Sadly, the back catalog of the greatest rock band of the ‘70s, the Flamin’ Groovies, is seriously FUBAR, with essential titles flying in-and-out of print with disturbing regularity. This year’s model of the band’s incredible second album doesn’t include any much-coveted Groovies bonus material, but it is available, so whatcha gripin’ about?
Flamingo is a joyous romp through the record collections of Cyril Jordan and the soon-departed Roy Loney, a spirited collection of rootsy garage-rock, proto-punk, R&B, electric blues, Elvis, Gene Vincent, and Brit Invasion pop-rock. Recorded in glorious lo-fi, the Groovies manage to cut through the production muck nonetheless with crazed, inspired performances.
The album’s lone cover – a manic reading of Little Richard’s "Keep a Knockin’" – will jump right from the speakers and grab you by the ears! Get it now before it’s gone again… (American Beat Records, reissue released 2008)
Decades ago, before corporate radio mergers created a handful of ginormous broadcast inanities playing homogenized – and creatively neutered – playlists, listening to your local FM radio station was an adventure. I remember sitting in my bedroom during the early-to-mid-‘70s, listening to the local Nashville rock station WKDF-FM every night, where you could hear a wonderful blend of the commercial giants of the time (Zeppelin, Stones, Deep Purple, Sabbath, et al) played alongside lesser-known but incredible artists (Audience, Humble Pie, Osibisa, Mott the Hoople).
Nashville rockers Sour Ops remind me a lot of those days, with the band’s enthusiastic embrace of the old and new, and their savvy ability to blend the two into something both timely and yet timeless. Bikers Make Better Lovers is the band’s follow-up to 2024’s delightful Evangeline and their fifth album overall (plus the perfectly cromulent five-song EP Tinder Flame), the Sour Ops not-so-quietly building as impressive a catalog of music as any of their Music City contemporaries and, really, any indie rockers across America.
Sour Ops’ Bikers Make Better Lovers
Bikers Make Better Lovers cranks off with the swirling, synthy ‘80s action movie vibe of “Opting Out” before launching into chiming guitars, cascading rhythms, and frontman Price Harrison’s soaring vocals. Harrison’s oblique lyrics are an enigma wrapped in a soundtrack (seems to be about a romance gone sideways), and the song’s melody will get under your skin from the first note. Harrison’s short guitar solo buzzes like an angry beehive but cuts like a thousand stings while the rest of the band pitches a perfectly joyful noise. Even the lofty backing vox, dancing atop shards of guitar and bass, embellish the song in ways beyond nuance.
“Problem Number Next” follows a similar musical blueprint, albeit with more “wall of sound” instrumental density, drums and bass providing a solid rhythmic backdrop atop which Harrison delivers one of his shortest, shocking, Sonny Sharrock-styled solos. The band’s melodic sense is unparalleled, every tune an infectious mix buoyant pop and erudite rock ‘n’ roll in nearly equal measures, and perfectly suited for FM radio airplay (or would be, if radio wasn’t such a wasteland…). The new wavish ‘80s enchantment of “The Power of Right Now” leans towards the British rock of the era, but still incorporates enough U.S. college radio influence to play to both sides of the fence. Harrison’s use of a Theremin on the song results in an abrasive solo that veers hard towards the psychedelic ‘60s.
The semi-anthemic “She’s So Strange” is a big-beat hard rocker with clamorous instrumentation, vocals that shoot out of the dark like a poison arrow, and an overall chaotic soundtrack that would win a switchblade fight with the Jesus & Mary Chain. The romantic kiss-off of “Made of Lies” is made all the more impactful by Steve Ebe’s massive drumbeats and Tony Frost’s foundational bass lines while “Gym Bro” benefits from the song’s overall, free-for-all cacophony, with clashing, crashing instruments vying for position beneath Harrison’s cool vocals.
All That Matters Now
If Bikers Make Better Lovers was pressed on vinyl (kids: another 1970s/’80s reference), side one would have closed with “Made of Lies” and side two opening with the up-tempo “Gym Bro.” That would make the lovely “All That Matters Now” a ‘cool down’ song, and it does so exquisitely, the performance not quite a ballad, but rather a mid-tempo plea accompanied by a hint of backing vocals and the gorgeous weeping pedal steel of maestro Paul Niedhaus. The pop-flecked, enchanting “Be My Secret” is afforded a spry instrumental backdrop, one of Harrison’s more emotional vocal performances, and an overall musical warmth enhanced by Amanda Broadway’s subtle harmony vocals.
The underlying syncopated rhythms of “No Winner Tonight” add a dash of funk to the performance, but mostly they provide a fast rail for the arrangement to jet along, propelling the instrumentation forward in parallel lines (rather than the less symmetrical arrangements of previous songs) while Harrison’s somber vox mimic Andrew Eldritch of Sisters of Mercy without the Goth trappings, or maybe the shambolic strains of Ian Astbury without the semi-metal overkill. Bikers Make Better Lovers closes with “Fake Appeal,” a less melodic but no less powerful performance with what seems to be (at times) double-tracked vocals, over-amped instrumentation, and more of Harrison’s six-string fever dreams. The song is a fine way to close the album and will continue ringing in your ears long after you turn off the amplifier, leave the room, and pour yourself a shot or two...
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
If previous Sour Ops albums tended to wear the band’s ‘70s-era musical influences on their figurative sleeves (The Stooges, Big Star, Cheap Trick, etc), Bikers Make Better Lovers eschews even their obvious Replacements obsession by making a bolder, brasher, and definitely louder musical statement. Taking no prisoners, the album’s performances teeter on insanity, opening up sonic possibilities seemingly denied earlier efforts.
