Nick Lowe Ages With Style and Class

Nick Lowe just gets no respect. His resume is every bit as impressive as anybody’s in rock music – critically-acclaimed solo artist and band member (Brinsley Schwarz, Rockpile, Little Village), in-demand session player (John Hiatt, John Lee Hooker) and successful producer (Elvis Costello, the Pretenders). It could be argued that the short-lived early-70s British pub-rock scene was built on Lowe’s back-to-the-basics musical philosophy, which subsequently influenced both punk and new wave. Yet Lowe continues to soldier on in relative obscurity (especially in the U.S.), his work enjoyed and revered by a small but loyal following of fans.

Over the almost three decades of his solo career, Lowe has delved into power pop (Pure Pop For Now People), new wave pop-rock (Labour Of Lust), roots-rock/rockabilly (The Rose of England) and R&B-flavored Americana (The Impossible Bird). With his 13th studio album At My Age, Lowe skews closer to his more recent work than revisiting past glories, masterfully blending lush ‘60s-era pop with Nashville-styled “countrypolitan” twang and Southern soul (think Muscle Shoals and the Memphis of Hi Records).

At My Age is a deceptively charismatic album. Upon the first spin or two, it seems somewhat unremarkable, failing to immediately grab your ears. With repeated listens, however, the album reluctantly uncovers its secrets and reveals its charms. The best way to describe the songs on At My Age is “subtle,” the soundtrack, words and vocals so damn undeniably cool that there is no need for them to SHOUT to be heard.

Unlike the vast majority of stomach-churning, migraine-inducing pop-and-rock-music today – which is tragically down-mixed, compressed, normalized and over-amped to grab the fleeting attention of a generation of iPod slingers and mp3 hoarders – At My Age has a distinctive laid-back vibe. The production by Lowe and Neil Brockbank offers sharply-defined highs and lows and a muted, understated elegance that is sorely lacking from much of this modern era’s recordings.

Where Lowe has always shined the brightest, however, is with his songwriting, and At My Age proves to be no exception. There’s nothing earth-shaking here, no revelatory moments, just finely-crafted and craftsmanlike compositions that run the gamut of style and substance. The album-opening A Better Man reminds me of a vintage Faron Young side, with a small country shuffle behind quiet, albeit forceful baritone vocals singing of the redemptive nature of love. The upbeat, horn-driven sound of Not Too Long Ago belies the tragic lost love of the song’s lyrics, the delightful vocal harmonies and James Burton-styled guitar masking the tears of a clown.

The lovely and hopelessly wry Hope For Us All sings with an Al Green heart full of soul while People Change, a tale of love slipping through one’s fingers, offers up a timeless and true pop soundtrack (yes, that’s Chrissie Hyde’s sultry wail in the background). Lowe’s rockabilly-flavored reading of the Charlie Feathers cut The Man In Love is reminiscent of both his early solo work and the twang-drenched pub-rock of Brinsley Schwarz. Love’s Got A Lot To Answer For is an insightful song of unmatched dignity with sparse instrumentation and bittersweet vocals.

The band that Lowe has assembled for At My Age is both restrained and magnificent, supporting each song with just enough foundation for Lowe to build his vocals upon. The musical flourishes are few but timely, never distracting from the lyrics and melody. It’s an odd way to perform these days, for sure, where musicians are expected to dispense with the subtlety and finesse in favor of bludgeoning the listener, but this crew treats Lowe’s performances gently and gentlemanly. Altogether, At My Age is an unexpected treat, a brilliant collection of cross-genre songs that draw upon decades of musical history to make a simple, yet magnificent statement. (Yep Roc Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy At My Age from Amazon.com)

Rediscovering Ian Hunter - Part Three

Belying the idea that rock music is a young man’s game, Ian Hunter puts his lifer status on the line with Shrunken Heads. A superb collection that features Hunter’s typical fusion of witty, whip-smart lyrics and guitar-driven hard rock, Shrunken Heads also provides insightful and topical lyrical commentary from one of the sharpest writers in rock music history.

As frontman for British rockers Mott The Hoople during the early-70s, Hunter earned a reputation as somewhat of a grumpy old man with a poison pen, penning pithy commentary on culture and society with a satirist’s eye and a journalist’s tenacity, each packaged in three-minute bundles ready for radio airplay. His lengthy solo career has done nothing to disillusion the casual listener that they’re hearing nothing more than a crank, albeit one with no little skill as a rock & roll tunesmith. Scratch beneath the surface, however, and you’ll discover a hopeless romantic that, much like Quixote, prefers to endlessly tilt at windmills rather than go gently into that good night.

