of-consciousness vocals, cacophonic instrumentation, and overall chaos is tempered by a unique musical vision that delivers an energetic and entertaining miasma of sound and texture which points towards a new psychedelia that is informed by, but not beholden to, the sounds of the ‘60s. The suite ends with seeming destruction before the triumphant message of “Memory of A Free Festival” breaks out. It’s a heady trip, and a helluva seven minutes! After The Wars closes out with the traditional folk tune “He Was A Friend of Mine.” Covered by folks like Bob Dylan, Dave van Ronk, and the Byrds, Prevost brings a bluesier take to the song, which dates back to at least the 1930s. I like Prevost’s reading, which tacks towards a joyful remembrance of the friend in question despite the mournful nature of the instrumentation.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

As much as I enjoy Prevost’s previous solo albums and, indeed, much of the Chesterfield Kings’ worthy album catalog, After The Wars is a much more nuanced and intricate collection of songs. The artist is accompanied by a larger cast of musical friends here, including longtime collaborator Paul Morabito on guitar, and co-producer Dave Anderson, of the very cool band Calidoscopio, who contributes various instruments. Greg’s wife Caroll makes the album a family affair by providing vocals on several songs, and the world-famous Felix the Cat even makes his voice heard (on “Zen Cats,” part of the title song suite).

After The Wars is Greg Prevost’s most considered, creative, and complex album to date, the artist paying tribute to his considerable past efforts and influences while still defying expectations with his sojourn towards the future. (Mean Disposition Records, 2024)

Buy the LP from Get Hip Records: Greg Prevost’s After The Wars

Also on That Devil Music: Greg Prevost’s Universal Vagrant CD review

Book Review: Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious (2024)

On the Mount Olympus of rock ‘n’ roll, Lou Reed may be Apollo, the Greek god of music and poetry…or maybe he was the Oracle of Delphi, Pythia, whose prophecies are said to have come from divine possession. More likely, though, Reed was Hermes, the messenger god, who was also known as a bit of a trickster along the line of Loki of Norse mythology, for what else could Metal Machine Music be considered other than a terribly cheeky prank?

Perhaps Reed was an amalgam of all of these mythological figures. Over the course of a lengthy career that spanned six decades, Reed released nearly three-dozen studio and live albums – both solo and with his influential group the Velvet Underground – with more than a few clunkers in the mix, but enough solid efforts to build an impressive legacy. More importantly, he spread the message of rock ‘n’ roll, a particular gospel fueled by Reed’s unique and unparalleled creative vision.

Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious

There is an entire shelf of books available that deconstruct Reed’s life and career, some obviously written by fans like Will Hermes and Anthony DeCurtis, which present the artist in an honest light, warts and all, while others (Howard Sounes, I’m looking at you…) seem to be purposely salacious, designed to denigrate Reed’s reputation without the good sense to realize that you can’t really tarnish a god’s image. Have these scribes ever read the story of Leda & the Swan? An entirely different bookshelf covers the lightning bolt-brief albeit influential existence of the Velvet Underground.

Yes, Lou was a prickly, contentious, misanthropic figure who particularly disliked the music media, and his feuds with critics like Lester Bangs are legendary in and of themselves. Reed could sometimes be hateful in words and actions, but looking at the artist from an arm’s length, it seems that most of the damage caused by Lou was targeted at himself. What few of the aforementioned books do, however, is really cover the man’s music in depth. For that, we have Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious.

Higgins is a former pop music and jazz critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper – back in the day when arts coverage was valued by the mainstream press – and Sweet, Wild and Vicious is an invaluable listener’s guide to Reed’s largish catalog of music. Published by Ira Robbins’ Trouser Press Books, a commercial imprint with a fan’s perspective and plenty of rock ‘n’ roll history behind it, unlike most of these currently trendy “album-by-album” books, Sweet, Wild and Vicious doesn’t lapse into the “song-by-song” orthodoxy that tends to hamstring acute criticism in favor of word count (and, as author of one of these books – Sonicbond’s Spirit…On Track – I have some familiarity with the form). 

Lou Reed, Montauk Studio 2002, photo by Julian Schnabel, courtesy Light In The Attic Records

Lou Reed Album-by Album

Instead, Higgins treats each recording individually and organically in its entirety, providing context and history while calling out the best (and sometimes worst) of the songs. Sweet, Wild and Vicious begins, logically, with the four Velvet Underground albums circa 1967-1970 and, after a quick and insightful aside into the song “Sweet Jame,” dives into Reed’s solo career with his self-titled 1972 debut album, which I hold in higher esteem than does Higgins. Over the course of 246 pages, Higgins smartly and concisely tackles each album in the Reed milieu, including late-period VU live discs, up through Reed’s mischievous swansong, Lulu, his 2011 collaboration with heavy metal legends Metallica.

Higgins’ appreciation for even Reed’s minor works is obvious, but never fawning, and he seems to be able to pluck a gem or two out of even lackluster albums like Mistrial or Rock and Roll Heart. Higgins’ enthusiasm is contagious, his insight as thought-provoking as the artist’s work he’s writing about. The last few chapters of Sweet, Wild and Vicious go beyond Reed to discuss legendary critic Robert Christgau’s estimation of the artist’s body of work and “Children of the Velvet Underground,” i.e. musicians influenced by Reed’s work including some of the usual suspects – folks like David Bowie, Dream Syndicate, and Jonathan Richman – as well as some you may not have thought of like Yo La Tengo, Joy Division, and the Feelies.

The final two chapters feature “Orphans and Rarities,” significant performances that Reed contributed to various tribute albums or movie soundtracks, and “Remake, remodel,” tackling covers of Reed’s songs by other artists. As Higgins writes, “many people can claim to be better singers than Lou Reed, with a greater range or more technical skill. But that doesn’t mean they can improve on or even credibly deliver a Reed song.” His criticisms of the performances he describes are a perfect illustration of Reed’s unique ability to infuse a song with magic that is impossible for even more talented other artists to capture.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious is a quick read (no pun intended!), well-written and intelligent and providing even the casual Lou Reed fan with motivation to track down some of those albums you may have overlooked or forgotten about. I’d highly recommend it for anybody with any interest in the artist, the book a welcome addition to the rapidly-growing Trouser Press catalog, which also includes Mitch Cohen’s Looking For the Magic, a fascinating account of his tenure with Arista Records, several collections of Robbins’ wonderful writing on music, and the essential Zip It Up! The Best of Trouser Press Magazine 1974-1984, all of which deserve space on your bookshelf. (Trouser Press Books, published April 19th, 2024)

Buy the book from Trouser Press: Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious

Archive Review: Junior Well’s Hoodoo Man Blues (1965/2011)

One of a handful of bona fide classic blues LPs, Junior Wells’ Hoodoo Man Blues ushered in a new era for the genre. Although blues music was struggling commercially in the mid-1960s as a young African-American audience chose to listen to soul, and later funk rather than their “parent’s music,” a new audience would develop as young, white rock ‘n’ roll fans latched onto the blues even more strongly than they did during the short-lived folk-blues boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Along with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s self-titled 1965 debut, Hoodoo Man Blues would help write the blueprint that most blues-rock bands of the late 1960s would follow.

