CD Review: Dave Specter’s Live At SPACE (2025)

Dave Specter is the secret weapon of the contemporary Chicago blues scene. A guitarist of extraordinary talent, Specter is well-versed in, and adept at melding blues, jazz, and rock into a singular, unique style. He’s kept the flame burning for blues music in his hometown, and although he doesn’t seem to venture far beyond his Illinois base too often, he’s helped promote and support other artists as a co-founder of SPACE, the Evanston IL club that features a wealth of performers of the blues, folk, jazz, and rock persuasion. Even a glance at the club’s upcoming schedule – which includes a slate of ‘must-see’ artists like the Sun Ra Arkestra, Don Flemons, Cedric Burnside, Roseanne Cash, NRBQ, and Walter Trout – is enough to make any music enthusiast not in Chicago green with envy.

If Specter isn’t as well known to the casual blues fan, it’s not for lack of anything. The guitarist has played with some of the finest in the blues universe, artists like Sam Lay (Paul Butterfield Blues Band), Hubert Sumlin (Howlin’ Wolf’s guitarist), and Son Seals, and he’s produced a slew of records by talented bluesfolk. His relationship with the legendary Delmark Records goes back roughly 35 years, and the recently-released Live At SPACE album is Specter’s 14th release with the esteemed blues label. Specter doesn’t get nearly the respect he’s earned, nor the attention he deserves, but his legion of loyal fans wait in anticipation for each new album.

Dave Specter’s Live At SPACE

Specter’s Live At SPACE isn’t his first live effort – the wonderful Live In Chicago came in 2008, and the equally-engaging Live In Europe way back in 1995 (with soulful vocalist Tad Robinson on the microphone). Still, 40 years into his career, Specter pursues growth as an artist and Live At SPACE displays a still-creative performer using his guitar as the brush and the stage as his canvas. It helps that his firecracker band, comprised of keyboardist/vocalist Brother John Kattke, bassist Rodrigo Mantovani, and drummer Marty Blinder, has developed a closeknit musical chemistry with the bandleader and is skilled enough to follow his every move on stage. The result is an entertaining and enticing live performance that would thrill any Chicago blues fan.

Live At SPACE opens with a pair of rambunctious instrumentals – “Rumba & Tonic” and “Alley Walk” – that are reminiscent of Booker T. & the M.G.’s and Stax Records. The former offers up an exotic, jazzy guitar intro and a loping rhythm that sways from one speaker to the other, with some elegant guitar licks along the way. Kattke adds a rollicking piano jam in the middle, followed by some Southern-fried keyboards. The latter song offers up more of a menacingly slow-paced, low-slung groove that allows the band to revel in some free-wheeling instrumentation like Specter’s livewire fretwork, Blinder’s jazzy brushes, and Mantovani’s fluid bass lines. It’s an invigorating performance that, at nearly six minutes, still ends too soon. A cover of the 1962 Otis Rush single “Homework,” by way of the J. Geils Band, is a clever amalgam of both versions, jazzy six-string flourishes and soulful vox vying with Kattke’s lively keys.  

(Not The) Same Old Blues

Specter’s own “Blues From the Inside Out” offers a jaunty, up-tempo performance that matches its sly lyrics to a jump-blues framework with plenty of jazzy guitar and a swinging rhythm while the original “Chicago Style” is both a reverential tribute to those who came before, from Howlin’ Wolf to Otis Clay, while establishing a Chicago blues sound for the new millennium, with vibrant guitarplay, hearty vocals, and an infectious walking rhythm. A cover of Memphis music legend Don Nix’s “Same Old Blues” (originally recorded by Freddie King) is a pastiche of 70 years of rhythm and blues history, honoring the soulful original while embellishing it with some hot licks and subtle, yet powerful Gospel-tinged keyboards. Specter’s original “March Through the Darkness” offers an uplifting, almost anthemic performance marrying a spiritual, Staples Family vibe to Specter’s gorgeous fretwork and Kattke’s soulful, Booker T-styled keyboard runs. 

A cover of the traditional folk song “Deep Elem Blues,” best known as recorded in 1935 by country outfit the Shelton Brothers, but resurrected in 1981 by the Grateful Dead as an Americana-styled excuse for extended jams, hews closer to the Dead’s version in spirit, but puts a ‘Chicago blues’ stamp on the song with a distinct Midwest vocal drawl, lively guitar strokes, and a funky groove punctuated by Kattke’s honky-tonk piano-pounding. Specter’s take on the great Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Bluebird Blues” is a blissful blues romp with heartbreak vox, late-night piano trills, and nuanced but emotionally-powerful guitarplay while Specter’s reverent take on Chicago blues legend Magic Sam Maghett’s “Ridin’ High” closes the album with an upbeat, intoxicating blend of Chicago-styled guitar pyrotechnics delivered against an exhilarating rhythm track.    