Now, some forty years after first picking up the torch, Hunter has crafted one more minor masterpiece in a career littered with such. Hunter’s voice isn’t what it used to be, age and abuse lessening its power and leaving it ragged around the edges. The years have done nothing to dull the passion to be found in his vocals, however, and his undeniable British accent remains intact even after decades of living in America. Neither have the years diminished Hunter’s biting lyrical style, the inspired work of a formerly angry young man with enough experience under his belt to be deadly with his aim.

Shrunken Heads has a wealth of magical moments where the band and performance and song all come together to jump right out of the grooves. As a stranger living among philistines, Hunter has a perspective on the current social and cultural zeitgeist that we Americans may be too myopic to discern, and his views are scattered throughout the songs here. Fuss About Nothin’ tackles the conservative snake oil salesmen that we continuously place in positions of power, whether they be corporate CEOs, preachers or politicians. Hunter sings “but if it’s left to the left…there won’t be nothing left,” his words a tongue-in-cheek swipe at the brainwashed legion of Fox News drones. Speaking of which, the hard rocking Brainwashed challenges the media-bred, corporate-approved, celebrity-driven propaganda that we’re deluged with 24/7, concluding “if you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, baby you bin brainwashed.”

One of the finer moments on Shrunken Heads is the nostalgic When The World Was Round. Having just turned 50, I can attest to the reminiscent nature of running headfirst into the brick wall of the final 1/3 of your life; here Hunter humanizes the grumpy old man with a wistful arrangement and clever lyrical turns. Decrying the information overload of the modern age and remembering simpler times he asks “is it my imagination, when I look back thru the ages?” Wondering if the past isn’t seen through rose-colored glasses, Hunter pleads “give me a reason to believe in, give me a reason to believe in, I think I liked it better when the world was round.”

The title cut, Shrunken Heads, displays the sort of magnificent Dylanesque grandeur that has long been Hunter’s musical trademark. With brilliant lyrical imagery and offering the best vocal performance on the album, Hunter sings “nothin’ matters any more, the rich get richer, and the poor get sorer,” asking “who’s gonna save us from these shrunken heads?” The song is a tragic commentary on a once-mighty, now sadly-crumbling American empire that is run by uncultured, ignorant boors (the shrunken heads of the song) that are masters of the dimwitted soundbite but can’t see beyond their own greed to recognize the damage they’ve wrought.

The equally impressive Soul Of America shows a keen understanding of native-born patriotism that many on the left just don’t understand. Praising the heroes who take up arms and lay down their lives for their country, Hunter sings “yeah them wild boys ‘n’ red, white and blue, them wild boys gotta see the mission through, come hell or high water, we’re rooting for you,” finishing with “let’s rock the soul, let’s rock the soul of America.” Hunter includes a broadside against those that Dylan called the “masters of war,” damning them as “them good old boys in their three piece suits, feathering their nests while they’re rallying the troops, they cut off the flowers, don’t worry ‘bout the roots, eroding the soul of America.”

The rest of Shrunken Heads is equally sharp and entertaining, Hunter leading a talented band through, perhaps, his best collection of songs in over two decades. Musically, it helps that he has the foresight to bring along some of the best and brightest, if underrated musicians in the rock world. Former Jason & the Scorchers / Hearts And Minds guitarist Andy York is Hunter’s secret weapon, the overlooked and unheralded talent co-producing the album with Hunter and providing subtle-yet-powerful accompaniment on guitar, keyboards and backing vocals. Hunter has recruited some other Grade ‘A’ talent for the album as well, from guitarists Jack Petruzzelli and James Mastro to drummer Steve Holley and longtime Joe Jackson bassist Graham Maby. Guest shots include Jeff Tweedy and violinist Soozie Tyrell.

Hunter has never been the most prolific of artists. Although he recorded six studio albums during the first eight years of his solo career, since the hiatus that he began in the wake of 1983’s All Of The Good Ones Are Taken, Hunter has preferred quality over quantity, releasing just five studio albums during the past two decades. Now nearing 70 years old, with his place in rock & roll history insured, Hunter has delivered a stunning tour de force in Shrunken Heads. Regardless of whether he records another single note – and I personally hope that he does – this would be a good one to go out on…. (Yep Roc Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Shrunken Heads from Amazon.com)

Rediscovering Ian Hunter - Part Two

Rock & roll icon Ian Hunter always had something that his contemporaries didn’t – plenty of attitude. Although he came of age during the yellow mellow daze of hippiedom, Hunter was always too acerbic, too intelligent and too cranky to fall prey to the false aphorisms of the peace and love crowd. When the punk rock revolution hit the U.K. in 1977, many late-60s / early-70s British rock stars were swept away by the aggressive new cultural zeitgeist. Very few pop stars survived the explosion of punk and the swelling post-punk “new wave” that crested at the dawn of the new decade, most of them dismissed as tottering old duffers by the angry young men and women of the Mohawk-clad, safety-pin-wearing, torn-jeans crowd.