In retrospect, it seems like a natural, inevitable progression, but in 1965, Delmark Records’ Bob Koester was taking a big risk with the recording and release of Hoodoo Man Blues. Blues albums had, until that point, mostly been a collection of songs from an artist’s 45rpm record releases surrounded by studio filler. Hoodoo Man Blues was, perhaps, the first true document of a working blues band just cutting loose in the studio as they did on the stage at Theresa’s or other Chicago blues clubs without considering the release of a single. The album truly captured the sound and fury of the Chicago blues at that time even while pointing the music towards a new direction.   

Junior Well’s Hoodoo Man Blues

Wells’ take on Amos Blakemore’s “Snatch It Back and Hold It” would bring a new sound to the traditional Chicago blues. Displaying as many James Brown-influenced funk underpinnings as Little Walter-styled blues aesthetic, the performance placed more reliance on Wells’ funky, forceful vocals and Buddy Guy’s slippery chicken-picking as it did Wells’ normal harpwork. Another Blakemore cover, the underrated “Ships On the Ocean,” takes the standard blues sound onto darker, stormy turf with an incredibly nuanced but forceful six-string performance by Guy and mournful blasts of Wells’ harp, with the singer’s growling, Howlin’ Wolf-styled vocals reaching deep into a bottomless well of emotion.

Wells pays tribute to two of his major influences on Hoodoo Man Blues, starting with a blistering cover of John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson’s classic “Good Morning Schoolgirl.” With a lusty vocal performance accompanied by Guy’s lively fretwork, Wells’ punctuates the lyrics with shards of harp laid atop the jaunty rhythm provided by bassist Jack Myers and drummer Billy Warren. The title track is taken from harp wizard Sonny Boy Williamson, and Wells’ version features an upbeat, rollicking arrangement with plenty of harp gymnastics and great guitar tone from Guy, who manages to coax a sound akin to a riffing organ from his fretboard.

In The Wee Wee Hours

Wells dips into the Amos Blakemore catalog once again for “In the Wee Wee Hours,” one of four gems from the songwriter to be found on Hoodoo Man Blues. Wells firmly places “In the Wee Wee Hours” in the pantheon of classic blues torch-songs with a dynamic performance that colors the entire song in a dark shade of blue. Wells’ emotional harpwork lays the foundation upon which Guy embroiders his beautiful, melancholy guitar lines. Wells’ vocals are sparse, more of a fill in-between the soul-crushing instrumentation, and they work well in context, providing maximum impact. By contrast, Blakemore’s “We’re Ready” is delivered as a mid-tempo instrumental shuffle with a swaggering backbeat, Wells’ fluid harp playing, and Guy’s stinging, sharp-edged guitar. Warren’s drumming really stands out here, propelling the song with flurries of cymbal and skins.

Guitarist Kenny Burrell’s “Chitlins Con Carne” has become a blues and jazz standard, but in 1965 it was a mere instrumental curiosity, the song’s charms amplified here by Wells’ serpentine harp and Guy’s energetic six-string, passages marked by Wells’ pronounced grunts. Hoodoo Man Blues ends as it begins, with Wells’ taking the traditional “Yonder Wall” into the stratosphere with a rocking take that brings the noise and brings the funk with scrappy harp and rhythmic guitarplay rolling high in the mix above a fat rhythmic groove. This 2011 reissue includes several bonus tracks in the form of alternate takes and illuminating studio chatter, but the most significant find here is a performance of Buddy Guy’s “I Ain’t Stranded” that features Wells’ soulful vocals sputtering and sliding across Guy’s Chuck Berry-styled, duckwalking rock ‘n’ blues guitar pickin’.         

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Quite simply, if you’re a blues fan, then you should have a copy of Junior Wells’ Hoodoo Man Blues in your collection. Featuring brilliant performances all around, matched with a classic tracklist and stellar instrumentation, the album would become – and remains – Delmark’s all-time best-seller and is a Grammy® Hall of Fame inductee.

While the bonus tracks included on this 2011 reissue add a little additional spice to the already heady musical gumbo, the addition of new liner note and rare B&W photos from the original 1965 recording session provide plenty of reasons to upgrade your old copy. For the newbie, however, Hoodoo Man Blues is where the legacies of Junior Wells and Buddy Guy were first writ large. Get it! (Delmark Records, released August 23, 2011)

Buy the CD from Amazon: Junior Wells’ Hoodoo Man Blues

Archive Review: Mountain's Over the Top (1995)

The first time that I ever heard Mountain – the Mountain Climbing! album, I believe – was at an older friend’s house. I was twelve or thirteen, he was eighteen, and a bunch of us would gather in his basement to pass the pipe and bottle around and sample tunes from his large record collection. Many of the bands and artists that would come to influence my plunge into rock criticism were first experienced in that basement – Mountain, Spirit, Steppenwolf, Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix...

From the 1970 release of Mountain Climbing!, the band’s second album, throughout their slow disintegrated and up to the break-up half a decade later, Mountain was one of the biggest bands in the land – and, perhaps, the most obscure. They played Woodstock, but were cut out of the movie; they sold millions of copies of their first few albums, but are remembered today for a single song: “Mississippi Queen.” A generation of kids that today still listen to Hendrix and Ozzie are unfamiliar with the rich body of work created by the genius of Leslie West and Felix Pappalardi, the odd couple behind Mountain’s success.

In the late 1960s, Felix Pappalardi was known as the producer of Cream, the biggest band in the world in their time. A classically-trained musician, Pappalardi was a deft producer, a multi-instrumental talent, and a skilled composer and arranger. West was a fat kid from Long Island, as raw as Pappalardi was polished. No lesser lights than Peter Townsend, Jeff Beck, and Mick Jagger considered West to be the best guitarist alive at the time. This unlikely pair came together to become the yin and yang of Mountain, feeding off each other’s energy and ideas. The music they created was an incredible blend of guitar-driven hard rock and jazzy improvisation layered upon a blues base. It was as complex as it was exciting, and it won the band a significant following throughout the early part of the 1970s.