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Dave Specter may not be as well known as some of his contemporaries, but he’s been a constant presence on the Chicago blues scene for better than four decades – so long that he’s helped refine and define the city’s traditional sound with disparate elements that have expanded and improved upon what stalwarts like Tampa Red, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Paul Butterfield, and others had accomplished. Live At SPACE captures a March 2024 show by the underrated guitarist and it documents a performance without peer, as electric and entertaining a blues album as you’ll hear this year, or any other. If you’re a blues fan and haven’t yet picked up Dave Specter, you owe it to yourself to check out the transcendent performance offered by Live At SPACE. (Delmark Records, released June 6th, 2025) 

Also on That Devil Music:
Dave Specter’s Live In Chicago CD review

Buy the album from Amazon: Dave Specter’s Live At SPACE

CD Review: Pink Floyd’s Pink Floyd at Pompeii MCMLXXII (2025)

An often-bootlegged, fan-favorite performance(s) by classic rock legends Pink Floyd, the band’s four nights at the Roman Amphitheatre in Pompeii, Italy in October 1971 was filmed by director Adrian Maben and released as a concert movie in 1972. It was expanded from 60 to 80 minutes for re-release in ’73, and finally made its way stateside the following year, grossing roughly $2 million at the U.S. movie box office (pretty good for those days).

The performance has released on home video formats several times over the years, and was restored to 4k resolution for an April 2025 theatrical release. For whatever reasons, however, the performance has never received proper CD release, appearing in truncated form on the 2016 Obfusc/ation box set, leaving it up to bootleggers like The Swingin’ Pig and Black Cat Records to satisfy fan demand in the Floyd marketplace with dodgy, illicit (albeit entertaining) CD releases.

Pink Floyd’s Pink Floyd at Pompeii MCMLXXII

At long last, Pink Floyd at Pompeii MCMLXXII restores the concert to its full-length across two CDs and long-suffering Floyd fans should be overjoyed. The sound quality is excellent, beating the pants off previous bootleg versions, and although the tracks could have been split more evenly between the two discs (CD2 is a spry 18 minutes), that’s a minor cavil at best. The performance is awe-inspiring, the material falling into the band’s proggy, space-rock period around Atom Heart Mother and Meddle, with trippy performances of the latter album’s “Echoes” and “One of These Days” that presage then-on-the-horizon Dark Side of the Moon.

There are nods to Floyd’s formidable Syd-embroidered psychedelic past with “A Saucerful of Secrets” and “Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun” as well as Ummagumma’s celestial classic “Careful With That Axe Eugene” and the oddball obscurity “Mademoiselle Nobs,” a curious country blues vamp. This is primo grade Pink Floyd at its experimental and innovative best, and a long overdue release from one of classic rock’s signature outfits. (Columbia Records, released April 25th, 2025) Grade: A+
   
Buy the CD from Amazon: Pink Floyd’s Pink Floyd at Pompeii MCMLXXII

CD Review: Willie Nile’s The Great Yellow Light (2025)

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

Buy the album from Amazon: Willie Nile’s The Great Yellow Light

Also on That Devil Music:
Willie Nile - Positively Bob: Willie Nile Sings Bob Dylan review
Willie Nile - Children of Paradise review
Willie Nile - Beautiful Wreck of the World review

CD Review: Old Town Crier's Peterson Motel (2025)

Jim Lough a/k/a Old Town Crier got in touch to let me know that he has a brand spankin’ new album up on Bandcamp that I needed to check out. Curious, and always psyched to hear from Jim – I’ve reviewed previous Old Town Crier recordings like the four-song EP Motion Blur earlier this year, and the full-length A Night with Old Town Crier back in 2023 – I hustled over to Bandcamp and downloaded his latest five-song EP, Peterson Motel. Like its predecessors, half the proceeds from the EP’s sales will go to charity, in this case the ACLU, which can use the cash to, you know…fund its fight to keep democracy from dying in the good ol’ U.S. of A…

Old Town Crier’s Peterson Motel

Also like its predecessors, Peterson Motel rocks with the joyous abandon of the last day of school before summer vacation. The cover art – an antiquated photo of the sort of motor lodge that used to dot the highways of America in the 1950s and ‘60s – is a hint of the familiar sounds you’ll catch from the songs. The EP’s opening track, “Goodbye Jimmy D,” is an ode to the first Hollywood rock star, delivered with an echoey throwback vibe that mixes old-school rockabilly with a cool doo-wop vocal spirit. The breathless “Janeice” is equally engaging, an up-tempo slice of sly power-pop with a big heart and a bigger sound, with enough jangle to the guitarplay to satisfy even the most diehard rocker.