Noticeably missing on Bikers is guitarist Mike Harrison, whose absence allows brother Price to channel his avant-garde aspirations through the fretboard like Television’s Richard Lloyd or Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, without all the messy histrionics of shredders like Joe Satriani or Steve Vai. Lightning quick and gone in a flash, Harrison’s guitar solos are just one facet of the band’s expanded and expansive musical palette that make Bikers Make Better Lovers both their most adventuresome and artistically-expressive album to date, as well as their most entertaining. (Feralette Media, released May 29th, 2026)
Humble Pie, in my…ahem…‘humble’ opinion, are one of the great lost bands of the 1970s. To my knowledge, they’ve never even been considered for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (for what that’s worth), much less ‘snubbed’ even if Pie frontman Steve Marriott was honored as part of an oddly unsatisfying dual induction for the Small Faces and the Faces. Although Humble Pie’s oversized influence on later outfits like the Black Crowes, the Georgia Satellites, and Badlands, to name but a few, is out of proportion to the band’s modest commercial returns, there’s no denying frontman Marriott’s impact on generations of artists to follow in his wake.
Although Marriott tragically died in a house fire in Essex, England in April 1991, his work lives on through regular reissues of Humble Pie’s ten studio albums circa 1969 and 1981, as well as the band’s stellar live release, 1971’s Performance: Rockin’ The Fillmore (no, I don’t count 2002’s Back On Track…). Marriott’s Small Faces albums remain more-or-less eternally in print and are an essential addition to any British rock fan’s collection, while various solo projects like 1976’s solo Marriott album or The Legendary Majik Mijits (recorded in 1981 with Small Faces bandmate Ronnie Lane and finally released in 2001) showcase different facets of Marriott’s talents.
Humble Pie’s Sunset Blvd 1969
Jerry Shirley, the band’s original drummer, Humble Pie archivist, and “keeper of the flame” for his former mates has ensured that the band’s legacy carries on through a series of unreleased live albums, some of which should have definitely remained in the can collecting dust and cobwebs. For better than a decade, a number of these semi-bootleg albums have been released by Cleopatra Records (or their Deadline Records subsidiary). There’s a lot of chaff to sort through among these 21st century archival releases, but Cleo has found a real winner in the recently-released Sunset Blvd 1969 album.
As you may have glommed from my comments above, Humble Pie was formed when singer, songwriter, and guitarist Steve Marriott left his popular 1960s-era teen-beat outfit the Small Faces to hook up with fellow teen idol Peter Frampton (from The Herd), a fine guitarist in his own right, bassist Greg Ridley (from Spooky Tooth), and drummer Shirley (ex-Apostolic Intervention, which enjoyed a 1967 hit single in the U.K.). Signing with former Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate Records imprint, Humble Pie released a pair of exquisite records – As Safe As Yesterday Is and Town and Country – both in 1969.
Sunset Blvd 1969 features a dynamic performance by the original band line-up at the legendary Whisky A Go Go club in Los Angeles in December 1969, during Humble Pie’s first U.S. tour. Although the album’s scant five songs may seem to short-change the diehard Pie fanatic, they nevertheless stretch across fifty minutes of playtime. The party starts with a brilliant cover of the 1965 Yardbirds hit “For Your Love,” with Shirley’s tribal drum patterns setting the stage for Frampton’s graceful, almost jazzy guitar lines to introduce Marriott’s soulful vocals. Although bluesier, of sorts, than the Yardbirds’ version (which featured Eric Clapton on guitar), Marriott and Frampton and the gang take the song through unexpected sonic detours, fleshing out the single from its original 2:38 length to a staggering nine-minute-plus, dancing across esoteric soundscapes in the creation of a mesmerizing listening experience.
A cover of Johnny Kidd’s classic “Shakin’ All Over” – a 1960 U.K. hit for Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, and later covered by the Who on Live At Leeds – is provided plenty of room to breathe, a bluesy hippie jam with every flavor of guitar, bass, and drums available in a busy, albeit fascinating performance that clocks in at an impressive 12 minutes but could have seemingly played on forever, given the band’s energy level. A pair of songs that would later grace Performance: Rockin’ The Fillmore are included here: a swinging reading of Ray Charles’ “Hallelujah, I Love Her So,” which captures the magic of the song’s R&B roots while Dr. John’s “I Walk On Gilded Splinters” is provided an airy instrumental romp gradually extending to over 20 minutes of stunning and soaring instrumentation. Marriott’s “The Sad Bag of Shaky Jake,” off Town and Country, growls like a hungry wolf, raw-boned and semi-metallic with wiry guitar solos and an overall menacing blues-metal vibe that would later spawn bands like Badlands.
Humble Pie’s Live In Cincinnati 1983
There were a lot of highs and lows for Humble Pie between 1969 and 1983, including fleeting stardom and subsequent obscurity. The band’s self-titled 1970 A&M Records debut and the following year’s Rock On pushed Humble Pie onto the lower rung of rock ‘n’ roll success stateside, and Performance sealed the deal, solidifying the band’s status as mid-card festival performers and occasional headliners. Frampton bolted after the release of Performance to pursue a solo career that would strike gold a half-decade later. Adding second guitarist Clem Clempson (ex- Colosseum), the band hit its stride with 1972’s Smokin’ (peaking at #6 stateside and selling at Gold™ Record levels) and 1973’s Top 20-charting Eat It.