The recently released Over The Top covers Mountain’s entire history, from their self-titled debut (ostensibly a Leslie West solo LP) through hit albums like Mountain Climbing! and Nantucket Sleighride to the band’s swansong, 1974’s Avalanche. The familiar songs are all here, cuts like “Mississippi Queen,” “Theme From An Imaginary Western,” “Flowers of Evil,” and “Silver Paper,” as well as lesser-known material and a smattering of live tracks. The band’s ill-fated 1985 reunion album is represented here by a pair of cuts, albeit without the presence of Felix Pappalardi, who had died tragically a few years earlier.

Two new cuts close out the 34 song, two-CD set. Recorded last year by West, long-time Mountain drummer Corky Laing, and Hendrix bassist Noel Redding, the two songs – “Talking To the Angels” and “Solution” – show but a mere fraction of the greatness that was Mountain some twenty years ago. Both feature West’s ever-maturing skills, the slimmed-down ‘90s version of the guitarist still one of the greatest players the world has seen. The new songs are nothing but soulless, pedestrian hard rock, however, missing the spark and the life that the duo of West and Pappalardi brought to their earlier creations. Over the Top is an excellent collection, nonetheless – buy it for the 30 real Mountain cuts and forget those from ‘85 and 1994. (Legacy Recordings, released 1995)

Review originally published by R Squared zine

Archive Review: Little Walter's The Complete Chess Masters (2009)

Little Walter Jacobs was, without argument, the greatest blues harmonica player ever, an instrumental virtuoso that revolutionized the use of the instrument and influenced virtually every harpist that would attempt to follow in his footprints. Sodbusters like Paul Butterfield, Charlie Musselwhite, Rod Piazza, and Jason Ricci were all influenced by Walter’s enormous shadow.

For a while, blues harp master Little Walter was Chess Records’ biggest and best-selling star…bigger than Muddy Waters or Howlin’ Wolf. From 1952 through 1958, Walter ran off a string of fourteen Top Ten R&B chart hits, and even his recordings from the late-50s and early-60s display a dazzling presence, a willingness to take chances, and an uncanny skill as both an instrumentalist and vocalist.

The Complete Chess Masters (1950-1967) collects better than ten-dozen tracks recorded by Walter, including nine previously unreleased performances. Across the five CDs included with the set, Little Walter is accompanied by a veritable “who’s who” of Chicago blues royalty, including Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Otis Spann, and Jimmy Rogers.  

The first disc includes some of Walter’s early big hits, including the career-making “Juke,” from 1952. A fluid, swinging instrumental with an easily-recognizable central riff and some tasty six-string fills courtesy of Jimmy Rogers, the song would spend an incredible 20 weeks on the R&B charts. Backed with the soulful “Can’t Hold Out Much Longer,” the single created a blueprint that Chess would follow for much of Walter’s career, featuring an instrumental ‘A’ side backed by a ‘B’ side that would feature Walter’s underrated vocals.

When “Juke” hit the top of the charts, Little Walter ditched Waters mid-tour and, scooping up Junior Wells’ band the Aces, launched his solo career in earnest. Recording with the new band, sessions from late-1952 and early-1953 resulted in another big hit in “Sad Hours.” Paired with T-Bone Walker’s “Mean Old World,” the steady shuffling “Sad Hours” offers the first use of Walter’s unique “warble” method that created a multi-dimensional sound for the instrument.

The second disc kicks off with one of Little Walter’s signature songs (and a blues standard), “Blues With A Feeling.” With Chess Records finally letting him put his soulful vocals up front alongside his instrumental prowess, the song was the perfect framing of mood and performance, drenched in emotion and bristling with energy.

Little Walter’s recording of Bo Diddley’s houserockin’ instrumental “Roller Coaster,” with Diddley himself providing some rattling fretwork alongside Walter’s frantic harp, represented something of a changing of the guards. By 1955, the commercial market was beginning to thin out for blues music as rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm & blues took over the charts. “Roller Coaster” would be the last of Walter’s instrumental hits.

Between 1956 and ‘58, Little Walter recorded a number of tracks that, while standing up with some of his best work, none of it proved to be a commercial success. Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry were Chess Records’ latest stars, and otherwise red-hot songs like the spry instrumental “Flying Saucer” or the hard-driving, Berry-styled rocker “It Ain’t Right” were ignored by record buyers.

In January 1959, Little Walter would record with guitarist Luther Tucker and pianist Otis Spann, producing a number of strong sides, although only one – the smoldering “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” – would inch midway up the R&B chart. Benefiting from Spann’s rollicking piano-bashing, the song features one of Walter’s most emotional harp performances, the lonesome desperation of his solos matched by his mournful vocals.

Other songs recorded in 1959 showed that, while Walter’s skills with the harmonica remained unsurpassed, his once-expressive voice was slowly being eroded by alcohol. In some instances, his diminished vocal capabilities worked to his advantage, as in the tear-jerking “Blue And Lonesome.” Backed by Freddie Robinson’s hypnotic fretwork, Walter’s low-register vocals define sadness and depression, his blistering harp a reflection of his inner turmoil.

Little Walter’s commercial fortunes continued to decline from 1960 until his death in 1968, and the sessions he was offered became few and far between. Still, there are some treasures to be plucked from Walter’s increasingly obscure recordings. Willie Dixon’s “As Long As I Have You” is a precursor to the British blues-rock that would rise up during the ‘60s, the song full of switchblade guitar and rough-hewn vocals. From one of Walter’s last sessions, in 1967, a final shot of “Juke” recorded with Buddy Guy and Otis Spann would cement Little Walter’s legacy as the greatest.

Yeah, you’ve probably figured out that five discs, featuring better than two-dozen tracks apiece, is a heck of a lot of material to wade through, and you’d be right. Although The Complete Chess Masters (1950-1967) might only appeal to the most rabid of fans, it is also an important historical document. The set provides a portrait of a musical genius in the prime…and decline…of his talent, and it’s a worthwhile addition to the library of any serious blues collector. (Hip-O Select, released March 6th, 2009)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine

Archive Review: Rich Robinson's Paper (2004)

After the Black Crowes went on hiatus back in 2002, guitarist Rich Robinson found himself without a band (and apart from his brother, Crowes’ vocalist Chris) for the first time in 18 years. His first inclination was to put together another band, and Robinson subsequently pieced together the pseudo-jam outfit Hookah Brown and toured the summer “shed” circuit. The same political BS and interpersonal dynamics that pulled the Crowes apart soon infected his new band and Robinson returned home to paint and write songs.

Because he was always overshadowed by his more flamboyant brother, the thought of a Rich Robinson solo album didn’t especially excite anybody but the most hardcore fans. ‘Tis a shame, because Paper – Robinson’s solo bow – is a damn good record. Not earth shaking, not the second coming, but a solid rock ‘n’ roll effort from a typically overlooked guitarist. Robinson wrote all the material here, plays most of the instruments and even took singing lessons to prepare for the recording.

