Book Review: Richie Unterberger's Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll (1999)

Subtitled “Psychedelic Unknowns, Mad Geniuses, Punk Pioneers, Lo-Fi Mavericks & More,” Richie Unterberger sets the bar pretty high for himself with Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Luckily for we readers, Unterberger delivers the goods, providing an exhaustive, if not comprehensive history of the obscure and eccentric in rock ‘n’ roll. Delving into the netherworld of true cult artists, Unterberger offers informative profiles of over 60 singer/songwriters, touching upon dozens more in brief comments and sidebars.

Unterberger breaks Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll up into thirteen distinct sections, ranging from “Psychedelic Unknowns” and “Punk Pioneers” to “Out of the Garage” and “Mad Geniuses & Eccentric Recluses.” Some of the artists Unterberger profiles will be familiar to any hardcore music fan – talents like Roky Erickson, Arthur Lee of Love, Syd Barrett, or Can – although relatively unknown to the great unwashed mainstream are nonetheless frequent touchstones in any serious discussion of rock music. Others artists profiled here, such as Joe Meek, Lee Hazelwood, Ronnie Dawson, or the Avengers have experienced recent surges in popularity due to CD reissues and rediscovery via zines or the Internet.

It’s with the completely obscure performers that Unterberger really shines, his journalistic prowess allowing him to research these one-shot wonders and come up with a cohesive history of long-gone artists like the Deviants, the Monks, or the United States of America. In every section, Unterberger reveals some long-lost gem of a story, but the fattest sections – those on ‘60s-era garage bands, European artists, and “mad geniuses” – seem to be those most closely looked at and covered in detail. Inside many of the sections Unterberger includes a chapter or sidebar, touching upon other artists, legendary indie record labels and trends like cassette culture. Unterberger isn’t stingy with his sources, either, recommending records/CDs for every artist as well as providing a bibliography of books and magazines. Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll also comes with a twelve-track CD to whet your tastes with tracks by the Deviants, Penelope Houston of the Avengers, the Music Machine and Savage Rose, among others.

For any music fan who is fed up with today’s sales-oriented major label signing philosophy and cookie-cutter, carbon-copy, made-for-MTV rockers, Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll will feel like a fresh breath of air. Discover the future of rock music by delving into its past – the artists Unterberger reveals here may not have sold a lot of records and, to be honest, some of them really had little or no talent. The styles showcased by these artists run the gamut from rockabilly, psychedelica, and pop/rock to punk, folk, and electronic experimentation. The one thing that they all had in common, however, was a singular vision, a passion for what they were creating and a sincere need to follow their muse, commercial considerations be damned. For this alone they deserve to be remembered, rediscovered and cherished for the true artists that they were. (Miller Freeman Books, published 1999)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ music zine...

Also on That Devil Music: Richie Unterberger's Urban Spacemen And Wayfaring Strangers book review

Buy the book from Amazon: Richie Unterberger's Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll

Book Review: Al Kooper’s Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards (1999)

Musician, songwriter, label executive, producer – Al Kooper has made a living out of being the “Forrest Gump” of rock music. For better than thirty years, whenever something momentous was about to occur in rock ‘n’ roll, Kooper was certain to be involved in it. From his haphazard entry as a keyboardist on Dylan’s classic “Like A Rolling Stone” and playing with Dylan onstage in Newport to producing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s first three albums, Al Kooper has a resume that’s every bit as long and impressive as anybody’s in rock music. With this revised and expanded edition of Kooper’s earlier memoir, Backstage Passes, Al brings the tales of his storied career full circle.

Al Kooper’s Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards

A lively writer with an easily read, conversational style and more than a few stories under his belt, Kooper documents with Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards a career that has seen its shares of ups and downs. Beginning with the earliest stirrings of his interest in music, playing in teen bands and sharpening his skills, Kooper takes the reader on a romp through his rock ‘n’ roll universe. High points of the book include Kooper’s early days as a musical hustler, a samurai of songs writing tunes on spec for producers in need of material. Here Al provides the reader with a lesson in the economics of songwriting and the real history of the Brill Building.

Kooper’s major league breakthrough as a session player begins with his hilarious story of the session for Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” and its aftermath. It’s as a session player that Kooper is best known, sitting in on recordings with notable artists like Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Mike Bloomfield, and far too many others to list here. Although Kooper speaks of his own solo career in Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards, he tends to give it short shrift in light of his stories of superstar session work. He goes into some detail on the formation and careers of Blues Project and Blood, Sweat & Tears, both projects in which he was an integral part until egos got in the way and Kooper would move onto the next challenge. His discovery of Lynyrd Skynyrd is, perhaps, the real feather in his cap; Kooper producing and playing on that band’s first three albums, arguably among the most important Southern Rock records ever made.

By the end of Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards, circa 1998, Kooper has pretty much given up on the music biz, going into teaching at the noted Berklee School of Music in Boston. Some reviewers of this book have made much ado over Kooper’s distinctively sour grapes attitude during the book’s last few chapters, Kooper viewing with some bitterness the current atmosphere in the music industry. Given my own fringe involvement with the industry as a critic and journalist, I can’t say that I disagree with him. The industry turns its back on older artists who aren’t still cranking out hits (and, therefore, profits).

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

As an artist, musician and producer Kooper comes from a time when, perhaps, the music mattered more than the marketing and labels weren’t quite the greedy conglomerate bastards that they’ve become today. As such, Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards is a captivating document, the honest, heartfelt memoir of, as Kooper terms himself, “a rock ‘n’ roll survivor.” Anybody who loves music should have a copy of this book on his or her shelf, right beside their latest CD purchases. Kooper’s Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards will entertain you, inform you, and keep you honest. (Billboard Books, published 1999)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ music zine...

Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report: Collage, The Exploding Hearts, Los Straitjackets, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Paul Stanley (December 2006)

December 2006

The “Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report” was a short-lived review column that ran on our Alt.Culture.Guide™ website for almost a year until we closed the site, not due to lack of readers, but from lack of time and money to continue the project. Still, as these columns show, we reviewed a diverse range of music...

COLLAGE – Changes
Further proof that progressive rock is a worldwide phenomenon, Poland’s Collage is one of the most innovative and interesting bands in the genre. Formed in 1985 by students of the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, the band released its first album, Basnie, in 1990. It was with the release of their 1993 sophomore effort, Nine Songs of John Lennon, which features Collage re-imagining classic Beatles and Lennon solo songs as exotic prog-rock compositions, that the band really caught on with audiences from Europe to Asia. They followed up that album with the melodic, pop-oriented Moonshine in 1994.
    Originally released in 1995, Changes revisits Collage material circa 1985 through 1992 with new vocalist Robert Amirian (who sung on Moonshine), including re-recorded songs from Basnie and previously unreleased songs. Even with lyrics sung in Polish, there is no denying the power of the music. Guitarist Mirek Gil is an inventive and skilled six-string maestro, while the rest of the band weaves a dense, multi-textured tapestry of sound behind Amirian’s lofty and passionate vocals. More than merely prog, Collage produce art-rock of the highest degree, dreamy and mesmerizing music that demands that the listener pay attention. Highly recommended for fans of the Flower Kings or Spock’s Beard, Collage is guaranteed to provide the same thrill of musical adventure as those legendary bands. (Metal Minds/MVD Audio)