Subsequent releases like Thunderbox (1974) and Street Rats (1975) – a Pie album in name only, really, given Marriott’s lack of involvement – saw diminishing returns on investment and the band broke up. Marriott resurfaced years later with a brand new Humble Pie featuring drummer Shirley, former Jeff Beck Group guitarist Bobby Tench, and American bassist Anthony “Sooty” Jones, the line-up recording two albums, On To Victory (1980), and Go For the Throat (1981), neither of which barely grazed the Billboard album chart. Marriott relocated from the U.K. to Atlanta, Georgia in the early ‘80s and put together yet another version of the Pie featuring Tennessee guitarist Tommy Johnson, Atlanta bassist Keith Christopher (The Brains, The Georgia Satellites), and drummer Fallon Williams III. Johnson was later replaced by Phil Dix, and this is the roster that performed in Cincinnati in December 1983. Touring as “Humble Pie” out of necessity rather than desire – Marriott was trying to launch a new band rather than rest on the laurels of his former outfit as he struggled to find a record deal – this Cincinnati performance is nevertheless a real banger.
Live In Cincinnati 1983 features a set list mixing Small Faces and Humble Pie songs with favored covers and a splinter of new material. The diminutive frontman with the larger-than-life voice sounds great here, the band well-practiced and ready to rock. The Small Faces’ “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” opens, sounding little like those British pop-rock stalwarts as Marriott and his freshly-baked Pie deliver a scorching take on the song that features Marriott’s powerful vocals, band harmonies, and a grinding instrumental soundtrack. Marriott resurrects “Fool For A Pretty Face” from On To Victory, the medium-strength former FM-radio hit pumped up on ‘roids and rolled out with a rollicking performance that mimics “I Don’t Need No Doctor” later in the set.
The Pie fan favorite “30 Days In the Hole” is raucous recreation of the hit single with introductory drumbeats leading into Marriott’s leather-lunged vox and lusty guitar riff. For those of us who love the song, it’s a welcome reminder of how electrifying Marriott could be on stage, even at this late date. Ditto for “I Don’t Need No Doctor,” an Ashford and Simpson-penned R&B gem that Pie pumped-up and pumped-out into the world on Performance, an edited version of that nine-minute jam achieving mid-level chart success when released as a single back in the day. This 1983 version doesn’t lack in enthusiasm or energy, Marriot belting out his vocals like it was his first day on the job. Marriott’s “Big Train Stops At Memphis” appropriately bleeds into a cover of Rufus Thomas’s Southern soul classic “Walkin’ the Dog,” both songs delivered by the band with reckless abandon, shimmering guitars and wailing vocals matched by a deep instrumental groove that infects both songs with joy.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Before embarking on what would be the last Humble Pie tour (disillusioned by the record business, and with his marriage on the rocks, Marriott returned to England at the end of 1983 and played with various short-lived and mostly unremarkable bands until his death), the singer/songwriter had taken his 1982 version of Humble Pie into Pyramid Eye Studios in Chattanooga, Tennessee (where the Allman Brothers Band recorded Reach For the Sky), to record three demo tracks after a deal with the beleaguered Capricorn Records label fell through. Two of those (previously-unreleased?) studio tracks are tacked onto the end of Live In Cincinnati 1983, proving that the battle-scarred rock ‘n’ roll veteran was still firing on all cylinders. “Trouble You Can’t Fool Me” is a smoldering, mid-tempo R&B tinged number with a funky groove and blazing horns while “Lonely No More” is a gorgeous ballad with a rockin’ undercurrent, Marriott’s emotional vocals, band harmonies, and a subtle, soulful backing soundtrack.
The quality and brilliance of these studio tracks – both Marriott originals – present the eternal question of “what if?” the band could have gotten a record deal and further explored Marriott’s new musical fascinations. Of the two live releases, Sunset Blvd 1969 offers the better sound quality, remarkably so for a recording of its vintage, while Live In Cincinnati 1983 is noisier, muddier, and closer to a soundboard bootleg (but still quite listenable…turn it up!). Both albums offer high-octane performances from different versions of the band, and the Cincinnati set includes lengthy, insightful liner notes from music historian Dave Thompson (a former editor of mine). Both albums will thrill Humble Pie fans, a legion that continues to grow 40+ years after the band’s unfortunate demise. (Cleopatra Records, released November 2025 & March 2026)
Major record labels, being the craven, trend-mongering corporate creatures that they are, tend to sign artists that sound and look a lot like whatever’s at the top of the charts at the moment. Sexy teen cutie Britney Spears hits numero uno with a sultry pop song – sign Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson! Teenage boys are lining up to throw down their shekels for passive hard rock from Creed – put out CDs by Papa Roach and Three Walls Down. The predictable nature of this industry inclination makes the discovery of something even slightly out-of-the-ordinary, like American Hi-Fi, all that much more satisfying.
With their self-titled debut, American Hi-Fi come on gangbusters like a modern-era Cheap Trick, all meaty hooks and monster rhythms underlining what is, at its core, good old-fashioned pop/rock. With their roots in the 1960s and their souls in the hard rocking ‘90s, American Hi-Fi crank out the jams with energy and elan, the band backing vocalist Stacy Jones’ wonderfully intelligent lyrics with radio-ready riffage and ready-for-prime time personality. Just “Flavour of the Weak” itself is a textbook example of pop/rock tuneage, the song’s teen protagonist waxing eloquent about the object of his affections who has fallen for another guy. Of course, she can’t see that she’s just a short time fling for the other guy and this poor heartbroken slob would offer his undying devotion just to be with her for a little while. It’s classic rock song territory here, folks, delivered here in an entirely refreshing and highly rocking manner.