To his credit, Robinson didn’t attempt to replicate the Stonesish swagger of the Crowes’ early recordings on Paper; neither did he try to mimic his brother’s Rod Stewart/Steve Marriott sandpaper vocals. Mostly, Robinson lets his guitar do the speaking, his wan vocals often lost in the mix beneath a swirl of instrumentation. The songs on Paper are a mix of jangling guitar pop and ‘70s-styled rock improvisation with a goodly portion of psychedelic flourishes and a hint of British folk-rock. Think Incredible String Band mixed with the Beatles, throw in some Dream Syndicate and you’ll be in the right ballpark.

Robinson’s songwriting is solid if unspectacular, his lyrics expressive and understated. The music on Paper is appropriately muddy and quite soulful, showcasing Robinson’s instrumental prowess and compositional skills. Paper is a lot better solo debut than anybody might have expected, Robinson clearly surpassing his brother’s recent musical endeavors and finally moving out of the shadow (and commercial expectations) of the Black Crowes to create music on his own terms. (Keyhole Records, released 2004)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Archive Review: Joe Cocker's Joe Cocker! (1969/2009)

Years before he became the tragic burn-out parodied by John Belushi on Saturday Night Live, Joe Cocker was just another young soul rebel trying to grab the brass ring. The British singer came up through the ranks of various skiffle and jazz-blues bands like many of his contemporaries, but he distinguished himself from the rest of the pack through his gritty, rough-hewn R&B vocals and a car wreck performing style that had him staggering around on stage, flailing his arms in the approximation of a disoriented sand piper, and belting out songs in his best Ray Charles croak.

Cocker’s debut album, 1969’s With A Little Help From My Friends, represented more than just another rocker finding gold with Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting skills. His soulful take on the Beatles tune scored his first Top 40 hit and put Joe Cocker on the pop music map. He followed it up quickly with a similar, sorta self-titled collection, Joe Cocker!, that featured a mix of covers of folks like Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and John Sebastian along with originals penned for the album by Leon Russell.

Because Cocker was a superb stylist, there was very little drop-off in his performances during the months separating his first and second albums. Backed by the Grease Band, a solid group of punters led by keyboardist Chris Stainton and including the six-string skills of guitarist Henry McCulloch, as well as melodious backing vocals by Merry Clayton, Rita Coolidge, and Bonnie Bramlett, Cocker blows through the songs here like runaway freight train.

Several of the tunes featured on Joe Cocker! would become live standards for the singer in the years to follow. Russell’s “Delta Lady” is probably the best-known here, a fine gossamer bit of British soul better known, perhaps, for its soaring chorus and backing harmonies than for Cocker’s stellar vocal performance. Cocker’s take on John Sebastian’s Lovin’ Spoonful gem “Darling Be Home Soon” is pure magic, Cocker perfectly capturing the song’s desire and emotion. A cover of New Orleans R&B legend Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” is a real raver, even if Stainton does end up nicking pieces-and-parts of Alex Chilton’s “The Letter” for his keyboard melody.

Beatles Paul McCartney and George Harrison, impressed with Cocker’s previous take of “With A Little Help From My Friends,” gave permission for the singer to use “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” and “Something” for Joe Cocker! The former is an unabashed soul-rocker with McCulloch’s imaginative, slightly-twangy fretwork while the latter is a showcase for Cocker’s interpretive skills, his high-flying vocals matched by delicious backing harmonies and Stainton’s half-gospel/half-psychedelic keyboard flourishes; McCulloch also throws in a few choice notes just to lively things up.  

Cocker would go on to find a greater measure of fame and notoriety in the wake of his 1970 Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, which would yield both an acclaimed film and an album, and which would also help launch Leon Russell’s solo career. By mid-decade, though, due to alcohol, Cocker had become a mere shadow of his former self. He would recover from this stumble and forge a satisfying and moderately successful career, but never again would he reach the Icarus-like heights that he did with Joe Cocker! (Hip-O Select, reissued 2009)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine

Archive Review: Various Artists - Hi Times: The Hi Records R&B Years (1995)

This nifty little box came to me courtesy of old friend Cary Baker, who had great taste in music as a critic, and even better taste as a publicist. If not for him, I might have completely overlooked Hi Times: The Hi Records R&B Years as, unfortunately, a lot of music lovers may do as well. It’s a shame, too, because this is a wonderful collection, on par with anything that Atlantic, Rhino, or Capricorn have done these past few years.

Hi Records was founded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1957 by a trio of Sun Records session musicians. They found financial backers for the project, and began to kick out a series of jazzy, almost big band instrumental hits and R&B vocal tunes. The label’s discovery and signing of the talented Willie Mitchell proved to be a fortunate stroke of fate as well as a wise business decision. As an artist, Mitchell was to pull Hi from the brink of bankruptcy with a string of R&B hits that stretched throughout the 1960s; as a songwriter and producer, he became the cornerstone of Hi’s entire operation. The first disc of Hi Times: The Hi Records R&B Years showcases a number of Mitchell’s hits, including “20-75,” “The Crawl,” and “Everything Is Going To Be All Right” with the Four Kings.

It was during the early ‘60s that Hi Records was to make its greatest impact on the pop and rock music worlds, scoring hit after hit from a pair of Mitchell-produced artists, Al Green and Ann Peebles. Green began his career with a series of solid covers, songs like the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” the Box Tops’ “The Letter,” or the Motown classic “I Can’t Get Next To You.” When he began working out his own material, he struck literal gold, and his hits topped the pop charts for the better part of the decade: “Let’s Stay Together,” “Tired of Being Alone,” “I’m Still In Love With You,” and others.

Although Peebles didn’t experience nearly the success that Green did on the pop charts, she held her own, singing her heart out in a series of soulful, sultry R&B hits like “(I Feel Like) Breaking Up Somebody’s Home,” “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down,” and the classic “I Can’t Stand The Rain.” Hi Records was about more than just Green and Peebles, however, with artists like Ace Cannon, Otis Clay, Syl Johnson and O.V. Wright contributing to the label’s legacy.

Each benefited from Willie Mitchell’s enormous production skills, spurred on to give their greatest vocal performances by Mitchell’s quiet genius. The Hi house band, led by Teenie Hodges, cranked out a steady groove and a trademark sound that matched that of Stax, their cross-town rivals. All the above artists and more are included among the 68 songs collected on Hi Times: The Hi Records R&B Years, with other highlights including Johnson’s “Take Me To the River,” Clay’s “Trying To Live My Life Without You,” and Cannon’s “Drunk.”