“Room 615” is a mid-tempo twang-banger with an explosive chorus and effective vocals while “Tell Me That You Love Me” is a romantic, ‘60s-styled garage-rock romp with clamorous instrumentation, a busy arrangement, and vocals that vary from a whisper to a shout, with Lough pulling it all together into a single magical performance. EP closer “Truck Drivin’ Man” is, in this scribe’s humble opinion, the finest country song you’ll hear this year…some Nashville type with a big hat and small ambitions could throw some pedal steel on this tune and take it to the top. Lough imbues the song with lovely fretwork and yearning lyrics, providing the performance with reckless country soul.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Peterson Motel offers a lo-fi production aesthetic but high-energy delivery, each and every song a real charmer with smart lyrics and carefully-crafted instrumentation. Lough did it all himself this time around, without a band and with only ‘Riley Coyote’ providing backing lyrics. The results speak for themselves – Lough, as ‘Old Town Crier’ – is a fine songwriter and an intuitive musician that brings fresh energy to old sounds on Peterson Motel. (Stinkbug Records, released May 21st, 2025)

Buy the CD or download from Bandcamp: Old Town Crier’s Peterson Motel

CD Review: Rich Pagano + the Sugarcane Cups’ Hold Still Light Escapes (2025)

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Rich Pagano & the Sugarcane Cups, which is our loss ‘cause Rich is a helluva singer, songwriter, and musician, as evidenced by Hold Still Light Escapes, his sophomore effort. An impressive and altogether amazing collection of lovingly-crafted songs, Hold Still Light Escapes documents Pagano’s late son Nic’s five-year substance abuse disorder, with the songs inspired by their texts, journals, and personal experiences. Heady stuff, to be sure, and such closely-held, obvious ‘labors of love’ sometimes fall flat – not this one! Pagano’s skills as a wordsmith and musician propel these ten songs firmly into classic rock territory, i.e. lots of infectious melodies, chiming guitars, and smart lyrics.

Rich Pagano + the Sugarcane Cups’ Hold Still Light Escapes

Hold Still Light Escapes opens with the title track, a rootsy rocker with cautiously optimistic, hopeful lyrics with Pagano’s vox nearly hidden in the mix, and some great guitarplay from former Jason & the Scorchers/John Mellencamp/Hearts & Minds guitar-wrangler Andy York. The more up-tempo “Slowly” evinces a garage-rock vibe, mostly due to Kevin Bents’ tasty keyboards work, while the lyrics showcase the positivity of putting the past behind us and moving forward with life.

The somber semi-balled “4th of July” offers insight and support of the lost and lonely with a gorgeous soundtrack reminiscent of Dave Alvin while “True Love” is an enchanting story-song about emergence and perseverance that sports nuanced vocals and instrumentation that creates a gossamer, hypnotic listening experience. The wry “Mother Teresa” is deceptively brilliant – a cautionary tale, perhaps, of the allure and struggles of addiction – the mid-tempo song diving into R&B territory with a blast of Craig Dreyer’s sax solo and subtle guitar from Jack Petruzzelli.

“Huntington Beach” may be my favorite song on Hold Still Light Escapes, a brilliant, cinematic portrait of addiction with poetic lyrics worthy of Bukowski and a sparse instrumental backdrop that swells in grandeur with Pagano’s crescendo of drumbeats. The confessional “Useless” veers directly into Pete Townshend and the Who with great vocals, whipsmart lyrics, and a 1970s-styled, radio-friendly arrangement. The last of the CD’s main tracks, “At the End of the Day” is a Gospel-tinged tale of survival and forgiveness provided gravitas by Pagano’s earnest vocals combined with Brian Mitchell’s reverent keyboards, with guitarist Ann Klein laying low in the groove.   

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Giving his fans more bang for their bucks, Pagano has fleshed out Hold Still Light Escapes with a half-dozen cool “bonus” tracks, including a powerful live acoustic version of “Useless” and solid, rocking, non-LP live performances of “Ariel’s Return” and “Rearview St. June,” from the self-titled 2009 Rich Pagano + the Sugarcane Cups album. The CD closes with the raw, immediate, and heartfelt “Something To Live For,” providing a poignant end to Hold Still Light Escapes. Net proceeds from the CD benefit The Nic Pagano LGBTQIA+ Scholarship for Recovery (www.releaserecoveryfoundation.org/lgbtqia), so what are you waiting for? Grade: A (self-produced, released 2024)

Buy the CD direct: Rich Pagano + the Sugarcane Cups’ Hold Still Light Escapes

CD Review: Iron City Houserockers’ Blood On the Bricks (1981/2025)

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.