Outside of heavy metal, which rested comfortably on the edge of the musical mainstream, enjoyed its own set of rules, and which would experience its own genre-overturning moment as the NWOBHM raised its ugly head, only David Bowie, Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott and Hunter came through the 1977-78 stretch relatively unscathed. For Bowie, it was because he was just too damn weird, too brilliant and too chameleon-like to get pinned by the punk crowd – a moving target, as it were. Lynott recognized early on the promise and potential of punk and became a sort of older brother to the movement, but Hunter…his distinctive attitude expressed so wonderfully through both his own solo material and countless Mott The Hoople songs…became a sort of guiding light to the young punks, influencing bands from the New York Dolls and the Clash to Billy Idol and Generation X.

By 1979, the British punk “revolution” had largely fizzled out, the genre splitting into three distinct factions – the hardcore underground, represented by Crass, Conflict, Discharge, et al; the mainstream, which could boast of the Clash and Stiff Little Fingers among its frontrunners; and the “new wave,” which spawned a thousand disparate bands suddenly freed from the constraints of commercial expectations that had been crippled (though not eliminated entirely) by the rise of punk. Also in 1979, Hunter would release his fourth studio album, You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic, which ironically would become the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album of a career that now spans five decades.

All of which, in a roundabout way, brings us to Hunter’s Welcome To The Club – Live. A two-album set that was originally released in 1980 and subsequently reissued on CD in 1994 with bonus tracks; it has been further embellished and expanded for its 2007 reissue by American Beat. Culled from a week of performances at the infamous Roxy in Los Angeles in support of You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic, the two-CD set does a solid job of capturing Hunter’s onstage energy as well as the instrumental talents of a band that included long-time friend and former Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson and bassist Martin Briley.

Welcome To The Club – Live features all of the songs that fans would expect: Once Bitten, Twice Shy, taken from Hunter’s self-titled 1975 debut; Just Another Night and Cleveland Rocks from Schizophrenic; and lesser-known gems like Bastard and When The Daylight Comes. Hunter throws a few surprises into the mix as well, like a scorching version of Ronson’s Slaughter On Tenth Avenue from his 1974 album of the same name, and a shockingly engaging reading of Sonny Bono’s Laugh At Me. Hunter reprises a number of songs from his Mott The Hoople days, including the breakthrough hits All The Young Dudes and All The Way From Memphis, both benefiting from wider arrangements, backing harmonies and lush instrumentation.

Through several issues and reissues over the past 27 years, Welcome To The Club – Live has picked up some extra baggage along the way, and it mostly all fits into the intended scheme of things as laid out on the original vinyl release. Mott’s The Golden Age Of Rock And Roll is provided an appropriately rollicking performance, and the additional medley of Once Bitten, Twice Shy / Bastard / Cleveland Rocks enjoys an energetic, rowdy rendering with Ronson’s screaming six-string licks and Hunter’s powerful honky-tonk-tinged piano work. Three “live in the studio” tracks originally intended for the vinyl release resurface here; We Gotta Get Out Of Here is a synth-driven new wave styled romp complete with chanted chorus that foreshadows Hunter’s work on albums like Short Back And Sides or All Of The Good Ones Are Taken. Silver Needles is a slower, more deliberate ballad that shows Hunter at his most Dylanesque, with a fine vocal performance and sparse instrumentation, while Man O’ War is a mostly unremarkable, mid-tempo claustrophobic rocker that would fit comfortably on any of the artist’s solo albums.

Here’s where the attitude part comes into play, however. By 1979, the kind of roots-based rambling rock that Ian Hunter preached was supposed to be passé, dead in the water…the Sex Pistols had told us so…but Hunter, in his arrogance, refused to change directions even when the market seemed ready to force his hand. Both the joyous celebration of rock music displayed by You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic and the raucous, spirited performances preserved in wax by Welcome To The Club – Live represent a belief in the overwhelming power of rock & roll and the value of a great song. This is probably one of the most honest live albums that you’ll ever hear, as well as a fitting document of Ian Hunter, one of rock music’s most respected cult artists, at the highest creative peak of his lengthy and storied career. (American Beat Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Welcome To The Club from Amazon.com)

Rediscovering Ian Hunter - Part One

By the time of the 1983 release of Ian Hunter’s All Of The Good Ones Are Taken, the rock legend’s career had survived at least two turns of the generational screw. The first, while Hunter fronted British rockers Mott The Hoople, came when the band’s foundering fortunes were revived by the timely contribution by David Bowie of his glam-era anthem All The Young Dudes. After Mott’s rendition of the song became a smashing success in both England and the U.S., they rode the subsequent record sales and radio airplay to a modicum of success in the glam-dominated early-70s rock & roll world. By 1975, however, glam had fizzled out and punk was on the horizon, as was the “New Wave Of British Heavy Metal,” and Hunter jumped ship to launch a solo career.