THE EXPLODING HEARTS – Shattered
One of the most exciting and promising young bands to hit the scene in a generation, the Exploding Hearts literally came and went in a flash. The band released its excellent debut album, Guitar Romantic, in early 2003, the disc showcasing a brilliant mix of ‘60s-styled garage rock and vintage ‘70s power-pop, influenced by ‘80s-era punk and UK rock. Guitar Romantic was well-received by both critics and the ever-critical punk community, and the Exploding Hearts became a big draw on the west coast club circuit. In July 2003, however, fate struck in the form of tragic accident that took the lives of band members Adam Cox, Matt Fitzgerald, and Jeremy Gage.
    In a fitting tribute to the band, Dirtnap Records has assembled the appropriately named Shattered from the odds and ends of the band’s too damn brief career. Shattered collects the band’s early (hard-to-find) singles, various demos, unreleased songs, and alternative mixes from Guitar Romantic under one roof. The album offers a glimpse at a band that had the potential to become really big, one that drew its influences from a myriad of impressive sources, forging a distinctive and electric sound that was entirely its own. Shattered stands well on its own merits as a highly entertaining rock ‘n’ roll collection; coupled with the essential Guitar Romantic, it bookends the legacy of this fine band. Discover them now, boys and girls, ‘cause you’ll be paying mucho dinero for these recordings in ten years or so when the Exploding Hearts become a much-coveted cult band. (Dirtnap Records)         

LOS STRAITJACKETS – Twist Party
Twenty-something years ago, when guitarists Danny Amis and Eddie Angel launched a surf-rock band called the Straitjackets and began playing the honky-tonks and rock clubs of Nashville, who would have believed that these guys would still be grinding it out here in the new millennium? Yet here they are, Mexican wrestling masks intact, hooking up with vocalist/saxmaniac “Kaiser” George Miller for Twist Party. Taking their inspiration from the early ‘60s dance craze, Twist Party finds Miller and the Straitjackets pounding out 16 infectious tunes, all with a “twist” dance theme.
    Of course, this is the kind of riff-driven, tremolo-fed, Dick Dale-inspired soundtrack that the band can really sink its teeth into. From the hilarious “Twistin’ Gorilla” and the soulful “Twistin’ Out In Space” to the B-movie horror-flick theatrics of “All Back To Drac’s,” these tunes rock with a joy de vivre that transcends the ultra-cool retro-rock vibe that is the band’s trademark. Twist Party comes packaged with a bonus DVD, providing visual dance lessons courtesy of the beautiful and, apparently, “world famous” burlesque trio the Pontani Sisters. Somehow, I think that Chubby Checker would approve… (Yep Roc Records)

ME FIRST AND THE GIMME GIMMES – Love Their Country
You’d think that after five albums that this joke would have gotten tired, run its course, and been discarded. Not on your life, pal! The premise is simple, really – punk rock royalty (members of NoFX, Lagwagon and No Use For A Name) get together in the studio to torture other people’s songs. To date, the Gimme Gimme boys have tackled show tunes, R&B classics, and pop music, and with Love Their Country, they give the punk treatment to Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and even the Dixie Chicks. Funny thing is, the gimmick still works ‘cause the guys have a genuine fondness for the material that they reinvent.
    This means that they have a hell of a lot of fun while punking up such inherently country songs as “(Ghost) Riders In the Sky” and Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” (tilting towards Celtic punk here). Other highlights on Love Their Country are the blazing cover of Dolly’s classic “Jolene,” a metallic interpretation of the Eagles’ “Desperado,” and an almost joyous reading of Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” Always good for a laugh or two and a half-hour’s entertainment, you can never go wrong with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. (Fat Wreck Chords)
 

PAUL STANLEY – Live To Win
The problem with Live To Win, Kiss frontman Paul Stanley’s first solo effort in nearly three decades, isn’t in the uber-slick production afforded these cheesy slices of nerf-metal composed with help from lite-rock scribe Desmond Child. No, the problem is in the high expectations afforded the legendary frontman of one of rock’s larger-than-life bands. Whereas Kiss managed to wrestle ‘70s metal from the grip of stoned proto-slacker adults and deliver it back into the greasy hands of stoned proto-slacker teenagers where it belonged, Stanley does little on Live To Win to challenge the sluggish new millennium musical status quo. The singer’s pipes are in fine form, Stanley’s vox on tunes like “Wake Up Screaming” and the title cut amazingly supple considering 30+ years of hard rock histrionics.
    Although Stanley would never be mistaken for, say, for Frankie Marino, his guitar playing is often underrated and overshadowed by standard Kiss theatrics; on Live To Win he delivers a passable performance as a modern rock axeman. What troubles me, perhaps, is that provided the opportunity (and budget) to create any sort of recording that his heart desired, Stanley chose to choke up the potential of Live To Win with creeping mediocrity and tortured cliché. When the album shoots for the moon – as it does with the anthemic “Bulletproof” or the soaring “Where Angels Dare” (with guitarist John 5) – Live To Win fulfills its promise. Otherwise, it’s mostly inoffensive and mildly entertaining filler. Kiss fans be warned…this Paul Stanley album has very little in common with his work in that great band, but it stands well enough on its own. (New Door/Universal)

CD Review: John Lee Hooker’s The Standard School Broadcast Recordings (2025)

With well over 100 full-length recordings to his name (and more than a few under other names), we’ve long since passed the point where John Lee Hooker could surprise us…or are we? The Standard School Broadcast Recordings captures a recently-discovered, long-lost 1973 session by ‘The Hook’ and a trio of trusted musicians – bassist Gino Skaggs, drummer Ken Swank, and his son Robert Hooker on piano – recorded for the award-winning “The Standard School Broadcast” radio series, which broadcast on the NBC network in the western U.S. Copies of its shows were sent on vinyl to schools to teach kids about music, and three songs by Hooker were accompanied on the disc by performances by jazz guitar greats Joe Pass and Herb Ellis, pop/rock session player Chuck Day, and classical guitarist George Sakellarious.

Hooker and band recorded eight songs that day at San Francisco’s Coast Recorders, the tapes subsequently disappearing until recently. The Standard School Broadcast Recordings offers the entire session, 100% live and raw, with no overdubs, and the performances stand tall with anything that Hooker recorded before or after. “Bad Boy” and “Hard Times” are scary good, both songs haunting blues-dirges heavy-laden with Hooker’s sonorous vocals and scraps of edgy guitar. “Rock With Me” offers a dose of Hooker’s trademark boogie while the reprised “Sally Mae” – the B-side of “Boogie Chillen,” his 1948 debut single – offers a sordid tale of booze and betrayal. “I Hate the Day I Was Born” and “Should Have Been Gone” are equally distraught, displaying Hooker’s expressive genius and son Robert’s inspired piano-pounding (which shines throughout the sessions, delivering exactly the nuance each song demanded).

A medley of “When My First Wife Left Me” and “Hobo Blues” is the heart of the album, showcasing Hooker’s improvisational skills while “Coast Recorders Jam” is a spry, old-school instrumental romper-stomper with the younger Hooker’s lively piano-play up front of a jaunty, swinging rhythm, upon which John Lee embroiders various guitar patterns that, while not straying far from his trademark boogie-blues fretboard-bashing, nevertheless display the guitarist’s dexterity and imagination. For John Lee and his crew, it was just another sorely-needed payday; for the innocent schoolchildren who heard these performances in the classroom all those years ago, experiencing Hooker’s lamentations firsthand, I’m sure that it warped a few minds. Some may have even gone on to sing the blues while others…just maybe...became music critics. That’s the magic of John Lee Hooker! (BMG Music, released January 9th, 2025)

Buy the CD from Amazon: John Lee Hooker’s The Standard School Broadcast Recordings

Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report: Jeff Beck Group, The Buzzcocks, The Church, My Morning Jacket, Only Living Witness (November 2006)

November 2006

The “Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report” was a short-lived review column that ran on our Alt.Culture.Guide™ website for almost a year until we closed the site, not due to lack of readers, but from lack of time and money to continue the project. Still, as these columns show, we reviewed a diverse range of music...