Hi Records was sold in 1977 and, in the midst of the dreaded disco years, never regained the success and prestige that it had enjoyed for twenty years. When Mitchell left his post two years later, the label lost its greatest asset and with him, any chance of recapturing its past glory. Along with Stax Records, however, Hi Records helped to define what would become known as the “Memphis sound,” as influential a force on the future of rock and pop music as there has ever been. Hi Times: The Hi Records R&B Years showcases the reason behind this influence, a valuable collection of vital music, songs that sound as fresh and electric today as they did at the time of their release. Highly recommended... (Hi Records/The Right Stuff, released 1995)

Review originally published by R Squared zine

Archive Review: Isaac Hayes' Black Moses (1971/2009)

By the time of his death last year, more people were familiar with Isaac Hayes’ portrayal of the lusty school chef on Comedy Central’s South Park TV show than were with his enormous body of music. It’s a shame, of course, one only partially redeemed by the current drive by the revived Stax Records and the Concord Music Group to revamp the soul giant’s back catalog for the new millennia.

Isaac Hayes, for those that need smartened up, was more than “Chef,” more than the dusky-voiced badass that sang the theme song from the movie Shaft. Hired as the keyboardist of the Stax Records’ house band in 1964, Hayes performed behind folks like Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and blues great Albert King. Hayes would later form a songwriting partnership with David Porter. Together, the two wrote over 200 songs, including hits for artists like Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, and Johnny Taylor, among many others.

Hayes launched his own solo career in 1967 with Presenting Isaac Hayes, but it would be the release, two years later, of Hot Buttered Soul that would provide his commercial breakthrough. Comprised of four lengthy songs, three of them inspired, reinvented cover tunes, the album defined the progressive soul movement. Hayes would take another great commercial and creative step forward in 1971 with the release of his score for the hit movie Shaft, with its ubiquitous theme song, as well as with the ambitious, groundbreaking Black Moses double-album.

One cannot underestimate the influence of Black Moses on the direction of soul music during the ‘70s. With fourteen songs sprawled across two discs, Black Moses provided four sides of effervescent funk, passionate soul, and old-school rhythm & blues. Hayes created Superfly cool a year before Curtis Mayfield; his lusty spoken-word interludes would inform hip-hop/rap music a decade later; and his lush, rhythmic orchestration would foreshadow disco’s rise in popularity during the late ‘70s (*shudder*).    

It was Hayes’ reinvention of soul music, his penchant for virtuoso instrumentation, his songwriting skills, and his ability to take another writer’s song by the throat and make that sucker his bitch that made Black Moses such an important effort. Forget about Barry White or Al Green, Hayes’ cover of “Never Can Say Goodbye” is sheer breathless seduction. Displaying the full breadth of Hayes’ vocal abilities, and backed with on-point harmony vocals and a lush soundtrack, the song’s romantic overtures take on an entirely different vibe here.

Hayes takes Mayfield’s “Man’s Temptation” and turns it inside-out, his desperate vocals often accompanied by a lone drumbeat or shots of keyboard before soaring into passionate washes of backing harmonies and subdued instrumentation. With “Going In Circles,” Hayes layers sensuous harmony vocals, shocks of blasting horns, and jagged washes of funky guitar, his own soulful vocals darting in-and-out of the mix for max effect.

The original “Good Love” comes out of the gate with some irreverent laughter and a tongue-in-cheek spoken intro before jumping into a funky romp with squalls of wiry guitarwork and fleet-footed rhythms. Tackling accomplished country songwriter Kris Kristofferson, Haye’s builds upon other versions of “For the Good Times” with a wonderfully sublime vocal performance, sparse instrumentation, and understated moxie.

Black Moses would prove to be an enormous success, hitting #1 on the R&B chart, #2 on the jazz chart, and rising to #10 on the pop chart while yielding a Top Thirty hit single with “Never Can Say Goodbye.” The album would win Hayes a Grammy™ Award and capped a dominating year for the veteran soul man – Hayes’ soundtrack for Shaft would top all three album charts, win three Grammy™ Awards, and earn Hayes the first Oscar won by an African-American composer. More importantly, Black Moses would provide a creative and evolutionary shift that would have a profound effect on soul and jazz music for a generation to follow.

By the way, the über-cool fold-out cover showing Hayes in full soul-savior glory that worked so well as a 12” LP is mostly just a bother on a 5” cardboard CD cover; with the two discs crammed into tight pockets you have to be careful not to tear when you take ‘em out. Sure, it’s groovy and all that, but couldn’t we have had form and functionality? Jus’ sayin’... (Stax Records, reissued 2009)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine

Archive Review: Various Artists - Movin' On Up, Volume 2 (1995)

A musical documentation of the struggle for equality and justice by people of color, the Movin’ On Up series is interesting as both a historical and an artistic artifact, a time capsule preserving the voices of a movement and a moment in American social and cultural experience. Whereas the first volume concerned itself with the fight for civil rights in the 1960s, volume two captures the thoughts and dreams and fears of the African-American community as they fought for the respect and dignity that they deserved during the riotous and uncertain ‘70s.

The collection of artists gathered here is an impressive one, indeed. Performers such as Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and War utilized their positions of popularity with audiences black and white to spread a lyrical message of unity, equality and brotherhood. Many of these songs were risky at the time of their release, ground-breaking works that continue to influence artists of all styles and genres, even today. Among the highlights to be found on Movin’ On Up, Volume Two are Curtis Mayfield’s haunting “We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue,” Marvin Gaye’s beautiful “Inner City Blues,” “The World Is A Ghetto” from War, Stevie Wonder’s landmark “Living For The City,” Gil Scott Heron’s “Winter In America,” and The Isley Brothers’ electric “Fight the Power.” The Staples Singers, Labelle, Donny Hathaway, The O’Jays and others are also represented on the disc.

Sadly, a few of the voices found on Movin’ On Up, Volume Two have been silenced by time and tragedy, others by the forced obscurity of commercial oblivion. Many, though, are still vital, creative artists, contributing to a still-influential body of work. The Movin’ On Up series serves to remind all of us of the importance of these artists, and that although a lot of work has been done, we still have a long way to go before we achieve the goals that these musical contributors fought for so long ago. (The Right Stuff, released 1995)

Review originally published by R Squared zine

CD Review: Sami Yaffa’ Satan’s Helpers War Lazer Eyes & The Money Pig Circus (2024)

Former Hanoi Rocks/New York Dolls bassist Sami Yaffa jumps back in the fray with a sophomore effort that’s every bit as fierce, inspired, and rocking as his 2021 debut, The Innermost Journey To Your Outermost Mind. Sporting an even more unwieldy title than previous, Satan’s Helpers sees the Finnish rock ‘n’ roll lifer expanding his musical palette beyond the shambolic crank ‘n’ spank of his previous bands. The title track is a tasty lil’ blues number with slinky guitar and plenty of atmosphere, with Yaffi handling most of the instrumentation. When the song explodes a little more than two minutes in, it assumes dino-rock status with warped vox and monster guitar licks leading the charge. It’s an auspicious way to start the album, kicking the listener’s arse right from Jump Street…