The second major turn for Hunter came with the critical acclaim and modest success of his fourth solo album, 1979’s You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic. Yielding AOR hits in the classic Just Another Night and fan favorite Cleveland Rocks (which was later popularized by its use as a theme song for the Drew Carey Show), the album hit Top 40 in America, Hunter’s best chart showing since his 1975 self-titled debut. His follow-up, 1981’s Short Back And Sides, was produced by Mick Jones of the Clash and featured a more aggressive rock-n-roll sound, but failed to meet the expectations of its predecessor; it peaked at number 62 on the Billboard album chart but dropped no hit singles and quickly sank from sight in the face of the cresting “new wave” and MTV.

All Of The Good Ones Are Taken, then, proved to be Hunter’s last grab at the brass ring. He had tasted success before, most notably with Mott The Hoople, but his waning solo fortunes and a changing musical environment had the musician skating on thin ice. With a core band that included bassist-around-town Marc Clarke, guitarist Robbie Alter and drummer/solo artist Hilly Michaels, Hunter recorded an album that has often been unfairly slagged as falling behind the artist’s loftier and acclaimed early efforts. In reality, if you enjoy and appreciate Hunter’s fairly-consistent ‘70s-era albums (Overnight Angels notwithstanding), you’d probably like All Of The Good One Are Taken. Aside from a couple of clunky song arrangements no doubt designed for MTV-influenced airplay, and elements of dated, thin ‘80s-styled production, the songs and performances here hold up reasonably well almost 25 years later.

The disc opens with the title cut, the sort of Dylanesque rocker that Hunter cut his teeth on, an erudite love song that offers a couple of whimsical vocal turns and an infectious chorus; it should have been a big hit upon its release. Cut from the same lyrical/musical cloth as better-known Hunter compositions like Just Another Night or Once Bitten, Twice Shy, and including a soulful sax solo courtesy of E Streeter Clarence Clemons, the song should be considered part of Hunter’s canon of great songs. It would also set the stage perfectly for much of the album to follow.

Every Step Of The Way is an enjoyable, big-booted hard rocker with a pop chorus and a stomping beat while Fun is a more intricate song, with an ever-changing musical horizon and a somewhat confused self-identity. With chameleon-like vocals, big band horns, heavy guitar riffs and a recurring tinny lead that foreshadows the coming Miami Vice years, is this an honest rocker or merely a sad relic of the times? Speechless is another artistic mistake, with waaayyy too much Flock O’ Men At Work styled punchy synth and the sort of short-attention-span arrangement that was de rigueur on MTV at the time. Hunter’s vocals sound like he recorded them in a helium booth. In this day and age, the song sounds horribly dated.

Luckily, there’s more muscle than flab on All Of The Good Ones Are Taken. Starting with a moody synthesizer/keyboard crescendo, Death ‘N’ Glory Boys is a grand, epic spaghetti western of a song, filled with provocative instrumentation and one of Hunter’s best vocal turns. Representing longtime Hunter foil Mick Ronson’s only appearance on the album, his six-string contribution is priceless. Understated beneath Hunter’s vocals and the symphonic grandeur of the keyboard work, Ronson’s subtle yet wiry fretted punctuations add a truly ethereal dimension to the song. That Girl Is Rock ‘N’ Roll fakes us out with a Huey Lewis & the News styled plinking synth intro before settling into a spirited, rockabilly-tinged rambler that would have fit perfectly on an early Mott LP.

The R&B influenced Seeing Double benefits from Clemons’ lush sax intro and some fine Northern Soul style backing vocals, the ballad offering up a smart set of lyrics and another fine Hunter performance, one that highlights the artist’s true range of talents. The original album version of All Of The Good Ones Are Taken ended with a reprise of the title track, reinforcing the power of the original while taking on an identity of its own with a wonderfully wistful reading and slowed-down, almost melancholy arrangement.