THE JEFF BECK GROUP – Beck-Ola
No longer provided solo billing – they were a “group,” you know – this 1969 follow-up to Truth is no less entertaining if a wee bit less innovative. Beck and crew, which at this point still included charismatic frontman Stewart and sidekick Wood as well as pianist-to-the-stars Nickey Hopkins and bombastic drummer Tony Newman (who would later go on to form May Blitz), turn up the volume and deliver a red-hot slab o’ “heavy music.” “Heavy” as in heavy guitars, percussive rhythms, and explosive vocals, with Stewart shouting out the tunes like his life depended on it. Beck must have had Elvis on the brain at the time, covering not one, but two of the King’s tunes in “All Shook Up” and “Jailhouse Rock,” both slight departures from otherwise heady material like the riff-happy “Spanish Boots” or the chaotic “The Hangman’s Knee.”
    The handful of bonus tracks on this sonically-restored reissue include the ultra-bluesy “Sweet Little Angel,” recorded sometime after Truth sessions with drummer Waller and featuring some smokin’ Beck solo work, and the dramatic “Throw Down A Line,” which showcase’s Stewart’s soulful vocals at their best. Beck-Ola is a solid exercise in UK blooze-rock and a fitting bookend to the classic Truth. Beck’s fast track to stardom would be derailed shortly after the release of Beck-Ola, however, an auto accident putting the talented guitarist on the shelf for over a year, during which time Stewart and Wood defected to the Faces. As these two recent reissues illustrate, however, Beck was an innovative and exciting guitarist that deserves a better reputation, his skills equaling Clapton’s, his artistic vision easily surpassing that of his fellow Yardbirds’ alumni. (Sony Legacy)     

THE BUZZCOCKS – Flat-pack Philosophy
Never as nihilist as the Sex Pistols, nor social realists like the Clash, the Buzzcocks’ immense reputation was built on the band’s appropriation of the three-minute pop song for the punk milieu. Frontman Pete Shelley’s acute observations on the teenage condition, coupled with an undeniable sense of melody and a biting instrumental tact – courtesy of guitarist Steve Diggle – made the Buzzcocks one of the most influential bands to emerge from the class of ’77. If, after all this time, they’re not exactly a household name in the US, well, dammit, they should be!
    After breaking up in 1981, the Buzzcocks reformed a decade later around Shelley, Diggle, bassist Tony Barber, and drummer Philip Barker. This line-up has now been around longer than the original band, and they have released music every bit as memorable as those now-legendary early albums. Flat-pack Philosophy is a perfect example of Buzzcockian rock; Shelley’s matured songwriting underlined by a fast-and-loud delivery and bold, bright instrumental hooks. Although Shelley no longer shares a teenage perspective, his romantic inclinations are no less clumsy, and songs like “Sell You Everything,” “Credit,” and “Between Heaven and Hell” showcase a wider, intellectual worldview. Altogether, Flat-pack Philosophy blows across the current musical horizon like a gale-force wind, proving that punk rock can grow old without losing amperage, fury or attitude. One of the year’s best rock ‘n’ roll albums, Flat-pack Philosophy stands proud alongside works like Love Bites and A Different Kind of Tension. (Cooking Vinyl)         

THE CHURCH – Uninvited, Like the Clouds
For better than a quarter-century, Aussie shimmer-pop kings the Church have suffered roster changes, label changes and fickle trends in popular music. Throughout it all, though, the creative core of Steve Kilbey, Marty Willson-Piper, and Peter Koppes have found a way to keep making music the way they want make music. That’s no little feat, either, as proven by Uninvited, Like the Clouds. The Church do more than crank out a few tunes…they carefully craft each song out of gossamer and melody, creating an aural soundscape unlike anybody else in the history of rock’s storied “pop music” wing.
    Uninvited, Like the Clouds delivers more of the same for fans of the Church. In other words, lots of shiny, ringing guitar tones; thick textured production; Kilbey’s somber vocals caressing his oblique lyrics; and an overall sound that is prettier and more mesmerizing that just about anything else you’ll hear these days. Although the Church is unlikely to win many converts to their sonic signature with a new album at this late date, nobody does it better than these guys, guaranteed. (Cooking Vinyl Records)  

MY MORNING JACKET – Okonokos
Friends, acquaintances, and various industry insiders have passed along word that Kentucky rockers My Morning Jacket are nothing less than freakin’ awesome onstage, a claim only partially proven with the release of Okonokos. A two-CD live set reprising much of the band’s excellent 2005 release Z as well as 2003’s It Still Moves, the static recording medium only partially captures the textured nuances of the band’s performance, methinks. My Morning Jacket’s hybrid of jam-band-styled instrumentation, traditional country, SoCal folk lyricism and larger-than-life, ‘70s-influenced classic rock roots fits them extremely well.
    Vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Jim James’ lofty, haunting vocals rise above the heady mix of guitar flash and pounding rhythms, and the band has the chops and the courage to pull off a sound that is at once both seemingly stylistically mismatched and courageously adventuresome. Okonokos showcases some of the band’s best songs – “Off the Record,” “Mahgeetah,” “What A Wonderful Man” – as well as a handful of early fan favorites, the band delivering a stellar performance that shines through the CD’s slick production and total lack of presence. Until the anticipated first wave of bootleg recordings force the band’s label to kick out a more honest representation of MMJ’s live show, Okonokos is an entertaining and lively collection of songs that will both please fans and attract new listeners to this excellent and exciting band. (ATO Records/RCA Records)

ONLY LIVING WITNESS – Prone Mortal Form/Innocents
Less a thrash band than apocalyptic sonic annihilators with an eye towards raising some hell, Only Living Witness were one of the unheralded icons of the dark days of ‘90s metal. While the rest of the world was enamored of Nirvana and Pearl Jam and all things grunge, Only Living Witness released Prone Mortal Form in ’93. A brewed-in-hell harbinger of Sabbath/Pentagram-styled HEAVY metal and brutal, unyielding, riff-manic tunes, the album plods across your stereo and out of your speakers like a rabid T-Rex with a hard-on for all things good and decent. Undaunted by a mid-decade mainstream music fan that preferred the pop-punk of Green Day and the Offspring, OLW released Innocents in ’96, further pushing the envelope of metal’s potential and laying the groundwork for bands like Mastodon and Meshuggah to plow the fields a decade later.
    Innocents carried forth the unrelenting musical bludgeoning of the band’s debut, adding blood red to its artistic palette with expanded, almost spacious instrumental passages fueled by Eric Stevenson’s vastly underrated and imaginative six-string pyrotechnics. Vocalist/lyricist Jonah Jenkins excelled at both, his vox as strong as, say, Chris Cornell’s, but with more soul; his wordplay every bit as poetic in the same eerie, angry, angst-ridden, and oblique way as Cobain’s. The explosive rhythm section of bassist Chris Crowley and drummer Craig Silverman kicks ass in so many ways that I won’t go into them here; suffice it to say that Only Living Witness was a band a good ten years before its time. This inspired reissue pairs the two OLW albums together in a single two-disc package as God and the Devil intended, with another album’s worth of cool bonus tracks tacked onto the end of each disc. If you’re a monster metal fan and you’re not listening to Only Living Witness, what the hell are you waiting for? (Century Media)

 

Archive Review: John Lee Hooker's Live At Newport (2002)

During the 1930s and ‘40s, countless hopeful musicians traveled the “blues highway” from the Mississippi Delta through Memphis and St. Louis to their final destination, Chicago. Many of these talented former sharecroppers – the sons and grandsons of slaves – made a name and eked out a career in the Windy City. John Lee Hooker’s sojourn took a different path, however, the blues legend turning off the well-traveled path from Clarksville, Mississippi to Memphis, making his way to Detroit in 1943 and starting a musical career that would span six decades. John Lee was a true original, the “Godfather of Boogie” more comfortable in blazing his own trail rather than following someone else’s lead.