Although “Silver or Lead” isn’t as cerebral as its predecessor, its minimal instrumentation, machinegun drumbeats (courtesy of Yaffa’s childhood friend Janne Haavisto), and overall blustery vibe carries the performance far. By the time that Yaffa and his road-weary touring band hit “Hurricane Hank” they’re running recklessly into whatever battle they can find, the song living up to its moniker with an unrelenting barrage of gang vocals, dense instrumentation, and flamethrower guitars (with Dregen from the Hellacopters lighting the spark). The muted vocals of “Death Squad” are buried beneath an intoxicating rhythm while the mid-tempo ballad “Down Home” benefits from NYC pal Steve Conte’s acoustic strum. Yaffa’s pals like Michael Monroe and Nasty Suicide (the former providing honkin’ sax, the latter incendiary fretwork) add color and noise to tunes like the rampaging, amphetamine “Shitshow” or the exotic “Far Star.” With Satan’s Helpers, Yaffa delivers an unbridled, joyful noise guaranteed to bludgeon even the most hidebound listener into rock ‘n’ roll bliss. (Livewire/Cargo, released February 11th, 2024)

Buy the CD from Amazon: Sami Yaffa’ Satan’s Helpers War Lazer Eyes & The Money Pig Circus

Archive Review: The Sermon's Volume (2004)

Inspired by the relative success of bands like the Strokes, the Hives and the White Stripes, everybody and their brother wants to be in a garage band these days. San Francisco’s the Sermon comes by its credentials honestly, the band boasting former members of the Fells, the Mount McKinleys, and the Dukes of Hamburg among its ranks. Veteran rockers genuflecting before the twin altars of the late ‘60s Detroit sound and the British invasion bands, the Sermon kicks out brimstone-scented jams with Volume, the band’s erstwhile debut. A rattletrap collection of songs that roar like a Harley’s red-hot tailpipe and buzz at the frequency of a nuclear meltdown, Volume offers up R&B-drenched, feedback-ridden tales of death and degradation with a Bo Diddley heartbeat and the reckless soul of the Yardbirds.

With appropriately murky production and fuzzy, effects-laden guitars, songs like the semi-psychedelic “Surprise” or the powerful “Tender Sin” – which hums like an electrical storm across a trailer park – lay waste to all but the heartiest of garage rock competitors. “Time Has Come” sounds like the result of some time transference experiment gone awry, echoed vocals chanted over a reverberating guitar riff while some crazed timekeeper pounds away at a drum set deep in the mix. The nightmarish “No Beast So Fierce” sounds like a mutant Muddy Waters, distorted blues guitars layered beneath a sordid lyrical tale while a manic mouth harp punctuates the words with tortured wails. “Exterminator” hits like vintage Velvet Underground, or maybe like Lou Reed cramming a copy of Metal Machine Music down Lester Bangs’ throat while the soulful “Get Over, Again” resurrects the long-dead spirit of the MC5 for one more dance through the graveyard.    

Forget about all those major label-manufactured-and-marketed “garage rock” bands that they’re trying to sell you on MTV and in music magazines. As the new gods of garage punk, the Sermon takes its rightful place among rock ‘n’ roll royalty like the Riverboat Gamblers, the Dirt Bombs, the Detroit Cobras, and the New Bomb Turks. If you like your rock hard, loud, and sweaty, then look no further than the Sermon’s Volume. Tell ‘em that the Reverend sent you… (Alternative Tentacles, released 2004)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

The Reverend's Summer 2024 Playlist

While the rest of the world has gone ga-ga this summer over Sabrina Carpenter, or gone mad in a madcap effort to buy Taylor Swift concert tix, the Reverend has been catching up on the pile of promotional CDs plaguing his tastefully-decorated home office and rock ‘n’ roll laboratory. The albums reviewed below represent some of the best of the Reverend’s summer 2024 playlist, self-produced efforts that prove that the independent rock ‘n’ roll spirit is alive and well!

The Blessings – Woke Up With the Noonday Devil (self-produced CD)
Rock ‘n’ roll will never die, not as long as there are bands like the Blessings taking a stab at the brass ring. Not to be confused with the 1980s-era British band the Blessing, fronted by the talented William Topley, this contemporary outfit hails from Los Angeles and has been running the boards since 2006. Woke Up With the Noonday Devil is the Blessings’ fourth record and it’s more than good enough to make one go digging around online for copies of the first three. The Blessings are blessed (sorry…) with a talented, charismatic frontman in singer Jeremy White, who brings all the swagger and braggadocio of Mick Jagger or Steve Marriott to the microphone without sounding like either of those guys. White has his own rock ‘n’ soul thing going on, and he blows a mean blues harp as well, while the Blessings’ guitarist Mike Gavigan plays the Keef role to White’s Mick, tossing off hot guitar licks and rowdy rhythms that provide punctuation to the frontman’s vocals.   

Perhaps the Blessings’ greatest weapon, however, is vocalist Lavone Barnett-Seetal, whose powerful pipes and soulful nuances on songs like the rambunctious “Meaning of Sorry” remind of the ‘Queen of Chicago Blues,’ Koko Taylor. Barnett-Seetal’s vocals are a perfect counterpoint to White’s rocking style, creating the sort of dynamic you’d hear on late-period Humble Pie albums, when Marriott was getting his R&B groove on. “Wicked Mind” is a standout, with gorgeous guitar tone, a lush instrumental bed, and fluid vox while the hard-rocking “Back Home” features heavy riffs, and heavier harmonica rollicking above the solid rhythm track created by bassist Terry Love and drummer Scott Sobol. “More Trouble Than Fun” is the sort of romper-stomper that the Stones cranked out in the early ‘70s, with Jeffrey Howell’s subtle, underlying keyboards knitting the soundtrack together. Shimmering guitar opens “Uptown Too Long,” a bit of juke-joint piano chimes in, and then blasts of horn kick up a storm, taking the song into a rhythm ‘n’ blues-drenched direction. There’s not a duff track to be found on Woke Up With the Noonday Devil, the Blessings drawing obvious inspiration from the 1970s but doing so with their own indomitable style and grace. BUY!        

The Heartsleeves - Coverage (Flimsy Records)
Nashville’s The Heartsleeves fill the void between full-length albums with Coverage, a two-song CD single that pays tribute to punk-pop legends All/The Descendents with a pair of high-octane cover tunes guaranteed to strip the chrome from your trailer hitch. The Descendents’ “Silly Girl” is provided Scott Feinstein’s scorched earth guitar licks and jagged, pummeling rhythms courtesy of bassist Preach Rutherford and drummer Brad Pemberton. Feinstein’s vocals are appropriately lofty, blunting the sharp edges of the instrumental track only slightly in the creation of a rapidfire, radio-friendly tune…if AM/FM conglomerates still had any dignity, that is. The raucous, unrelenting performance of All’s “Minute” ramjams its punky energy and inspired recklessness into your ear cavity, steamrolling across your brain, exiting stage right and leaving a confused smile on yer face. Checking in at a taut four minutes plus and hotter than an M80 in your hand, Coverage is the Reverend’s “pick to click” for relief from your heat-induced summer coma… BUY!    