There are other great cuts on American Hi-Fi, such as “I’m A Fool,” another unrequited love song with a recurring, underlying razor-sharp guitar line, or maybe the crashingly loud, anger-filled “My Only Enemy” will be more to your liking. You’ll hear a bunch o’ musical influences in these 13 songs, from the aforementioned Cheap Trick and obvious Beatlesque touches to elements of punk and grunge. A few songs are even possessed by the spirit of Kurt Cobain, all angst-like and feedback ridden. It’s an invigorating mix of styles, all filtered through a pair of screaming guitars and a solid rhythm section with appropriately snotty vocals. If you want an album that rocks as hard as any of the lesser poseurs on the charts these days but tips its hat to 40-plus years of rock history, take a chance on American Hi-Fi. The Rev sez “check it out!” (Island/Def Jam Records, released February 27th, 2001)
Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine
Wayne Kramer is a survivor in every sense of the word. From the legendary MC5 in the 1960s through collaborations with Mick Farren (The Deviants), Deniz Tek (Radio Birdman), and Johnny Thunders in the 1980s and ‘90s to Mad For The Racket, his new project, Kramer has enjoyed a lengthy and impressive music career. If most of his almost forty years in the biz seem to have been spent at odds with the establishment, that’s their problem, not his. As Kramer enters his fifth decade as an artist and musician, he does so with a new CD, a new label, and some old friends.
Mad For The Racket’s The Racketeers
Primarily a collaboration between Kramer and former Damned/Lords of the New Church axeman Brian James, Mad For The Racket also includes the instrumental contributions of Blondie drummer Clem Burke and former Guns ‘N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan. Stewart Copeland sits behind the kit for a song or two, as does longtime Kramer drummer Brock Avery. The Racketeers is a guitar showcase, however, and in spite of the impressive credentials of the various rhythm-makers, it is the slash-and-burn dueling six-strings of Kramer and James that dominate the proceedings. Swapping red-hot riffs and vocal duties, much like Kramer did with Tek on the excellent Dodge Main CD, the two guitarists are similar enough stylists to make these songs work. They differ enough in their approach, however, that they manage to create some live-wire tension in the grooves.
Wayne Kramer/MC5
The sound cranked out by Mad For The Racket is standard hardcore roots rock, filled with razor-sharp ribbons of six-string work, thundering rhythms, and old school punk attitude. The material here is not that dissimilar from that which Kramer kicked out on a trio of studio albums for Epitaph, overlooked classics that showcased his vastly underrated guitar style and ever-maturing songwriting skills. On The Racketeers, Kramer and James share the songwriting duties, sometimes resulting in a dud like the heavy-handed “Prisoner of Hope,” with Kramer’s over-the-top vocal histrionics mangling hackneyed lyrics. Kramer has done better on his own with similarly themed material. More often than not, however, the pair has created winners like the dark, disturbing “Tell A Lie,” the seedy “Czar of Poisonville” or the blazing “Chewed Down To the Bone.”
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Kramer’s vocals are always adequate, unique, and easily identifiable, flawed but forceful. James’ pipes are weaker but meet the challenge of the material, sometimes sounding like former bandmate Stiv Bators; other times – as on the lively “I Want It” – James sounds like a young Iggy Pop. Both play the guitar like maniacs, loco mosquitoes hell-bent on tearing down the walls with the sound of their axes alone. Together, the two grizzled rock ‘n’ roll veterans have created an entertaining and hard-rocking collection of songs, an album that showcases their strengths and furthers their already considerable legacies. The Racketeers is the sound of punk rock entering middle age, and for Wayne Kramer and Brian James, they refuse to go quietly into that good night. (MuscleTone Records, released 2001)
Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine
It’s been 45 years since the release of singer/songwriter Willie Nile’s self-titled debut album by Arista Records, and the mere fact that the artist isn’t a household name on par with, say, his buddy Bruce – with whom he is often compared – is a national disgrace. As high-energy, intelligent, and rocking a debut LP as you’d find in the 1980s, Nile followed it up with the equally spirited 1981 album, Golden Dawn. From this point, though, he followed Springsteen’s path with label disputes, lawsuits, and years spent in the wilderness before signing with Columbia Records for 1991’s Places I Have Never Been, another fine album, and one with which Nile arguably found his creative voice and sound.
Places I Have Never Been received little label support and went nowhere, and Nile lapsed into obscurity. Not that he wasn’t performing, writing songs, and such – Nile recorded and performed during the ‘90s with legends like Ringo Starr, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, and Ian Hunter, among others. No big-league label would touch him, though, and Nile followed his contemporary Joe Grushecky down the rabbit hole and went ‘indie,’ releasing the critically-acclaimed Beautiful Wreck of the World in 1999. Freed from the chains of major label restrictions, Nile went on a musical bender, resulting in a string of incredible albums, starting with 2006’s Streets of New York and extending through House of A Thousand Guitars (2008), American Ride (2013), and Children of Paradise (2018).