Influenced in his childhood by blues talents like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton, friends of his stepfather Willie Moore, Hooker absorbed the music around him and was comfortable performing in a number of stylistic genres, from big city blues to raucous R&B, all tempered by his Delta upbringing. The recently reissued Live At Newport portrays Hooker in a different light, that of the acoustic “folk blues” artist. The tracks are culled from two different performances at the Newport Folk Festival – a handful of songs feature Hooker in solo performances from the 1960 festival, while the remaining tracks are taken from the 1963 festival and include Bill Lee on upright bass. The album was originally released as Concert At Newport in 1964 by Vee Jay Records (with slightly different song titles).

The resulting performances are stark reminders of Hooker’s roots, dark-hued dirty blues that rise up out of the Delta like saber-rattling ghosts to demand your attention. Along with better-known songs from the John Lee milieu, tracks like “Boom Boom” and “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” you’ll find gems like the forceful “Bus Station Blues” or a powerful cover of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Stop Now Baby.” John Lee Hooker was a singular talent, a charismatic presence that mesmerized audiences wherever he performed. Live At Newport may not be the most technically polished album you hear this year (there’s only so much improvement that can be made on 40-year-old tapes), but there’s no denying the power behind the performances. Although he died in 2001, John Lee Hooker remains a giant among blues musicians; his influence will continue to be felt by musicians for a generation to follow. (Vanguard Records, reissued April 2nd, 2002)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ music zine...

Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report: J.J. Cale, Crash Kelly, Def Leppard, Radio Birdman, Satyricon, Towers of London (October 2006)

October 2006

The “Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report” was a short-lived review column that ran on our Alt.Culture.Guide™ website for almost a year until we closed the site, not due to lack of readers, but from lack of time and money to continue the project. Still, as these columns show, we reviewed a diverse range of music...

J.J CALE – The Definitive J.J. Cale
J.J. Cale’s vocal delivery is so damn laid-back, so perfectly matched to his dustbowl-flavored country-rock soundtrack that one often loses sight of the fact that Cale is a superb songwriter. Of course, Eric Clapton knew that all along, scoring hits with Cale’s “After Midnight” and “Cocaine,” and Lynyrd Skynyrd did alright with “Call Me The Breeze.” Compounding his relative obscurity, Cale has chosen to languish in the shadows of pop music, releasing only 14 studio albums in some 35 years. The Definitive J.J. Cale is unlikely to win many converts among his smallish albeit loyal coterie of hardcore fans, but for those of us on the fence, it’s the perfect collection to add to the shelf.
    The disc offers 20 vintage Cale tunes, including hits, near-hits, and a few misses – “Call Me The Breeze,” “Crazy Mama,” “Magnolia,” “After Midnight,” and “Cocaine” – culled from Cale’s eight Mercury label albums, circa 1971-1983. This fertile creative period, spanning stays in Nashville, Hollywood, and Oklahoma, showcases Cale’s skills as a wordsmith and his languid subtlety as an instrumentalist. The album is a one-stop collection for the curious and the uninitiated and a fine look back at one of rock’s unique personalities. Oddly enough, this disc duplicates the previously released (and evidently still in print) The Very Best Of J.J. Cale disc from 1998 right down to the cover art. Either way you choose to go, you can’t go wrong with J.J. Cale! (Mercury/Universal)
   

CRASH KELLY – Electric Satisfaction
One-part Marc Bolan starstruck shimmy-shake and one part Hanoi Rocks street-rat gutter trash, Canada’s Crash Kelly walk the ‘70s cock-rock glam-strut better than anybody (save for maybe the glorious excess of Mardo’s first album) and talk the new millennium, not-quite-metal retro-zeitgeist talk with the best of the suburban flash tonnage. Before you think that these boy-o’s are all play and no work, tho’, consider the care that went into creating the magnificent Crash Kelly sound.
    It ain’t easy being sleazy, and tunes as romping as “She Put the Shock (In My Rock N Roll)” or the anti-wussy screed “Rock and Roll Disasters (On the Radio)” (the best nostalgic affirmation since “Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio”) are a sly assimilation of forty years of backseat blowjobs and Marshall overdrive. Forget about the Darkness, the Killers, and all those other committee-designed simians, the spirit of Mick Ronson walks eerily through these songs; Crash Kelly being the stone-cold real-deal. Produced by ex-Gunner Gilby Clarke, who knows a thing or two about fast living and hard rocking. Ignore at your own peril. (Liquor & Poker Music)

DEF LEPPARD – Yeah!
At this point in their storied career, the lads in Def Leppard have banked a fat pantload of cash on two decades of best-selling platters and sold-out world tours. However, truth is, they most likely won’t be topping the charts again any time soon, not so long as pop-simps like Justin Timberfake rule the commercial roost. As such, Def Leppard literally has nothing left to lose. Now the Reverend typically eyes most cover songs as a blushing attempt at a blatant cash grab; an entire disc o’ said interpretative art, however, is a brilliant homage to a band’s influences. Yeah! is kinda like Bowie’s classic Pin-Ups album, a high-voltage comp of other people’s songs, reinvented and/or revisited by one of the finest pop-metal outfits to ever come down the pike.
    The guys obviously had a blast in the studio with this stuff, caressing greasy old vinyl records and choosing songs not for their commercial prospects, but rather for their maximum fun potential! A lot of the usual suspects are rounded up, bounders like Marc Bolan and David Bowie, Phil Lynott, and Mott The Hoople which, for a graying old fart like me, is like dicey cheese to a hungry rat. But there are classy choices, too, like the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset” and Blondie’s “Hanging On the Telephone” and stuff from Free and the Sweet and Roxy Music. Def Leppard rock the hell out of these covers, playing every song just like it felt when they just heard it for the very first time. They recreate vintage LP covers, too, in the enclosed CD booklet, with the band members standing in for the original artists. Too cool. (Island/Universal)

RADIO BIRDMAN – Zeno Beach
Australia’s Radio Birdman is possibly the first punk band to earn mythical status not on the strength of their music, but rather on their obscurity. The exposure of the average American rocker to Radio Birdman’s blistering late ‘70s punk has come solely through a single compilation, The Essential Radio Birdman: 1974-1978. The band’s influence on a generation of Australian artists following in their footsteps cannot be understated, however, with every Oz band of note over the past 20 years – Celibate Rifles, the Screaming Tribesmen, Hoodoo Gurus, and others – tapping into the Birdman spirit in one form or another. While the prospects of a Radio Birdman reunion at this late date seemed a bit spotty, Zeno Beach, the album resulting from the reassembled band, is much better than it has any right to be.
    Recruiting original Birdman shouter Rob Younger – an ingredient essential to any successful reinvention of the band – and calling up mates Chris Masuak and Pip Hoyle, Tek managed to assemble two-thirds of the original Birdman lineup, adding a couple of new friends to the mix. The chemistry of the newfound band is incredible, adding a fresh layer of grime and grunge to the band’s classic high-flying punk roots. Detroit-born Tek’s fascinations with the Stooges and the MC5 can still be heard in the songs, but they don’t dominate the proceedings as they once did. Younger’s amazing vocal range – he sounds like Robert Smith of the Cure one moment, like Iggy after a three-day binge the next – is supported by the dueling guitars of Tek and Masuak and a solid rhythm section. The result is a classic, timeless rock ‘n’ roll album, bristling with energy and attitude and driven by screaming guitars that channel four decades of garage-bred roots into 45 minutes of near-perfect Marshall flash. (Yep Roc Records)
        