This American Beat reissue of the album tacks on a bonus cut in the form of the single version of Traitor, an ultra-cool ‘70s stadium rock throwback that starts with a Billy Joel type piano roll before jumping headfirst into a sort of metallic K.O. of the Billy Squier sort with a big, staggered rhythm and angry OTT vocals. I’m not sure of the song’s pedigree, or why it wasn’t originally included on the album, but it certainly had a chance to be a monster hit.

For whatever reasons, All Of The Good Ones Are Taken failed to capture the imagination of the record buying public at the time. Blame it on MTV, if you want, or on the strange days and times of the early-80s when punk and new wave and college rock and heavy metal clashed for our attentions. Regardless, after the album’s release and subsequent commercial dismissal, Hunter went on an extended hiatus that lasted until the 1990 release of YUI Orta, a collaboration with guitarist Mick Ronson that was credited to the Hunter Ronson Band.

In the 24 years following the release of All Of The Good Ones Are Taken, Hunter has released but a half-dozen studio albums and a handful of live discs with mixed results. While his work since 1990 has enjoyed a significant amount of critical acclaim, Hunter has seemingly given up his quest for stardom and instead concentrated on making good music. Nearly everything that Hunter has recorded through the years has merit and there is a wealth of great songs waiting to be rediscovered on albums like this one. (American Beat Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy All Of The Good Ones Are Taken from Amazon.com)

Introducing Asono

A few intrepid readers have accused the Reverend of being “stuck in the ‘70s, man,” what with my concentration hereabouts on “classic rock” artists. Their point is well-taken but, well…ignored, really, ‘cause this is my spot where I get to jabber on endlessly about whatever bands I want, and I mostly want to talk about largely-forgotten older bands from my misspent youth. Every other blog and their brother obsesses with the latest-and-greatest-big-biz-buzz (what I am hereafter calling “hypnoblogging” due to the fact that the writers all seem to be mesmerized by some publicist’s hype), but that’s not the case here at Trademark Of Quality.

Well, I’m going to throw a bone to all you gentle readers thirsting for a bit of hypnoblogging from the Reverend. I have just one word for you: Asono. If all you hapless indie-rock types looking to latch onto the next big thing don’t grab onto this British rock foursome pronto, then you’re going to be left behind when the really major hype begins. Asono rocks the socks off of just about anything I’ve heard from the United Kingdom as of late, and that includes the Towers of London and Zodiac Mindwarp’s recent trip down memory lane.

Asono’s self-titled, six-song mini-album runs just shy of 24-minutes and crams more life, energy and passion into the space than most bands can muster up on CDs two-to-three-times the length. Vocalist/lead guitarist Jonny Ross wields a larger-than-life stadium-rock voice that is warm enough for stateside radio, accented enough to engage anglophile fans, and supple enough to run from a whisper to a scream in the turn of one of the band’s sharply-defined riffs.

Ross, along with fellow axeman Andrew Simmons, crank up the amps and deliver a delicious one-two-punch of six-string pugilism that would drop Mike Tyson to the canvas, curling up in the fetal position. Bassist Jason Denhart and drummer Oli King hold down a solid rhythm; King is especially impressive, an old-school big-beat blaster in the mold of Moonie and Bonzo. In fact, although a glimpse at the band’s web site shows that their self-professed influences (Led Zeppelin, Queen, U2, Aerosmith, etc) are right on the money, the truth is that Asono doesn’t really sound like any of ‘em. In fact, one of the nicest things about these tunes is that they sound familiar and yet unique; Asono sounds like every great rock band that you’ve ever heard, and yet they sound entirely like themselves. A good trick, if you can pull it off…and Asono does…pull it off, that is.

Most of all, the songs on Asono, the mini-album, are a lively batch of unassuming rockers, sounding more mature than the foursome’s young age would have you believe (three of the guys are still in their upper-teens). Ross’ vox are impressive, not in a technically-proficient, Simon-Cowell-will-be-pleased, American Idol bland sameness, but in a flawed, powerful, wring-every-ounce-of-emotion out of the lyrics way that REAL rock bands used to thrive on back in the day. The songs are good, Ross’ lyrics imaginative and literate, and I can only imagine him getting better as a wordsmith. “Street Full Of Strangers,” “One Man Army,” “Someday,” “Never Nothing Never,” “O.D.’d On Love” and “She Love’s L.A.” are all brimming over with street-tough melodies, soaring vocals, monster riffs, guitar solos, explosive rhythms and that elusive rock & roll spirit.

Asono are the real deal, and honest-to-god-rock-n-roll-band primed and ready to roll over the United States. Catch ‘em while they’re still cool….

www.myspace.com/asono