Critically-acclaimed but commercially-challenged, previous IC Houserockers’ albums like 1979’s Love’s So Tough and the following year’s Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive) provided an introduction to singer, songwriter, and guitarist Joe Grushecky, a street-smart ‘Steel City’ ruffian whose working class roots and insightful, poetic lyrics were backed by a tough-as-nails guitar-rock sound that, at the turn of the decade, was both passé and forward-thinking, presaging the ‘Heartland Rock’ of John Mellencamp and Steve Earle as well as the emerging superstardom of Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen.

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)

Buy the CD from Amazon: Iron City Houserockers’ Blood On the Bricks

CD Review: Various Artists - Motor City Is Burning (2025)

A hell of a lot of great music has come out of Detroit, Michigan and surrounding areas, from blues and soul artists like John Lee Hooker and Aretha Franklin to the Motown machine of the 1960s, which featured talents like the Temptations, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, and the Supremes, among many others. The Motor City has also made a name for itself in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, beginning with Mitch Ryder’s Detroit Wheels in the early 1960s and Russ Gibbs’ mid-decade Grande Ballroom Scene, which made stars of the Stooges and MC5, with the thread running through 1980s-era bands like Destroy All Monsters, the Mutants, and the Romantics to ‘90s trailblazers like the Gories, the Detroit Cobras, and the White Stripes.

For those of us that grew up listening to – and loving – Detroit rock, however, the most exiting era of the city’s rock scene was roughly between 1967 and 1977, a ten-year period that saw the emergence and ascendance of the scene to a commercial pinnacle in the form of artists like Bob Seger and Ted Nugent. This is, more or less, the period chronicled by Cherry Red Records’ new historical compilation, Motor City Is Burning: A Michigan Anthology 1965-1972. Comprised of 66 songs spread across three discs and packaged in a study cardboard clamshell with an accompanying booklet, Motor City Is Burning offers up tracks by some of the usual suspects (Ryder, Stooges, MC5) along with some lesser-known but beloved bands (SRC, Brownsville Station, Frijid Pink, The Frost) and more than a few welcome surprises and rarities.

Motor City Is Burning

The first CD is loaded with mostly 1960s-era goodies, taking on a distinct, Nuggets-styled garage-rock vibe, especially since it opens with the classic “96 Tears” from ? & the Mysterians. Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels are represented by the irrepressible “Jenny Take A Ride” and the disc offers up other essential rock goodies like Dick Wagner & the Frost (“Mystery Man”), former Grand Funk RR Svengali Terry Knight’s early band the Pack (a psych-drenched cover of the Stones’ “Satisfaction”) and, hailing from Niles MI, Tommy James & the Shondells’ deep cut “I’m Alive” (a psych-rock delicacy). Scot Richard Case (SRC) and the Rationals are two of my all-time fave Detroit outfits, and they offer a devastating one-two punch with the former’s scorching take on the Skip James’ blues classic “I’m So Glad” and the latter with an electrifying cover of the Kinks’ B-side “I Need You.”

There are some fine obscurities here, too, like the Ted Lucas-fronted Spike Drivers’ 1966 folk-rock single “Baby Won’t You Let Me Tell You How I Lost My Mind”; the Shaggs’ (no, not that one) 1969 flapjack “She Makes Me Happy,” with its cool Byrdsian twang; the Troyes’ raging 1967 single “Help Me Find Myself”; or the Apostles’ 1967 melding of the Cadets and the Kinks on “Stranded In the Jungle.” The disc includes a couple of intriguing, never-before-released tracks in Dearborn City Limits’ “Come See About Me,” a poppy, keyboard-driven rocker believed to have been waxed in 1966 that could have been a radio hit, and the enigmatic Felix’s 1968 “Outside Woman Blues,” a blues-rocker in a Cream vein that is exceedingly rare. Throw in groovy tracks by long-gone rockers like Tidal Waves, the Solitary Confinement, the Innsmen, the Thyme, and the King’s Court and you have an inspired compilation already.

Scot Richard Case (SRC)

Disc two catches the scene as it transitions from the garage to the revered Grande Ballroom and then onto festival stages in both Michigan and, in some instances, nationwide. Focusing largely on hard rock, this is where heavy hitters like the Stooges (their timeless “1969” still packs a wallop, like a crowbar to yer eardrums), MC5 (the buoyant, complex “Teenage Lust”), Grand Funk Railroad (from Flint, but close enough for their cover of Eric Burdon’s “Inside Looking Out” to wrench your cerebellum), and Alice Cooper (who remade their image in the Motor City and came up with the eerie “Halo of Flies”). The disc includes a couple of beloved “also-rans” in SRC (the former Scot Richard Case), whose “Up All Night” channels the Pretty Things with jolt of Motor City madness and Savage Grace, whose ethereal 1970 cover of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” gives Jimi a run for his money.