Tennessee Blues Mob – Deep Dark Alibi (Twin Oaks Recordings, CD)
Mike Phillips’ 1990s-era Nashville band Peace Cry is a classic case of “should have been.” The band had a dynamic stage presence, socially-conscious lyrics and, in Phillips, a blowtorch vocalist with fearless, rage against the machine charisma. Sadly, although Peace Cry was phenomenally popular regionally, they never sniffed a label deal and went the way of so many other talented bands. Flash forward 30+ years and Phillips has hooked up with a new gang, the Tennessee Blues Mob, and I’m happy to say that they’re kicking ass and taking names. With Deep Dark Alibi, their six-song debut EP, Tennessee Blues Mob roars down the lost highway on fat tires and a tailpipe belching fire and brimstone, politesse disappearing in the rearview mirror as the band proceeds to steamroll everything in its path.

Phillips’ vocals are raw, unbridled screams from the abyss suitable for Norwegian death metal but better for hard-edged blues-rock. Wrapped around his inscrutable lyrics, Phillips vox channel the pissed-off spirits of a hundred Delta bluesman while the rest of the Mob rumbles on behind him with malevolent intent. Guitarist Shane Borchert is a beast, gnawing on his headstock and firing off blistering licks machinegun-style like it's the Valentine’s Day Massacre, but capable of subtlety and nuance when needed. Terry McClain’s keyboards add the right amount of grandeur to the songs, while the rhythm section of bassist Damian Robinson and drummer Scott Mincey create swaggering rhythms with jet engine precision. Monster performances like the stomping funk of “Climb the Mountain,” the soaring pathos of “Six Feet Under,” or the anguished “Two Devils,” with its stabbing Gothic keyboards, skid between your eardrums like an out-of-control Harley. With Deep Dark Alibi, Tennessee Blues Mob pursues a throwback ‘70s sound with a razor-sharp contemporary edge, more than living up to their billing as a “dark progressive heavy blues rock” band. BUY!

Trizo 50 – 50th Anniversary Collection (DePugh Music, CD/vinyl)
Trizo 50 (pronounced ‘Try-Zo’) were a popular 1970s-era band in the Kansas City MO region, evolving, over time, from two earlier area bands, the J-Walkers and Phantasia. The Trizo 50 story is told in great detail by band keyboardist/singer Bob DePugh in the very cool booklet that comes with the two-CD 50th Anniversary Collection. Digging through the band’s impressive catalog of music, DePugh assembled nearly everything the band ever recorded here, the accompanying DEMO Return Requested vinyl release comprised of the first 15 songs from the anniversary collection, and replicating the band’s lone 1974 album. Although there are clear influences to be heard in these Trizo 50 songs – ‘60s pop, garage-rock, and psychedelia; 1950s-era roots-rock; British Invasion bands – they’re never derivative, the band opting instead for a fresh perspective on the music. Although these are definitely lo-fi recordings, captured on a four-track Teac deck in a makeshift studio circa 1973-74, the lack of sonic fidelity is overshadowed by the band’s earnest performances and sheer joy in music-making.
 
There are a lot of tasty bangers among the 51 tracks on Trizo 50’s 50th Anniversary Collection. The shambolic “Take A Ride” sounds like a Nuggets garage-rock outtake, the noisy performance full of fun and reckless energy. “Get Another Girl” is a R&B styled rave-up in a James Brown vein with a thundering bass line and scorching, fuzzed fretwork. The rollicking “It’s A Rock ‘n’ Roll Record” capture echoes of the ‘50s within a swaggering, “Stagger Lee” styled delivery and Gary “U.S.” Bonds vibe. The blended harmonies on “Heart Hoppin’ Homicide” evoke the Beach Boys, but grittier and “I’m Alive” is a jaunty, rockin’ romp with deep ‘60s roots and pop sensibilities. The mod “Who You Gonna Be With Tonight” flies the freakbeat flag high while “Live Like You Wanna Live” takes a Byrdsian turn. A third CD, Live In the Studio, offers up 19 songs recorded live during a band rehearsal with the same energy and elan as the first 51.

If Trizo 50 had been around 5 or 6 years earlier, they could have caught the last wave of 1960s pop; if they’d started 5 or 6 years later, they could have been the leading edge of the new wave, or maybe even garage-rock revivalists. What they did, they did very well, and they impressively did it entirely on their own; one can hear the band’s promise in these performances. If they’d been located on either coast instead of in Missouri, and had a sympathetic producer to help hone their sound, Trizo 50 might have made a real go at it. With these three CDs, they prove that they could have been contenders; even so, it’s not too late to discover the many charms of Trizo 50. BUY!

Hot Wax: Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs (1974/2024)

I spent untold hours circa 1974-75 playing Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs over and over again on my funky BSR turntable (you know, the kind where you stacked three or four LPs on the spindle and let ‘em rip!). Although I was a fan of Trower’s work with Procol Harum, his skills were often overshadowed by that band’s keyboard-dominated sound. I dug Trower’s debut, 1973’s Twice Removed From Yesterday, but the quantum leap the guitarist underwent for Bridge of Sighs was unparalleled. The ‘Master of the Stratocaster’ might have taken influence and inspiration from Jimi Hendrix, but he took his spacey, jagged, ethereal six-string experimentation into another realm with songs like “Little Bit of Sympathy,” “Too Rolling Stoned,” “Day of the Eagle,” and the title track, a classic stoner jam if there ever was one.

As amazing as Bridge of Sighs was and is, subsequent efforts like 1974’s For Earth Below and 1975’s Long Misty Days – while featuring fine craftsmanship – lacked the spark of Trower’s sophomore effort. Trower doesn’t get much love these days from classic rock radio, but the recently-reissued 50th anniversary edition of Bridge of Sighs is befitting the guitarist’s royal stature. Available as a two-LP vinyl set or four-CD box with demos and alternative takes, I opted for the vinyl set and was quite chuffed…the remastered sound adds depth and resonance to the recordings, and the classic songs really leap out of your speakers.