Willie Nile’s The Great Yellow Light
The Great Yellow Light is Nile’s 12th studio album since the turn of the century, and his 21st recording overall, and it’s obvious that the artist has yet to run out of fresh and exciting song ideas but, also, at 76 years old, he still has the energy and ambition of his debut album. Witness album-opener “Wild Wild World,” a bristling rocker with florid lyrics delivered with a fervor artists half Nile’s age can’t muster. The song’s gonzo storytelling is all over the map, but it boils down to the now-quaint (but never outdated) message that the Beatles gave us so many years ago, “all you need is love.” The twangy throwback guitar on the performance reminds of James Burton and really tickles the eardrums. Opening with a livewire guitar lick, “Electrify Me” kicks off with Nile’s earnest plea, rolling into a crackling new perspective on romance that is punkish in its intensity but Dylanesque in its joyous wordplay.
Willie Nile photo courtesy Willie Nile
“An Irish Goodbye” is a duet with underrated Irish singer/songwriter Paul Brady, a magnificently epic performance with crackerjack lyrics (“here’s fire in your whiskey, here’s mud in your eye”) and brilliant storytelling delivered with soulful nuance. Brady’s gruffer, accented vocals play off Nile’s wiry tenor quite nicely, and the musical addition of tin whistle and uillean pipes (courtesy of Black 47’s Fred Parcels and Chris Byrne, respectively…) reflect elements of the beloved Pogues. As Lou Reed once told Elliott Murphy, “if you want to hide poetry, put it in a rock ‘n’ roll song because no one will ever look there*,” and the album’s title track – the title a reference to Vincent Van Gogh – offers up brilliant poetic imagery in the service to a gorgeous romantic fantasy with crescendos of instrumentation and breathless vocals.
The self-referential “Tryin’ To Make A Livin’ In the U.S.A.” welds a familiar Nile melody to a hillbilly rocker that re-imagines Nile’s career with tongue-in-cheek lyrics (“there’s nothing wrong with me a hit record wouldn’t cure”) and the undeniable spirit of a man who has forged his own path through the barbed wire-clad minefield of the music business. Nile’s not afraid to offer a bit of trenchant social commentary with his songs, typically delivered with insight, and The Great Yellow Light includes two such “call to arms” in “Wake Up America” and “Washington’s Day.” The former, a duet with Nile’s country equivalent Steve Earle, is a wonderfully wry look at the state of the nation that points out the hypocrisy of hate and bigotry while the latter is a mid-tempo rocker which evokes the founding fathers in a brilliant essay on brotherhood and sacrifice.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
There’s not a dud among the ten songs on The Great Yellow Light, which is more than I can say about even the most erstwhile talents on the charts. Nile brings a fervor and heartfelt energy to every song as if his life depended on it. Much like his spiritual brethren – artists like Joe Grushecky, Elliott Murphy, Steve Wynn, and a few others – Nile is a poet in rock ‘n’ roll garb, a guise, a ruse, and a commercial burden that he’s carried across five decades but which has never kept him from shooting for the brass ring while staying true to his muse. I can honestly say that I’ve never heard a bad Willie Nile album, and that the man continues to deliver music as vital and intelligent as that on The Great Yellow Light is a testament to his talent, vision, and artistic ambitions. Grade: A+ (River House Records, released June 20th, 2025)
* Lou Reed quote from Fred De Vries’ wonderful Elliott Murphy interview in Record Time zine issue #3
By 1981, Pittsburgh’s favorite sons the Iron City Houserockers were increasingly viewed as old school rockers in a ‘new wave’ world. Pop stars like Olivia Newton-John, Diana Ross, and Kim Carnes ruled the U.S. charts and the AM airwaves while, on the other side of the pond, various flavors of ‘new wave’ in the form Adam & the Ants, Duran Duran, Soft Cell, Human League, and the Police dominated U.K. charts as they prepared their assault on these shores, a siege made possible by the August launch of the MTV cable channel, which played British rock and pop videos almost exclusively until stateside labels got wise and jumped into the game.
While the Cleveland International label that had released the band’s first two albums was trying to catch lightning in a bottle for a second time with a follow-up to singer Meat Loaf’s unexpected multi-Platinum™ hit Bat Out of Hell, Grushecky and the gang went straight to the label’s distributor, MCA Records, and finagled a deal that resulted in 1981’s Blood On the Bricks and 1983’s Cracking Under Pressure (for which MCA stupidly dropped the proud ‘Iron City’ from the band’s name). The Houserockers were shipped off to Los Angeles to work with producer and Memphis music legend Steve Cropper, whose work for Stax Records in the 1960s was the stuff of dreams.
Iron City Houserockers’ Blood On the Bricks
Grushecky states in the reissue’s liner notes that he was writing best about what he knew, and it shows in Blood’s lyrics, which are personal and focused on the microcosm of life in the Steel City. Joe would later develop an insightful songwriting style that would make the personal universal – a sort of blue-collar blues – but you can see hints of this evolution in “Friday Night,” Blood’s opening track. A big, bold rocker with Gil Snyder’s tinkling keys and a boisterous rhythm track, the song borders on pop with an infectious chorus and an undeniable melody, and it’s sung from the perspective of the working-class guy waiting for the weekend so that he can cut loose. It’s a high-octane album-opener, and while Jim Horn’s mid-song sax solo edges up to Clarence Clemons’ turf, the late-closing squonk is a bit dissonant to my ears.
“Saints and Sinners” is one of my favorite Grushecky songs, a fantastic story-song that cuts a fine line between the two extremes of the title. A tragic tale of a Vietnam vet who’s gone off the rails and taken his family hostage, the lyrics are succinct, powerful, and poetic and supported by a solid vocal performance and screaming instrumentation. As Grushecky says in the liner notes, “those days weren’t too removed from the war. People my age all knew guys who went there and came back not quite the same.” The up-tempo soundtrack is unrelenting, the vox following a stark spoken/sung dynamic with plenty of silence and swelling instrumentation clashing for the moment.