Detroit Rock, Soul & Funk   

Cub Koda & Brownsville Station

 

The second disc also includes a handful of worthy bands that should have been a hell of a lot bigger, starting with Cub Koda’s almighty Brownsville Station. Although the band released seven albums of blues-tinted rock circa 1970-1978, they remain best-known for their 1973 novelty hit “Smokin’ In the Boys Room.” As shown by their rowdy 1970 cover of Bo Diddley’s “Road Runner,” which features Koda’s fiery guitarplay and a swinging rhythm track, they were a hell of a lot more than that humorous, if ultimately misbegotten single. Frijid Pink were another “coulda, shoulda” outfit, remembered for their hit cover of “House of the Rising Sun.” But “Pain In My Heart,” from their 1970 sophomore effort, displays a harder-rock facet of the band’s talents. There are also some relatively unknown gems here, too, like the previously-unreleased livewire 1972 track “Wake Up People,” a skronky guitar ‘n’ keyboards rave-up from Kopperfield. Power trio Head Over Heels is another shoulda-been band, and their “Right Away” is a deliciously bluesy rocker while rare singles by bands like the Glass Sun, Resolution, and Sunshine round out the disc.  

The third CD of Motor City Is Burning is probably the most pleasantly surprising of the three, largely comprised of soul and funk jams from Michigan artists like the Temptations, Diana Ross & the Supremes, Chairmen of the Board, and Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. The disc isn’t all just Motown hits, although the Temps’ 1970 single “Ball of Confusion” is a prime slab o’ psychedelic soul. Often times, producer/curator David Wells went with the lesser-known choices. The Supremes’ “Reflections” – a classic Holland-Dozier-Holland single – offers a severely underappreciated and wistful performance by Ms. Ross while the Miracles’ “Flower Girl” is pop-soul at its very best. Chanteuse Freda Payne’s 1971 anti-war single “Bring the Boys Home” is a gorgeous example of the power of song and Chairmen of the Board’s “Hanging On To A Memory” is a boiling pot of funk with frontman General Johnson belting out the vox with the incredible Funkadelic laying down the backing groove.      

As for the non-Motown tracks on the disc, there’s a wealth of great material to be explored, beginning with the early (1970) Parliament song “I Call My Baby Pussycat,” which pairs a rockin’ intro to a high-voltage soundtrack with funky flow and chaotic instrumentation and vox. Blues legend John Lee Hooker is represented by the anthology’s title track, “The Motor City Is Burning” a stone-cold boogie-rock tune with scrappy guitar and a heart full of napalm. The L.A. based Sussex Records label wasn’t around for long (1969-1975) but they released several cool records by Detroit artists like Dennis Coffey & the Detroit Guitar Band (the Top 10 instrumental hit “Scorpio”) and Sixto Rodriguez (discovered and produced by Coffey, it would take audiences 40+ years to discover his sublime, Dylanesque “Inner City Blues”). Rare Earth was Motown’s “rock” imprint, but they were also a band whose 1968 “Sidewalk Café” offers up a pulse-quickening joyful noise mixing rock and soul. Another band on the label was the hard-rockin’ Sunday Funnies, whose 1971 single “Walk Down the Path of Freedom” reminds one of a bluesier Bob Seger with loudly-spinning guitars and keyboards. Another underrated Detroit rocker, Ruth Copeland’s cover of the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is pure fire & brimstone with fatback git licks courtesy of Funkadelic’s Eddie Hazel and Ray Monette, from Dennis Coffey’s band.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

To be honest, Cherry Red had me hooked with the initial premise, and I have to say that producer Wells did a yeoman’s job in collecting some tasty treats from the deepest, funkiest vaults of Motor City rock ‘n’ soul for this anthology. Sure, there are plenty of “marquee” attractions here, artists of a high degree of familiarity to attract the punters. It’s the obscurities and rarities found in the other grooves, however, that make Motor City Is Burning both an entertaining and historical collection of performances from one of the grandest, and grittiest music scenes to ever take root in the continental U.S., a scene that continues to burn out of control to this day. Grade: A+ (Grapefruit Records/Cherry Red, released March 17th, 2025)

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

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

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

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

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CD Review: White Animals' Star Time (2024)

The White Animals were one of the first original rock bands to hit the fledgling late ‘70s Nashville rock scene, and they remained one of the most popular regional acts throughout much of the 1980s. The White Animals’ dub-styled college radio-friendly cover of “These Boots Are Made For Walking” brought the Nancy Sinatra oldie to an entirely different generation but all too often overshadows the truth that the White Animals were one of the first bands to take lessons from Prince Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry by incorporating Jamaican dub influence into what were inherently rock ‘n’ roll songs before the Clash, the Police, or even Killing Joke did so…  

Beneath the novelty and the cover songs, however, was the beating heart of a skilled and creative rock ‘n’ roll band in thrall to a myriad of influences. As the band’s primary songwriters Kevin Gray and Steve Boyd grew in confidence, so too did their original material display heightened boldness and sophistication, albums like 1982’s Lost Weekend, 1984’s Ecstasy, their self-titled 1986 LP, and 1987 swansong, In the Last Days, worthy of reissuing and rediscovery by a new generation. After a seven-year run that included video airplay on MTV and opening slots for bands like the Ramones and Talking Head, the band split up. A modestly-successful, 17-song compilation CD titled 3,000 Nites In Babylon was released in 2000, followed shortly thereafter by a 2001 studio album, The White Animals.