SATYRICON – Now, Diabolical
Although at first Satyricon sounds a lot like your garden-variety, dark-hued black-metal hot rod, underneath the hood you’ll find that the engine that drives this turbo-charged monster consists entirely of Sabbath-inspired doom-n-gloom machinery. Behind the tortured vocals & occult-laced wordage, Iommi-fueled riffing plods along, the lyrical call for divine (i.e. Luciferian) intervention supported by martial rhythms and manic guitar squonk.
    Singer, guitarist, and all-around-madman Satyr takes his Scandinavian metal heritage seriously, creating a swirling maelstrom of unrelenting instrumentation and vox that sound like slaves under the whip; percussionist Frost pounds the hell out of everything in sight with the casual subtlety of Thor’s massive warhammer. Now, Diabolical offers up the contemporary innovation of bands like Mastodon and Meshuggah mixed with the Jurassic rock of Sabbath and Pentagram, the resulting bombast rising above the typical black metal fray to explore a myriad of other possibilities. (Century Media)
   

TOWERS OF LONDON – Blood, Sweat & Towers
Every five years or so the Brits think that they’ve hit upon the “next big thing” in rockola. Back in the early ‘90s when the Reverend was cruising Londontown, the Manic Street Preachers were the new saviors of rock, the ‘Second Coming’ of the Clash. A half-decade later, Oasis and/or Pulp and/or Blur were touted as the Nazz, the ‘Second Coming’ of the Beatles (er, maybe). A few short years ago, Radiohead was crowned king, the ‘Second Coming’ of Pink Floyd or something, and then it was the Libertines’ turn. This year’s model is Towers of London, and after a few spins around town with Blood, Sweat & Towers, I have to say that the new flavor is tasty, if suspiciously familiar.
    For their stateside debut, Towers of London have tacked together a wonderfully ramshackle vehicle. The album is part Hollywood Boulevard sleeze-n-Aqua-Net – obviously Guns ‘N’ Roses influenced (check out the Slash-n-burn intro to “On A Noose”) – and part Zep-influenced hard rock debauchery of the sort that created bands like the London Quireboys and Dogs D’Amour. Nevertheless, octane-drenched tunes like “How Rude She Was,” “Air Guitar,” and the wickedly delicious “Kill the Pop Scene” provide the kind of stoopid cheap thrills that one usually only finds in American-bred garage rock these days. There’s nothing new under the sun, but sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll never sounded better than on Blood, Sweat & Towers. (TVT Records

The Reverend's Guide to Record Store Day 2025

That twice-yearly Bacchanalian festival of vinyl consumerism is right around the corner and, like many of my fellow blockheads, I have my own list of “must have” LPs and “maybe if the price is right” albums to shop for on April 12th. Yes, there are some über-cool reissues of obscure or cult-rock albums, gems like the Blasters’ An American Music Story: The Complete Studio Recordings 1979-1985, Camper Van Beethoven’s Telephone Free Landslide Victory, or an expanded version of the Neurotic Outsiders’ self-titled 1996 debut featuring members of the Sex Pistols, Duran Duran, Guns ‘n’ Roses, and the Cult (it’s better than it sounds). But I’ll pass by those flapjacks (mostly ‘cause I already own a lot of that stuff) as I dig deeper into the crates for the vinyl gems that I’ve never heard or, because of their rarity, never owned…here’s the Reverend’s personally-curated list of Record Store Day 2025 releases that I’ll be buying…

The 13th Floor Elevators’ Houston Music Theatre, Live 1967 (LMLR)
    Said to have originally been planned as the Elevators’ sophomore album, Houston Music Theater, Live 1967 is being released for the first time on vinyl with a glorious restored mono mix, printed inner sleeve, OBI strip, and ‘blue and black marble effect’ vinyl, thus quenching the fanboy collector thirst for fancy (and ultimately absurd) colored vinyl. Recorded, of course, from the revolving stage of the Houston Music Theatre on February 18th, 1967 the performance spotlights the band in what was arguably its prime, with singer Roky Erickson, guitarist Stacey Sutherland, and electric jug maestro Tommy Hall laying down a groundbreaking psychedelic sound, assisted by the rhythm section of bassist Ronnie Leatherman and drummer John Ike Walton.
    I don’t know what kind of sound quality they’ll resurrect for this RSD release, or even if it’s sourced from original International Artists master tapes (a possibility!), but the set does feature fave Elevators’ tracks like “Fire Engine,” “Reverberation,” and “Your Gonna Miss Me” as well as an extended jam. The often-bootlegged performance has received previous release under such dodgy titles as Levitation, I’ve Seen Your Face Before, and Live Evolution Lost by various U.K. record labels.   

Skip James’ Hard Time Killin’ Floor (Shanachie Entertainment)
    Mississippi Delta blues legend Skip James was an innovative guitarist and haunting vocalist who is often overlooked when academic types start jawboning about blues music. James recorded a number of sides for Paramount Records in 1931 and the resulting 78rpm shellac sold poorly, so the artist disappeared into obscurity. James was “rediscovered” after 30 years by musicians John Fahey, Bill Barth, and Henry Vestine and pushed into service at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival; James subsequently recorded a handful of fine albums for Vanguard Records before his death in 1969. Hard Time Killin’ Floor reprises the 2005 Yazoo Records CD of the same name, but with only 14 of its 18 original tracks, which represented the total output of his 1931 Paramount sessions. It’s 14 good ‘uns, though, including tracks like “Devil Got My Woman,” “I’m So Glad” (later covered by Cream), and “22-20 Blues.” If you’re looking for an introduction to the singular talent that was Skip James, check this out!  

John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Power To the People - Live at the One-To-One Concert (Apple Records)
    This ambitious four-track 12” EP, running roughly 20 minutes, revisits John & Yoko’s legendary August 30th, 1972 concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. This benefit show raised over $1.5 million for schoolchildren with special needs, the Lennons backed by the Plastic Ono Band and Elephant’s Memory. The EP was produced by Sean Ono Lennon, engineered from the original tapes, and pressed on 180gram yellow vinyl. The EP offers three previously-unreleased performances, which is pretty cool considering that the 1972 double-disc set Some Time In New York City featured 16 performances, including four jams with Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention; it’s also been out of print in any format for over a decade. Worth picking up if priced reasonably…this is the sort of classic rock curio that record labels love to overcharge rabid fans to acquire.  

The Meters’ Live At Great American Music Hall, San Francisco (Sing, Inc.)
    Double vinyl set pressed on “Mardi Gras colored vinyl,” whatever that is. But you can’t go wrong with what was arguably New Orleans’ hottest band, this 1975 live set featuring the classic Meters line-up with Art Neville (keyboards), Leo Nocentelli (guitar), George Porter Jr. (bass), and Joseph ‘Zigaboo’ Modeliste (drums) with new guy Cyril Neville adding percussion. Straddling the time period between 1974’s Rejuvenation and late 1975’s Fire On the Bayou, Live At Great American Music Hall offers a strong nine-song set. Part of this performance had been previously released as the bootleg LP The Meters Live At Rozy’s but this RSD set restores the entire performance, properly sequenced and remastered for official release.