A mid-tempo love song with some quirky instrumentation and vocal dynamics, “This Time the Night (Won’t Save Us)” is a Springsteen-esque romantic operetta with moments of light instrumentation that didn’t land far from what the Cars had been playing (with some success), but with an undeniable, recognizable Houserockers feel. Cropper’s arrangement placed the song firmly in radio-ready territory, with a Southern-fried guitar solo from the Colonel to add gravitas, but it’s Grushecky’s sometimes distraught, sometimes regretful, but ultimately reluctantly accepting vocals that push the song over the line.
A Fool’s Advice
The ballad “Be My Friend” was penned, jokes Joe in the liner notes, “to get some girls to come see us.” It’s a solid effort, Grushecky’s ragged, romance-weary vocals wrapping warmly around a plaintive yet earnest plea. The song could be considered a precursor to some of Grushecky’s later solo songs, a “proof of concept” that tough guys could be tender in the spirit of Otis Redding. A snappy drumbeat opens “No Easy Way Out,” a buoyant mid-tempo rocker with pop aspirations. Snyder’s underlying keyboards edge the performance close to a ‘new wave’ sound again – a conscious effort by Cropper to make the band more AM-friendly? – and while it’s an engaging enough song with grim, real-life lyrics, it’s inevitably just mid-album filler.
Much better is the following “No More Loneliness,” whose jaunty opening git licks and sparse harmonica swing like Graham Parker’s “Heat Treatment,” the song hewing closely to a R&B drenched, British pub-rock sound that is both energetic and refreshing. Grushecky’s vocals are light and effective, with greater range than most of the songs here, while the song’s fretwork flies high above a crackerjack rhythmic backdrop. A few well-placed horns embellish the performance while keyboards provide an instrumental undercurrent. The band gets back to basics with the gritty, forceful “Watch Out,” a street-smart slice of grimacing, dark-hued mid-tempo rock that rolls effortlessly into the album’s bruising title track.
“Blood On the Bricks” is another standout, a “ripped from the headlines” rocker with a raw, sparse soundtrack and strong lyrics that display Grushecky’s bluesy vocal style. The dynamic run-up to the song’s chorus, paired with Reisman’s mournful harmonica riffs, is simply exquisite while the backing instrumentation is restrained, not submissive. “A Fool’s Advice” closed the original LP, Snyder’s piano intro brushed away by a flurry of fierce guitar notes and Grushecky’s growled vox. A romantic ballad with muscle, the added horns are largely superfluous – Reisman’s devastating harmonica licks are all the texture the song needed. An unreleased bonus track, “Let the Boy Rock,” could have replaced “No Easy Way Out” in my opinion, the album outtake a rollicking honky-tonk rave-up with blazing horns, Jerry Lee-styled piano-pounding, and rockabilly-tinged guitar licks…a winner all around!
“Bonus Bricks”
The bonus disc included with the album provides a real treat for Houserockers fanatics. Disc two kicks off with four live tracks from a 1981 performance at Inn-Square Men’s Bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Every one of ‘em is a banger, all from the Blood On the Bricks LP – “Watch Out,” “Saints and Sinners,” “Be My Friend,” and the album’s title track – and the performances in front of an enthusiastic crowd are so hot that one wishes they’d included the entire concert. The lengthy spoken intro to “Saints and Sinners” lulls you into a thoughtful complacency so you don’t realize that the backing instrumentation is gradually building to an electrifying crescendo when the guitars kick into overdrive and smack you upside the head.
The live version of “Blood On the Bricks” is all muscle and sinew, Grushecky’s growled vox and edgy lyricism matched in ferocity by Eddie Britt’s flamethrower guitar and the deep resonant rhythm section of bassist Art Nardini and drummer Ned E. Rankin, while harmonica player Mark Reisman adds a bluesy vibe to the performance. The rest of disc two is comprised of demo tracks from the Blood sessions, with tentative early versions of album tracks like “This Time the Night (Won’t Save Us)” and “A Fool’s Advice” showcasing Grushecky’s evolving songwriting process. More interesting, though, are proto-versions of the poppy “Angels,” which wouldn’t appear on record until 1983’s Cracking Under Pressure, and “Jukebox Nights,” which evolved into “Blood On the Bricks.”
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
I feel that there was a ton of opportunity lost with Blood On the Bricks when it was released. Cropper wasn’t a great choice to produce the Houserockers, and although he’s credited with helping the band firm up its song arrangements, some of his production choices are found lacking and contrary to the Houserockers’ bar-band-on-steroids aesthetic. Far too often, Cropper’s production is lacking in depth when a full Spector-esque approach (like Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run) would have better suited the performances.
MCA Records could have spiffed up “Angels” and released it as a single from the album; even in demo form, it’s a killer song that needed just a little more to make it radio-ready. Snyder’s keyboards would have fit right in with the sound of the early ‘80s and if the song wasn’t representative of the Houserockers’ ‘modus operandi’, well, neither was Blue Öyster Cult’s Top 40 hit “Burnin’ For You.” The album-opening “Friday Night” was the only single released from Blood On the Bricks (b/w “No Easy Way Out”), and while the song’s sparse, poppy arrangement isn’t miles away from “Angels,” it lacks the demo’s presence; “Angels” could have made for a dynamite, MTV-friendly promotional video.