White Animals’ Star Time

Flash-forward 23 years and White Animals (no “The” this time) have released their first studio album in decades in Star Time, a fab 12-song collection that – no surprise, really – shows that the band hasn’t lost a step during its lengthy hiatus. Featuring four/fifths of the original band (keyboardist Tim Coats is AWOL), Star Time provides 37 jam-packed minutes of high-octane rock ‘n’ roll cheap thrills. Album-opener “My Baby Put Me On the Shelf” is the best 1960s-inspired garage-rock rave-up that was never recorded by the Seeds, with Rich Parks and Kevin Gray’s screeching guitarplay propelled by the dynamite rhythm section of bassist Steve Boyd and drummer Ray Crabtree, the band delivering hints of the vocal harmonies they’re capable of embellishing their material with.

Star Time only gets better from this point forward … “In A Post-Apocalyptic World (Would You Be My Girl?)” is a delightfully wry power-pop tune with great vocals and an infectious melody while “Ready To Go” is a bluesy romper-stomper with the best use of echo that I’ve heard since my bong-influenced wayward youth. The Delta-dirty “Chanty” is even bluesier, with serpentine guitar and eerie, prison-gang styled call-and-response vocals. It’s a cool performance with an undeniable presence that unexpectedly switches gears mid-song. “I Tried Like Heck” is vintage White Animals, an unabashed pop song with a rock ‘n’ roll edge, inventive fretwork underlining the vocals, and a driving rhythm that’s heavy on Crabtree’s powerful big beats. The heartbreak of “Back Around” is pure 1980s-era college radio rock with a popish vibe, wistful vocals, and rich instrumentation which weaves a gorgeous melody from the chaos.

Something the White Animals did sparingly back in the day was any song with a hint of country influence (they were young soul rebels living in Nashville), but the twangy country-rock of “When It All Came Down” is provided a counterpoint in Parks’ biting, caustic guitar licks. The song’s honky-tonk rhythms and rootsy Americana sound feel like a road untraveled. The jaunty, up-tempo “Unlucky In Love” evinces a similar alt-country pathos and seems more tongue-in-cheek than its predecessor, if no less entertaining. It wouldn’t be a White Animals album without a fanciful cover tune, and for Star Time that’s a mesmerizing, electrifying dub-styled version of “Man of Constant Sorrow” (titled “Man of Constant Dread”). Suffice it to say that previous covers of the antique folk gem by the Stanly Brothers, Bob Dylan, or even Ginger Baker’s Air Force sounded nothing like this.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There’s really not a duff song to be found on Star Time, which finds the White Animals to be every bit as daring, creative, and carefree as the best of their 1980s-era albums. I don’t know why they never got a major label deal back in the day – maybe they didn’t really want one, preferring their independent Dread Beat label and the freedom it provided – but the White Animals in their prime were every bit as good as better-known contemporaries like Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, or Camper Von Beethoven while sounding absolutely like none of them. Star Time rocks from start to finish and, hopefully, the guys won’t wait another 23 years before rewarding their fans with another banger of an album! (Dread Beat Records, 2024)

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

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

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

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The Reverend's Summer 2024 Playlist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CD Review: Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers’ Can’t Outrun A Memory (2024)

“Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day;
rage, rage against the dying of the light.” – Dylan Thomas, 1947

If rock ‘n’ roll has the equivalent of Dylan Thomas’s famed protagonist, it would be Joe Grushecky. The Pittsburgh rocker has been fighting the good fight since the mid-‘70s, first with the Iron City Houserockers, and later as Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers. Joe released four critically-acclaimed albums between 1979 and 1983 with his former band and, since ’89, has released four “solo” and eleven band albums with one version or another of the Houserockers. Even more impressively, he’s accomplished all of this largely outside of the major label infrastructure.

Still, Joe has lived, loved, and sang long enough to realize that, as he so insightfully observed with the title track of his 2018 album, there are “More Yesterdays Than Tomorrows” on his horizon. Joe’s seen his son Johnny grow up and become a valued member of the Houserockers, but lest one think that Mr. Grushecky is ready to pass the torch to a younger generation, here is a brand-new album, Can’t Outrun A Memory, to belie that thought. At an age where his contemporaries have long given up the dream or – even worse – spend their days playing golf or tending to their wine cellar, Grushecky has delivered an album that’s every bit as fierce, ambitious, and defiant as anything he’s ever recorded over the past 45 years.

Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers’ Can’t Outrun A Memory

Can’t Outrun A Memory opens with its poignant title track, a mid-tempo rocker with resigned vocals, big beat rhythms, and resonating guitarplay. “I’ve been thinking that it’s been too long since I listened to that old sad song. When I hear that soulful melody, it stirs something deep inside of me,” Joe sings, partly reminiscing, partly wrestling with ghosts of his past that we all possess. None of us can outrun the memory of past loves, past losses, and the risks we didn’t take (and some of those we did). With Grushecky’s gorgeous throwback guitar lines anchoring the song, embroidered by  Danny Gochnour’s intricate fretwork, Joe succinctly states, “time keeps marching on, blink an eye and it’s all gone,” drawing on his own experiences and losses to fuel the song’s wistful lyrics.

By contrast, “Just Drive” is more laid-back, with Johnny Grushecky’s elegant acoustic guitar strum opening and with lovely echoed intertwined electric guitars swirling around the mix above cautious, almost hesitant instrumentation. For those of us without a yacht to chill out on, driving around town, or out in the country, in our car is a form of meditation that provides solace from the barbed-wire existence of everyday life. It reminds me a lot of John Hiatt’s “Drive South,” but with more “Rust Belt” soul to its overall sound, the song dominated by Joe’s yearning vocals. Joe says of the song, “this one is for all of us who ever thought about getting away from it all and jumping into the car to drive off into to the sunset.”

An up-tempo, anthemic rocker with elements of the British Invasion seeping in at the edges, “This Is Who We Are” is the sort of populist message that Grushecky excels at, rock ‘n’ roll as balm for the soul. Singing above a massive drumbeat (courtesy of the ever-reliable Joffo Simmons), with Jeff Garrison’s fluid bass lines providing a rhythmic foundation, Joe shares his vision of the American dream: “I want a home on a quiet street, I just want to be left in peace. When I kiss my kids goodnight, I pray everything’s gonna be all right.” Grushecky’s vocals race out of the speakers like a high-speed chase, lyrically referencing both Dylan and his own past (“I had a good time but got out alive”), roaring out a message of American unity that seems to have been lost in our current quarrel over the soul of the country while guitars duel in the background. “My wife suggested this title to me,” says Joe. “It’s about where we are right now. I’m living on a quiet street, going to work every day, and hoping that we turn ourselves around for a better life for our children.”

Joe Grushecky photo by Danny Clinch, courtesy Omnivore Recordings

Here In ‘68

Grushecky has long been lauded as a brilliant lyricist, yet it’s amazing and inspiring that he can still dig into his memory and experience to pull out a plum as perfectly-formed as “Here In ’68.” A look back at one of the most tumultuous years in American history, Joe name checks Viet Nam, the Kennedy and King assassinations, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and much, much more in a vivid lyrical history of the year that is punctuated by the poetic refrain “I can smell the smoke from a distance, feel the fire burning in my bones, hold out for hope peace love and desire, question everything that I’ve ever known, trying hard to keep the faith.” It’s a powerful song, Gochnour’s effervescent electric guitar providing a strong counterpoint to Johnny G’s subtle acoustic patterns, while Simmons and Garrison provide a strong, supportive rhythmic backdrop.   

Grushecky seldom covers other artist’s songs on his albums so, when he does, it’s an important moment worth paying attention to. Much as he did with “Old Man’s Bar” and “Junior’s Bar” on the I.C. Houserockers’ sophomore album, here Joe pairs the classic Animals’ track “We Gotta Get Outta This Place” with his own “Living In Coal Country” as matching blue-collar ballads. Eric Burdon delivered a powerful version of the Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil song for the Animals in 1965, and while Grushecky and the Houserockers basically follow that Top 20 hit’s original blueprint, they roughen up the edges and amplify the overall vibe with louder instrumentation and a high-octane arrangement. Garrison’s full-throated bass licks, for instance, build upon Chas Chandler’s original instrumentation, taking the song further onto blues turf.  

It’s the perfect lead-in to “Living In Coal Country,” a tuff-as-nails rocker with Joe’s mournful harmonica and raging vocals, which are accompanied by scorched earth guitars and jackhammer rhythms that drive home the lyrical message. With devastating imagery, Joe snarls “while the company blows up another mountain top, the brown dust mixes with the falling rain. When you do a deal with the devil, you lose all rights to complain.” It’s a protest song, and a wickedly surgical one at that, the singer’s anger at the region’s poverty, addiction, and economic desolation cutting like a scalpel to your conscious. “Both sides of my family were coal miners,” says Joe. “I grew up in coal country. When we went to visit relatives, we drove from one ‘coal patch’ town populated by company houses to another. I know these people and I wanted to tell their story.”