Sly & the Family Stone’s The First Family: Live At Winchester Cathedral 1967 (High Moon Records)
    There’s a renewed interest in Sly & the Family Stone – and rightfully so – thanks to Questlove’s recent Hulu network documentary Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), which places the funk and soul legends in proper context as the groundbreaking outfit they were. The First Family: Live At Winchester Cathedral 1967 captures the original band prior to their signing with Epic Records and nearly a year before “Dance To the Music” delightfully lit up the radio airwaves. I couldn’t find any bootleg LPs covering this particular show (or era), which qualifies this RSD release as a true rarity and a gem for Sly & the Family Stone fans; this High Moon Records exclusive features a gatefold sleeve and 24-page booklet.    

Talking Heads’ Live On Tour 1978 (Rhino Records)
    Recorded at The Agora in Cleveland, Ohio in December 1978 during the More Songs About Buildings and Food tour, this set was originally released as one of ‘The Warner Bros. Music Show’ promotional albums that were sent to FM radio stations worldwide and which were heavily counterfeited back in the ‘80s (legit station promo copies were also available at record shows for around $25 when you could find ‘em; they run $60+ for a copy today on Discogs!). This is the first official release of the entire performance (adding an eleventh track in “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” to the promo’s original ten) and it’s been fully remastered from the original analog tapes and pressed on two discs at a quality-enhancing 45rpm (or so sez the ‘bloato hype’!). I’d love to have a copy of this one as my original ‘Music Show’ LP was stolen back in ’81, but we’ll see how it shakes out as Live On Tour is another potential landmine of price-gouging.  

Various Artists –  Cavestomp! Vol. 1 [A Torrent of Talent!] (Org Music)
    Organized by promoter Jon Weiss, the Cavestomp! Festival in New York City is the place to be for aspiring garage-rock and psychedelic bands wanting to be seen and heard…anywhere else is ‘squaresville’, man! Over the years, the storied event has hosted much-anticipated appearances by legendary outfits like the Monks and Sky Saxon (of the Seeds), backed by the Mysterians. This is the first time that any of these near-legendary performances have been cut into hot wax, though, Cavestomp! Vol. 1 featuring a veritable “who’s who” of Nuggets-worthy rockers waiting to blister yer brain and tickle your eardrums.
    “Hosted” by Peter Zaremba of the Fleshtones (romper stompers in their own right!) and Lenny Kaye of the Patti Smith Group (also the original Nuggets curator), Cavestomp! Vol. 1 offers the best party mix of RSD 2025, offering up scorching live performances that mix the old (The Chocolate Watchband, The Monks, The Standells, The Sonics) with the newish (The Grave Digger V, The Hentchmen, The Mooney Suzuki, The Lyres, Dead Moon), 17 rad tracks overall providing a liver-quivering trip back to ’66 that’s guaranteed to blow your mind!      

Various Artists – The Westbound Sound: Foundations [Westbound Records Curated by RSD, Vol. 2] (Org Music)
    Legendary record labels are often remembered for their specific contributions to the culture. Chicago’s Chess Records, for instance, is fondly remembered as a trailblazer in blues, R&B, and early rock ‘n’ roll music. Vertigo Records is associated with progressive rock, SST Records with punk, Sub Pop with grunge, Touch & Go with abrasive, noisy rock and so on. Detroit’s Westbound Records, in my estimation, doesn’t get nearly the respect it deserves, if only for the incredible Funkadelic LPs the label released during the 1970s. But the pioneering funk imprint had more than just the P-Funk conglomeration in its toolkit, boasting of hitmaking, innovating acts in soul and disco music as well.
    The Westbound Sound: Foundations is Org Music’s second “Curated By RSD” release and it lives up to the lofty standards set by last year’s volume one. The limited-edition LP includes some of Westbound’s most heavily-sampled tracks, which provided the musical foundation on which hip-hop and rap music was built in the 1980s and ‘90s. Curated by record store employees across the country, the album features red-hot boss tracks by the Counts, the Ohio Players (two delightfully soulful tracks!), Fuzzy Haskins (the sublimely funky “Love’s Now Is Forever”), the Fantastic Four, Junie Morrison (the former Ohio Player’s bluesy fatback funk “Suzie Thundertussy”) and, of course, Funkadelic (the buoyant “Nappy Dugout”). Another collection of fab tunes and deep grooves from the underrated Westbound catalog, worthy of addition to any discerning collection.  

Chrissy Zebby Tembo & The Ngozi Family’s I’m Not Made of Iron (Now-Again Records)
    The “Zamrock” sound was my personal discovery in 2024, beginning with the Ngozi Family’s incredible 45,000 Volts album (released in ’77), digging into the label’s pair of Zamrock CD sets, and carrying through a pair of Paul Ngozi solo albums. The African nation of Zambia in the late 1970s featured a rock scene as vital and creative as any, anywhere on the planet, and albums by the various Ngozi Family members are as full of attitude and rad sounds as anything coming out of England in 1977-78. This RSD release presents the first commercial release of a Zamrock rarity in Ngozi Family member singer and drummer Chrissy Zebby Tembo’s promotional-only sophomore effort I’m Not Made of Iron (following 1977’s debut My Ancestors). Now-Again Records has done admirable work in restoring these obscure rockers, and this reissue includes an eight-page booklet with rare photos and Zamrock history. If I only manage to find copies of I’m Not Made of Iron along with the Sly and Meters sets, I’ll have a very happy Record Store Day, indeed!

Check out the Record Store Day website to find a vinyl vendor near you!

Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report: The Alarm MMVI, Darkbuster, Peter Frampton, Motörhead, Ty Tabor (September 2006)

September 2006

The “Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report” was a short-lived review column that ran on our Alt.Culture.Guide™ website for almost a year until we closed the site, not due to lack of readers, but from lack of time and money to continue the project. Still, as these columns show, we reviewed a diverse range of music...

THE ALARM MMVI – Under Attack
Nothing reminds me more of the ‘80s than MTV, Lester Bangs and, well, the Alarm. Of course, the “music television” network is anything but these days, Lester wrote his final earthly record review over two decades ago and the Alarm, well…ahem…actually, they’re alive and well. Going under the name the Alarm MMVI (for their 26th year?), the band has released Under Attack, its first U.S. album in 15 years. Don’t mistake this for some sort of faux reunion and blatant attempt at a fast cash grab, folks. A few years back, frontman Mike Peters assembled a brand-new version of the Alarm that includes U.K. rock veterans like guitarist James Stevenson (Generation X), bassist Craig Adams (The Cult) and drummer Steve Grantley (Stiff Little Fingers).
    With this crew backing Peters’ tunes, Under Attack is a fully-realized album that rocks hard and takes no prisoners. Peters has delivered some of his strongest lyrics ever, the guitars ring loud and proud – with just the right amounts of fuzz and feedback – and a building falling on yer head wouldn’t hit as hard as Grantley’s explosive, punk-styled drumming. This isn’t throwback ‘80s rock, but rather a lean-and-mean collection of classic rock songs that are timeless, ringing true in any decade. (Eleven-Thirty Records)            

DARKBUSTER – A Weakness For Spirits
The Reverend has to admit a soft spot in his heart for old-school punk bands like Darkbuster that mosh up their jams with some Celtic flavor, a dash of ska, and more than a few Clash influences worn on their collective sleeves. A Weakness For Spirits blows through your stereo speakers like a tornado ripping through the Kansas countryside. Vocalist/guitarist Lenny Lashley delivers intelligent tunes that boot you in the ass and leave you asking for more while the band props up every song with a delightful recklessness that makes you want to scream “Oi! Oi! Oi!” If too much sugary pop-punk has begun to rot your dentures and petrify the brain, check out Darkbuster for some high-octane, ultra-energetic punk rawk tunes like Grandma used to jam to. Oi! (I Scream Records)
     