Overall, Blood On the Bricks offers songs the equal of its preceding LPs, but the album’s lackluster production robbed the band of its streetwise gravitas. Grushecky and crew weren’t yet at the end of their rope, so the material still rocks with reckless abandon, and the live tracks display their strength in an unforgiving onstage environment. Grushecky’s songwriting skills were still growing and evolving into the master wordsmith he would become as a solo artist, and the band performed to the full extent of its considerable talents. Blood On the Bricks isn’t as impactful as Have A Good Time or Love’s So Tough, but it’s still a solid and entertaining album from a band that was always better on stage than in the studio, and still far above what almost anybody else was doing in rock music at the time. Grade: B+ (Omnivore Recordings, released March 28th, 2025)
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
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!
Former New York Dolls front man and solo artist David Johansen passed
away this week after a lengthy battle with various health issues. “David
Johansen passed away peacefully at home, holding the hands of his wife Mara
Hennessey and daughter Leah, in the sunlight surrounded by music and flowers,”
his family posted on the
Sweet Relief fundraising website. “After a decade of profoundly compromised health he died of natural causes at
the age of 75.” A unique and charismatic performer, Johansen never quite
received the commercial success his music would seem to demand, but his star
continues to shine as young generation of rockers discover the infectious and
energetic sound of the first two New York Dolls albums…
Born in
Staten Island in 1950, Johansen was, in many ways, the quintessential New Yorker
– brash, bold, and loud while performing, but with a reputation as friendly and
engaging off stage. Johansen began performing in the late ‘60s, singing with a
local band called the Vagabond Missionaries. Johansen later hooked up with
guitarists Johnny Thunders and Rick Rivets, bassist Arthur Kane, and drummer
Billy Murcia, forming the New York Dolls in 1971. Rivets was later replaced by
Sylvain Sylvain, going on to form proto-punk outfit the Brats. The band members
weren’t necessarily serious about the Dolls, but after developing a unique
musical vision that placed them firmly on the ramshackle side of the Rolling
Stones, the Dolls began to developing a loyal following via raucous performances
at Max’s Kansas City and the Mercer Arts Center.
The New York Dolls
The Dolls were dismissed by record labels at the time as a less-talented version
of the Stones; the band’s frequent onstage vulgarity and tongue-in-cheek
penchant for cross-dressing ruffles some corporate feathers, to be sure. Critics
first noticed the Dolls after they opened for the Faces in England in 1972, the
band subsequently touring the U.K. Tragically, Murcia overdosed on alcohol and
Quaaludes during the tour, the Dolls subsequently bringing in drummer Jerry
Nolan, who would later join Thunders in the Heartbreakers. Thanks to support
from rock critic and Mercury Records A&R man Paul Nelson, the band received
a label deal and it was arranged for musician/producer Todd Rundgren to produce
the band’s self-titled 1973 debut.
With original songs penned mostly
by Johansen with either Thunders or Sylvain, tunes like “Personality Crisis,”
“Trash,” and “Jet Boy” created a blueprint for punk rock to follow. A lively
cover of Bo Diddley’s “Pills” was provided a similar proto-punk makeover. Given
a meager budget to work with, the Dolls nevertheless delivered a rock ‘n’ roll
classic; The New York Dolls album was recorded for a mere $17,000 (the
bulk of which was probably Rundgren’s fee). The album was deemed a commercial
failure, though, peaking at #116 on the Billboard album chart, but its
econo-production costs meant that it likely still made money on its 100,000+
sales. Although it has been reported that the album has only moved around 500k
copies to date, it’s a steady-seller year-to-year and has since become regarded
as one of the most important debut albums of all time, influencing bands on both
sides of the ocean like Kiss, the Ramones, the Smiths, the Sex Pistols, the
Replacements, and the Damned among many others. Mercury Records must have seen
some light at the end of the tunnel, as they approved a second Dolls album.
Recorded
and released in 1974 with veteran producer George “Shadow” Morton (The
Shangri-Las, Janis Ian, Vanilla Fudge) at the helm,
Too Much Too Soon offered a mix of band originals (“Babylon,” “Who Are
the Mystery Girls?,” “Chatterbox”) largely written by Johansen and Thunders, and
inspired R&B covers like “Stranded In the Jungle,” “Don’t Start Me Talkin’,”
and “(There’s Gonna Be A) Showdown.” Although Morton’s polished production
smoothed out the band’s raw edges somewhat, critics like Dave Marsh and Robert
Christgau were firmly in the Dolls’ corner; sadly, Too Much Too Soon sold
less than 100k copies, but likely turned a profit as Mercury had the band lined
up to record a third album. A U.S. tour in support of
Too Much Too Soon turned into a disaster, with cancelled shows and
increased drug and alcohol use by the band creating tensions. Subsequently
dropped by Mercury, Thunders and Nolan left in 1975 to form the Heartbreakers,
with Johansen and Sylvain carrying on for another year with substitute players
before breaking up.
David Johansen In Style
Johansen launched his solo career with a self-titled debut album in 1978;
produced by NYC ‘guy at all the best parties’ Richard Robinson along with
Johansen, it was released by the CBS-distributed Blue Sky Records label
associated with blues-rock guitarist Johnny Winter and his manager, Manhattan
club owner Steve Paul. The album included musical guests like Dolls’ guitarist
Sylvain, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, singer Nona Hendryx, violinist Scarlet
Rivera, and Rascals’ keyboardist Felix Cavaliere. Johansen’s
critically-acclaimed sophomore effort, In Style, followed a year later;
produced by former Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson, it featured guest musicians like
Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople) and Dan Hartman (Edgar Winter Group) as well as
Johansen’s old friend Sylvain.