The second LP offers a May 1974 live show from The Record Plant in Sausalito, the band playing Bridge of Sighs in its entirety along with a pair of other songs – “Alethea,” which would appear on For Earth Below and “Rock Me Baby,” from the debut. The sound on the live disc isn’t as good, but the performance is fire, and special mention should be made of bassist/vocalist James Dewar, who brought a grounded confidence and immense soulfulness to balance Trower’s otherworldly instrumental trips. (Chrysalis Records, released March 7th, 2024)

Buy the vinyl from Amazon: Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs [50th Anniversary Edition]

Hot Wax: Bad Brains’ I Against I (1986/2024)

Innovative, eccentric, unpredictable, fickle, high-energy, reticent, talented, pioneering, troubled, unrelenting…all of these words (and many more) can be used to describe Bad Brains. Much as Nashville’s Afrikan Dreamland was reinventing and reinvigorating reggae music in the 1980s by adding a dash of blues, so too was Bad Brains leavening punk rock with reggae grooves. The Washington D.C. hardcore heroes seem to have wanted to be anything but a hardcore punk band even as they pushed beyond the traditional barriers of rock, reggae, punk, and funk music like no other band in rock ‘n’ roll history.

Formed in 1976 as Mind Power, a jazz-rock fusion outfit not dissimilar to Return to Forever, it wasn’t long until the fresh and exciting sound of punk rock infected the band and they radically changed their sound towards a guitar-driven hardcore style. Original Mind Power singer Sid McCray – ostensibly responsible for introducing the band to punk in the first place – left shortly thereafter and guitarist H.R. (née Paul Hudson) took over the microphone. The rest of the band was comprised of guitarist Dr. Know (née Gary Miller), bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson (Paul’s brother). Around this same time (i.e. 1977 or so), the band experienced the legendary Bob Marley in concert, igniting a shared interest in reggae music and the Rastafari movement.

Hardcore Punk & Reggae

With punk and reggae as their magnetic poles, Bad Brains pursued a performance style that blitzed the audience with unrelenting energy and total creative abandon. H.R. was an incendiary frontman, Dr. Know a skilled guitarist nevertheless capable of grinding it out in the trenches, and the Brains’ rhythm section could swing or slam as the occasion merited. They quickly built up a loyal fan base in the D.C. area and were inevitably blacklisted by local clubs due to their chaotic and unpredictable performances. Bad Brains moved northward to New York City in 1980, where they became the blowtorch that ignited the city’s emerging and soon-to-be-notorious hardcore punk scene.

By 1982, Bad Brains were CBGB regulars, performing several nights a week at the infamous Bowery club. Their self-titled debut album was really just a document of the band’s ever-evolving live show, released exclusively on cassette by the specialty label Reachout International Records (ROIR). Featuring liner notes by New York Rocker writer Ira Kaplan (later a founding member of indie rockers Yo La Tengo), the tape’s fold-out insert also included lyrics – the ultimate in fan service. They were subsequently signed to the indie PVC Records label for their sophomore effort, 1983’s Rock For Light. Produced by Ric Ocasek of the Cars and reprising five songs from the debut, the pop-meister smoothed down some of the band’s raw edges but ultimately delivered an enduring and high-octane record.

Creative tensions within the band caused Bad Brains to break up after the release of Rock For Light, the first of many such implosions over the course of the band’s career. The original line-up reunited in 1986, signing with the legendary SST Records label, which by that point could boast of a catalog that represented a veritable “who’s who” of influential underground rockers like Black Flag, the Meat Puppets, the Minutemen, and Hüsker Dü, among others. All of which brings us around to I Against I, the Bad Brains’ “breakthrough” and arguably their best-known and beloved recording. Recently-reissued as the eighth title in the band’s restoration of its back catalog with help from the good folks at ORG Music, the audio has been remastered by Dave Gardner and the vinyl produced by Furnace Record Pressing. A landmark effort, I Against I is worthy of rediscovery as a groundbreaking album that influenced generations of musicians to follow.

Bad Brains photo by Steven Hanner, courtesy Org Music

Bad Brains’ I Against I

I Against I eschews the Brains’ reggae obsessions entirely, the opening track (appropriately titled “Intro”) a plodding doom-metal instrumental with delusions of grandeur and a powerful performance with start-stop guitar shred and ringing instrumentation guaranteed to give the listener tinnitus. The title track bullies its way off the disc, through your speakers, corkscrewing itself into your ears. A 90mph moshpit punker with metallic edging, “I Against I” was a hurricane-strength revelation to the possibilities of expanding hardcore into thrash- and speed-metal. Throw Ronnie James behind the microphone and “House of Suffering” could easily pass for a late-period Black Sabbath track, the perfect breeding of machinegun hardcore riddims and whiplash six-string heavy metal bombast.

The band expands its musical blueprint by a lick or two for “Re-Ignition,” in which you can clearly hear the future of Ice T’s Body Count and any half-dozen vintage ‘90s Lollapalooza bands in the song’s staggered rhythms, swaggering vocal delivery, and muscular git riffs. “Secret 77” is a clever outlier, punky but with tinges of “new wave” pop fused to a funk-metal groove that forged a blade for Fishbone to later hone into a deadly weapon. The rampaging “Let Me Help” performs a fancy head-fake with its pseudo-Zeppelin intro exploding into a punkish storm while “She’s Calling You” provides a bright spotlight for Dr. Know’s fluid fretwork, even though it may be the only wan song on the LP.

“Sacred Love” is a dinosaur-stomper that leaves heavy footprints with its discordant instrumentation; even cooler is the weird effect they got by recording H.R.’s vocals via jailhouse phone when the singer was locked up for a pot bust. Sounding like an early ‘80s Alice Cooper session outtake, “Hired Gun” allows Dr. Know to show off his six-string dexterity, the otherwise panoramic punk-metal construct embroidered with jazzy licks and avant-garde abandon. I Against I closes with the furious and feverish “Return To Heaven,” which offers one of H.R.’s most nuanced vocal takes soaring above a daunting instrumental soundtrack that blazes like 1970s-era stadium rock but offers – often hidden deep in the mix – sly and innovative musical ideas that other bands would exploit for years. I Against I was produced near perfectly by Ron St. Germain, who would earn a certain amount of street cred by working with the Brains that he’d later apply to records by Sonic Youth, 311, and Living Colour, among others.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Despite their relative obscurity, Bad Brains’ influence extends far beyond its meager commercial profile. They were nominated for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2016 (though, unsurprisingly, they weren’t inducted) and their music has inspired bands as diverse as the Beastie Boys, Fishbone, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Sublime, Nirvana, Green Day, and Faith No More (whose original frontman, Chuck Mosley, was the Brains’ vocalist for a short while), among many others. Although Brains’ band members have experienced various health issues over the last few years, they continue to perform and turn heads to this day.

Working with ORG Music, Bad Brains has taken back control of their considerable and acclaimed catalog of music, and they’ve been busy reissuing every album on both CD and vinyl for discovery by a new generation of restless youth. Check out the band’s catalog at www.badbrainsrecords.com.