PETER FRAMPTON – Fingerprints
Everybody but his mother gave up on Petey a long, long time ago and the one-time wunderkind became just another dino-rock flash ‘n’ the-pan whose greatest hit sits on your grocer’s shelf collecting dust while awaiting rediscovery. Well, the Reverend sez that the time is now and the album is Fingerprints! Since nobody expected Frampton to come alive again anytime during our lifetime, Fingerprints hits like a minor revelation. Getting his instrumental groove on, Frampton kicks it with a dash of funky strutting on “Boot It Up,” waxes Latino on “Ida Y Vuelta,” and goes all Belew on us with “Grab A Chicken (Put It Back).”
    He even breaks out his rusty old vocoder for a run at Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” with pals Mike McCready and Matt Cameron from Pearl Jam. Petey invited some other friends, as well, with Warren Haynes kicking in on the roots-rock cut “Blooze” and childhood idols Hank Marvin and Brian Bennett from the Shadows joining Pete for the jazzy “My Cup of Tea.” This is the instrumental album that we always knew that Frampton had in him, and it smokes the house with rockin’ soul, dirty blues, and jazzbo flourish, sounding fresh and vital and ready to roll. Forget all about mopes like Vai and Satriani and plug into the original six-string prodigy, Peter Frampton. (New Door Records/Universal)
 

MOTÖRHEAD – Kiss of Death
That used car you just bought lost half of its book value five minutes after you drove it off the shyster’s lot…and it broke down a week later. Motörhead, on the other hand, has been kicking your ass solidly for better than a quarter-century. The great thing about Lemmy and his hand-picked roster of instrumental madmen is that although no single album that Motorhead has ever released is GROUND-BREAKING or even varies much from a simple amps-stuck-on-eleven FORMULA, they’re always consistently ENTERTAINING. Motörhead’s latest disc, Kiss of Death, doesn’t fail the smell test, every song choking on musical mayhem, screaming guitars, and Lemmy’s acid-drenched, drunken-geezer vocals. Steroid-dusted cuts like “Sucker,” “Devil I Know” and “Christine” follow the band’s tried-and-true sonic blueprint, fitting comfortably into the Motörhead milieu.
    Just because they consistently rock harder than pups half their ages, however, doesn’t mean that Lemmy can’t conjure up a SURPRISE every now and then to spice up the mix. On Kiss of Death it’s the social commentary of “God Was Never On Your Side,” an almost bluesy acoustic ballad that explodes into a wicked guitar solo, blistering lyrics attacking religious hypocrisy. The punky rave-up “Ramones” closes out Kiss of Death with a gabba, gabba hey! Lemmy has always remembered who his friends are, and, being the consummate showman that he is, he never forgets his audience, either. Nobody mixes heavy metal thunder and punk rock fury better than Motörhead, Kiss of Death just another reason why Lemmy K and his leather-clad thugs deserve a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, whether the hall is ready or not… (Sanctuary Records)

TY TABOR – Rock Garden
For almost twenty years now, King’s X has been one of rock music’s best-kept secrets. ‘Tis a damn shame, too, ‘cause the three guys behind the King’s X name – Doug Pinnick, Ty Tabor, and Jerry Gaskill – have consistently produced music more daring, progressive, and hard rocking than just about any other band that comes to mind. The band members seemingly pay no mind to fleeting commercial considerations, however, each one of them readily diving headfirst into various side projects and solo endeavors even while working together to keep the music of King’s X vital, original, and entertaining.
    Tabor’s Rock Garden is the talented guitarist’s third solo album and his fourth major musical project in three years (behind King’s X’s excellent Ogre Tones album, solo efforts from bandmates Pinnick and Gaskill, and the cool Jelly Jam disc). One might think that behind all this studio work and the recent King’s X tours, Tabor might be suffering from artistic burnout. No way, Jose! Behind the inspired guest vocals of Pinnick and Wally Farkas of the Galactic Cowboys, Tabor has created a veritable tapestry of sound and energy. Drawing upon his love of Beatlesque melodies, psychedelic instrumentation, heavy metal muscle and the musical freedom that rock ‘n’ roll provides, Tabor has gone into his sonic kitchen and whipped up eleven perfect examples of his enormous talent.
    Tabor’s innovative guitar style and mastery of the instrument allows him great latitude in the type of material he composes, from the cosmic space-rock of “Play” to the staggered metallic-soul of “Ride,” or the rootsy, riff-driven “Take It Back.” Any one of these cuts would sound better on the radio than the latest dreck from Godsmack or Buckcherry. King’s X might be rock’s best-kept secret, tho’ it’s not for lack of effort – there seems to be no end to the exciting and entertaining music being created by Ty Tabor and his erstwhile bandmates, Rock Garden included. The Rev sez “check it out!” (Inside Out Music)

Book Review: Michael T. Fournier’s Double Nickels On the Dime (2007)

Although San Pedro’s favorite sons the Minutemen are almost universally praised, they are too often overlooked in favor of lesser punk bands like the Misfits or the Germs. True, the band’s landmark Double Nickels On the Dime album is typically named as one of the genre’s standing classics, but methinks that, much like Rodney Dangerfield, the Minutemen never really get the respect they deserve. I’d be willing to bet that many young punk rockers these days are more familiar with Green Day, NoFX, Hot Water Music, or even the Misfits than with the Minutemen.

This is an oversight that author/professor Michael T. Fournier is trying to correct with his 33 1/3 series book on the Minutemen’s Double Nickels On the Dime album. A well-known music journalist that has been published by both online and print magazines like Pitchfork, Chunklet, and Perfect Sound Forever, Fournier also teaches students at Tufts University about the history of punk rock. Fournier often uses Double Nickels On the Dime in his classes, exposing a new generation of punk fans to this incredible album.

The Minutemen were originally formed as the Reactionaries in San Pedro in 1980 by guitarist/singer D. Boon, bassist Mike Watt and drummer Frank Tonche, along with a second guitarist. George Hurley would replace Tonche, the other guitarist would disappear, and the trio changed its name to the more familiar Minutemen – mostly because the bulk of the band’s songs didn’t extend beyond the 60-second mark. Signed to SST Records, the Minutemen released its Paranoid Time EP in 1981, following with a full-length album, The Punch Line, later that year.

The band built its reputation by touring anywhere somebody would book them, often traveling with Black Flag, and even playing with R.E.M. at one time. By the time that they recorded their fourth album, the two-record Double Nickels On the Dime, the Minutemen had created an eclectic trademark sound that mixed hardcore punk with free-form jazz and scraps of pop, folk, and rock music. Only one of the album’s 44 songs comes within spitting distance of 3-minutes in length, most falling comfortably in the one-and-a-half to two-minute range, each song a short, sharp shock like a poke from a high-voltage cattle prod.

Fournier dissects the album, side-by-side, song-by-song, supplementing his own substantial insight with comments and memories from the Minutemen’s Mike Watt, fellow musicians like Black Flag’s Chuck Dukowski, and other friends and followers of the band. Fournier tells how the album’s sequencing came to be, diving deep into each song and exploring the creative energy behind every tune. By covering the album as he does, the writer also provides plenty of back story, band history, and an overall glimpse into the early-to-mid-’80s west coast punk rock scene.

If Fournier’s classes are anything like this book, they’d be a lot of fun to sit in on. Fournier writes with an easy-going tone, combining the enthusiasm of the unabashed fanboy with the everything-but-the-kitchen sink style of the modern music journalist. It makes for a complete story, to be sure, but also provides the reader with new insight into and newfound appreciation of the band’s work.   