In Style didn’t sell
particularly well, but the album yielded lasting songs like “Melody,” “Swaheto
Woman,” and “She Knew She was Falling in Love.” Given another bite of the apple
by Blue Sky, Johansen recruited South African musician Blondie Chaplin (who had
played with the Beach Boys and Rick Danko of the Band) to produce
Here Comes the Night. Released in 1981, Here Comes the Night saw
Johansen working closely with Chaplin to craft a more commercial sound but, when
the album peaked at #180 on the Billboard chart, Blue Sky cut him loose
after releasing Live It Up in 1982. The energetic and entertaining live
set displayed a portion of Johansen’s enormous onstage charisma on original
songs like “Frenchette,” “Melody,” “Funky But Chic” and the Dolls’ tracks
“Personality Crisis” and “Stranded In the Jungle,” the album scoring a Top 30
hit with a medley of the Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of this Place,” “Don’t Bring
Me Down,” and “It’s My Life.”
Johansen signed with Passport Records for 1984’s overlooked
Sweet Revenge LP which, like virtually all of the singer’s previous
albums, received widespread critical acclaim along with modest sales. Johansen
had already cooked up his third act, however – the pseudonymous ‘Buster
Poindexter’ – a sort of R&B revue bandleader backed by the Uptown Horns.
Performing an upbeat mix of pop, swing, jump blues, and novelty tunes, Johansen
scored a Top 40 hit LP with 1987’s Buster Poindexter and its single “Hot
Hot Hot.” Johansen appeared frequently on Saturday Night Live as part of the
house band, and a video for “Hot Hot Hot” received heavy airplay on the MTV
cable network. Johansen released four albums under the ‘Buster Poindexter’
persona circa 1987-1997, each exploring a different musical style.
Coaxed by longtime Dolls fan Morrissey of the Smiths to reunite for
the 2004 Meltdown Festival in London, the performance by the surviving members
of the band – Johansen, Sylvain, and Kane – led to a live album and DVD.
Following Kane’s unexpected death of leukemia a few weeks after the festival,
Johansen and Sylvain recruited guitarist Steve Conte, bassist Sami Yaffa (Hanoi
Rocks), drummer Brian Delaney, and keyboardist Brian Koonin to record the 2006
album One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This, which was followed
by several festival appearances. This Dolls line-up also recorded 2009’s
Cause I Sez So; 2011’s Dancing Backwards In High Heels proved to
be the band’s swansong.
David Johansen & the Harry Smiths
Johansen channeled his longstanding love of blues and folk music with the Harry
Smiths, a band formed with multi-instrumentalists Brian Koonin, Larry Saltzman,
and Kermit Driscoll along with percussionist Joey Baron. Named after music
historian Harry Smith, whose 1952 compilation of 1920s and ‘30s country and
blues music, The Anthology of American Folk Music, inspired many an aspiring
musician in the 1950s and ‘60s, Johansen and the Harry Smiths released two
albums – 2000’s David Johansen & the Harry Smiths and 2002’s
Shaker – comprised of whip-smart covers of timeless tunes by legends like
Lightnin’ Hopkins, Furry Lewis, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Sonny Boy
Williams, songs that Johansen’s aging voice was more than world-weary enough to
sing convincingly.
Over the years, Johansen also dabbled in acting,
his expressive face and over-the-top personality leading to roles in the 1988
Bill Murray film Scrooged (as the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’),
Mr. Nanny, Freejack, and Car 54, Where Are You? as well as
TV shows like Miami Vice, Oz, and Bill Murray’s Netflix special
A Very Murray Christmas. Award-winning filmmaker (and fellow New Yorker)
Martin Scorsese directed a documentary film on Johansen for the Showtime cable
network, Personality Crisis: One Night Only, which was released in April
2023. Johansen also contributed songs to several compilation albums over the
years, including 1984’s A Diamond Hidden In the Mouth of A Corpse, 1994’s
September Songs – The Music of Kurt Weill, 2003’s
Stormy Weather: The Music of Harold Arlen, and 2005’s
Jim White Presents Music From Searching For the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. He also
hosted a weekly show for Sirius satellite radio called
David Johansen’s Mansion of Fun.
After reading about the New
York Dolls in Creem magazine – where they were honored with awards as
both the “Best New Group of the Year” and “Worst New Group of the Year” in a
reader’s poll – I quickly latched onto the first Dolls LP. While in high school,
I’d be invited to parties at a former girlfriend’s house, knowing that I’d show
up with a stack of records and, plied with a six-pack of beer, would gladly play
DJ all night. As my classmates paired up and disappeared up a hill for
extracurricular activities, I’d slap on the New York Dolls album…I got all the
way through side one once before somebody came down the hill and demanded that I
change the record to something like Billy Joel. I remained a steadfast Dolls fan
ever since, and I’ve seen initial dismissal of the New York Dolls as low-rent
clones of the Rolling Stones give way to acceptance as one of the most
groundbreaking bands in rock ‘n’ roll history.
David Johansen may
never have gotten rich, or even received anything more than a modicum of
commercial success, but his work with the Dolls and his underrated solo albums
continue to find new converts to this day. His music has influenced a heck of a
lot of people, which is more than you can say about many of those that came
before and after the Dolls. Johansen is a legend and his death makes the world
of rock music far less interesting. R.I.P.