Although I don’t believe that the Minutemen get anywhere near the respect they deserve, the continued efforts of Mike Watt, combined with the support of fans like Michael T. Fournier, has kept the band’s flame burning bright. If not for frontman D. Boon’s tragic death in 1985, the Minutemen would certainly have made the jump to a major label and a larger audience along with friends like Husker Du and Sonic Youth. Still, the band’s legacy and influence is enormous, largely fueled by the excellence of Double Nickels On the Dime. (Continuum Books 33 1/3 series, published April 18th, 2007)

Review originally published by Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog

Buy the book from Amazon: Michael T. Fournier’s Double Nickels On the Dime 

 

Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report: Cities, Good Riddance, Greg Graffin, The Gourds, Jungle Rot, Rainbow (August 2006)

August 2006

The “Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report” was a short-lived review column that ran on our Alt.Culture.Guide™ website for almost a year until we closed the site, not due to lack of readers, but from lack of time and money to continue the project. Still, as these columns show, we reviewed a diverse range of music...

CITIES – Cities
“Post-punk revival” is all the rage these days, thirty-something critics auditioning for Pitchfork writing gigs fawning over bands like Interpol or the Walkmen in an effort to relive their misspent youths and assure their continued relevance. Bullocks! The Reverend is a crusty old rockcrit of the Marsh/Bangs/Johnson persuasion, and all the adjectives you can remember from grad school notwithstanding, an album either rocks or it doesn’t. Besides, “post-punk” as a description is mostly a lazy attempt by lesser minds to categorize music that refuses to be pigeonholed.
    Case in point: North Carolina’s Cities. With the “post-punk revival” albatross neatly hung around their neck, the band’s solid debut disc has mostly been dismissed in favor of more “acceptable,” i.e. New York based noisemakers. ‘Tis their loss, however, the self-titled Cities a mind-tickling collection of fuzzy lyrics and fuzzier sound, each song filled with guitars that ring like Quasimodo’s fabled bell and buzz like a mix of Husker Du and Radiohead. Yes, Cities filters its ‘80s-styled college-rock personality against a new millennium soundtrack, and although the melodies are sharp, the album’s production is a bit more blunt than need be. Nevertheless, Cities the album shows the promise of a band that has its feet on the ground and just needs to reach a little higher to hit the stars. (Yep Roc Records)

GOOD RIDDANCE – My Republic
Better than a decade down the road, straight-edge punks Good Riddance sound as hot-and-bothered on their seventh album as they ever have. Part of this can be attributed to former drum-kit mauler Sean Sellers returning to the fold after a lengthy hiatus. The other aspect that keeps Good Riddance young and grounded in an honest punk aesthetic is frontman/songwriter Russ Rankin, as proper a ranter-and-venter of left-wing political polemics as you’re likely to find.
    Rankin’s intelligent and carefully considered lyrical broadsides are matched with a pure white light/white heat musical assault, the band kicking it old school with a renewed fury and self-righteous anger at the powers that be. Usually overshadowed by more loudly militant bands like Anti-Flag or trendier faves like Against Me!, Good Riddance nevertheless remain one of the best political bands on the punk rock landscape. My Republic is an essential release, a sterling example of punk at its relevant best. Plus, these jams will knock the plaster from your walls and shake the cobwebs from your brain! (Fat Wreck Chords)

GREG GRAFFIN – Cold As the Clay
The Reverend has always admired Bad Religion frontman Greg Graffin for his unyielding intelligence, machine-gun vocal delivery and refusal to “dumb down” the band’s songs for a mass market mindset. It comes as little surprise, then, that Graffin’s Cold As the Clay should attempt to teach a punk audience about the charms and wit of “old-time music.” This sort of musical exercise is to be expected from, say, Bruce Springsteen, but it’s an extremely punk rock thing to do for a hardcore legend like Graffin to throw aside fan’s expectations in an effort to make an honest artistic statement. Cold As the Clay succeeds both as an opportunity for Graffin to apply his songwriting talents to a drastically different musical format, and as a showcase for his soulful, vastly underrated vocal abilities.
    Mixing traditional folk and country songs with inspired originals, Graffin’s delivery is supported by solid, appropriately understated performances by a talented group of sympathetic musicians. Bandmate/producer Brett Gurewitz also shows an unexpectedly deft hand in capturing these performances. If one goes into Cold As the Clay expecting the sort of blistering punk rock that Graffin delivers with his full-time band, you’ll be sorely disappointed. However, if you open your ears and free your mind, you’ll find a collection every bit as powerful as anything Bad Religion has ever recorded, music with roots deep in the earth and a history as ancient as mankind. Somewhere, Dave Van Ronk is smiling down on us all… (Anti- Records)
                  

THE GOURDS – Heavy Ornamentals
This Austin, Texas bunch of ne’er-do-wells has been kicking around for almost a decade now and Heavy Ornamentals, the band’s eighth album, displays everything there is to like about the Gourds. Chock full of irreverent humor, pop culture references and whip-smart lyrics, you might think that the Gourds are a little too, well, “intelligent” for the room. These boys temper their smart-aleck intellectual leanings with a lean-n-mean mix of roots rock, trad-country, folky witticisms and blues flavor, all delivered with the mastery of a band that has spent many nights on the road. All of which means that the Gourds are equally at home ripping through a honky-tonk rave-up like “Shake The Chandelier,” a Byrdsian rocker like “Decline-O-Meter,” or a poetic weeper like “Our Patriarch.” Consistently entertaining and as unique as the band that created it, Heavy Ornamentals is more soulful than anything you’re likely to hear from Nashville’s Music Row this year. (Eleven Thirty Records)
     

JUNGLE ROT – War Zone
Let’s go ahead and say it – War Zone is every bit as valid a creative statement as the latest Conor Oberst snoozefest, rockcrit bias against “extreme” music be damned! Pursuing an American (as opposed to Scandinavian) death metal style that uses bands like Sodom or Death as their blueprint, Jungle Rot’s fifth album in eleven years lyrically tackles the violence, brutality and inhumanity of man’s crusades with a stark brilliance and dark poetry. Behind the band’s disturbing, intelligent lyrics, however, lies a soundtrack as explosive, dangerous and powerful as anything you’ll find in extreme metal.
    Frontman Dave Matrise’s vocals are more intelligible, and thus accessible, than most metal growlers, and guitarist Geoff Bub attacks his axe with a zeal that’s downright scary. Bassist James Genenz provides the anchor that keeps the entire thing from flights of fancy while Neil Zacharek is that rare find, a drummer with muscular chops that enhance, rather than bludgeon, each song to its demise. Not to say that Jungle Rot will be pitching songs for The O.C. any time soon, but War Zone delivers a real ass-kicking, one that metal fans should ignore at their own peril. (Crash Music)

RAINBOW – Live In Munich 1977
Featuring the best version of Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, the one with Dio belting out the tunes and bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Cozy Powell backing the maestro, Live In Munich 1977 is the live Rainbow album fans have long desired. Touring in support of the sub-par On Stage live album, Rainbow was mixing songs from its now-legendary first two albums with material from the yet-to-be-released Dio swansong Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll. The performances captured on this budget-priced two-CD set are simply brilliant, Blackmore’s incendiary six-string work matched by, perhaps, the best one-two rhythmic punch in the metal world in Daisley and Powell.
    Featuring eight songs stretched to the 90-minute breaking point by extended jams, Dio’s soaring vocals and mind-numbing feats of instrumental prowess that would write the book for ‘80s British heavy metal, Live In Munich 1977 rocks with reckless abandon. Younger fans that never got to witness Blackmore and his wrecking crew firsthand can revel in live versions of “Sixteenth Century Greensleeves,” “Catch the Rainbow” and “Man On the Silver Mountain” that leave scorched earth in their wake. For those of us that were there, Live In Munich 1977 revives some long-forgotten rock ‘n’ roll memories… (Eagle Records)