Until I See You Again

“Until I See You Again” is, in my humble opinion, the best song on Can’t Outrun A Memory, a heartfelt ode to that channels a great deal of emotion without ever becoming the least bit maudlin. Remembering those souls we’ve lost – and we all have a similar list of long-gone friends and family who have affected our lives in untold ways – Joe joyfully declares with the chorus “let’s raise our glasses and drink a toast, to all the ones that we love most. To our brothers and sisters and our best friends, I’ll keep you in my heart until I see you again.” The song’s buoyant rhythms and precise-yet-rockin’ instrumentation supports Joe’s electrifying vocals. “This one is about my old friends and how we had so much fun back in the day,” says Joe. “I miss them every day. I wanted to salute all our friends and family both here and gone.”

Can’t Outrun A Memory closes with “Let’s Cross the Bridge,” a nuanced take on life and mortality. Singing above a running river of instrumentation with ringing guitars and backing harmonies, Joe admits that “you can rage on forever, you can rage until you die, or go searching for an answer, and ask yourself the reason why.” With an almost Gospel fervor, Joe invites us all to step out of the darkness and into the light, to throw off the chains of the past. With reverent keyboard fills amping up the emotion, Joe and the musicians raise their voices in a joyous chorus that promises a better life is within our grasp.

It’s not the first time that Grushecky has visited this territory – he covered the 1930s-era Gospel song “Ain’t No Grave” on More Yesterdays Than Tomorrows – but it’s an inspired (and unexpected) spiritual moment nonetheless. The CD includes a brace of bonus tracks, including a bluesy, horn-driven take on “Sleeping Dog,” and powerful, inspired acoustic takes of “Living In Coal Country” (with mournful harmonica) and “Here In ‘68” that would make Woody Guthrie smile. The studio outtake “Leave Well Enough Alone” is a sizzling slab o’ energetic James Brown-styled funk with a hard luck tale that would be more than good enough for any other artist’s album, but sounds out of place compared to the rest of the material on Can’t Outrun A Memory.  
   

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

If Grushecky’s last album concerned itself with mortality and legacy, Can’t Outrun A Memory deals with how we get to the end of the road…do we seize each day with unbridled energy, or do we allow entropy to creep into the short time we have on this spinning orb. Memories provide a signpost to the future and, for many, music allows us to approach the dying of the light with no regrets. Meeting Joe for the first time at a 1995 show in Nashville, I asked him why a middle-aged man would give up his job to hit the road with his band. Grushecky simply smiled and said, “it’s rock ‘n’ roll, man, it’s rock ‘n’ roll…” Nearly three decades since that meeting, Joe and the gang – Thomas’s “wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight” – are still burning bright. If Can’t Outrun A Memory is any indication, Joe’s gonna keep on rockin’ until they turn out the lights… (Omnivore Recordings, released July 12th, 2024)

Buy the CD from Amazon: Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers’ Can’t Outrun A Memory

Also on That Devil Music:
Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers’ More Yesterdays Than Tomorrows review
Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers’ True Companion review
Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers’ American Babylon review
Joe Grushecky’s It’s In My Song review

CD Review: Johnny Thunders & Patti Palladin's Copy Cats (2024)

At this point in the time-space continuum, singer, songwriter, and guitarist Johnny Thunders (née John Genzale) is more myth than man. It’s been – give or take – some 50 years since Thunders burst onto an increasingly prog-oriented rock ‘n’ roll scene like a hurricane-strength gust, debuting his ramshackle six-string skills and idolatrous Keith Richards mimicry for the masses with 1973’s self-titled debut album from the New York Dolls. A second, more polished Dolls LP appeared the following year, the Shadow Morton-produced Too Much Too Soon inspiring and influencing a generation of musicians to follow Thunders’ three-chord tsunami with variations on his style.

Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers

Musicians and fanatical gutter-rockers like myself may have been the only people to actually buy either New York Dolls album, and the band broke up in 1975 as Thunders – among other band members (he wasn’t alone in his afflictions) – began sinking into the drug addiction that would plague the remainder of his too-brief existence. The second chapter in the Thunders legend began with the formation of the Heartbreakers with former Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan along with Television bassist Richard Hell and guitarist Walter Lure from NYC punks the Demons. The bassist quickly bailed out to form Richard Hell & the Voidoids, as there was only room for one ‘King Junkie’ in the Heartbreakers; Hell was replaced on the fat strings by Billy Rath.

The Heartbreakers were every bit as short-lived as the Dolls had been, releasing but a single, albeit often-reissued 1977 album, L.A.M.F. on the Track Records label. More popular on the other side of the pond than stateside, the Heartbreakers joined the Anarchy Tour of the U.K. with the Clash and the Damned, solidifying their British audience. But when Track went bankrupt, the band broke up. Thunders stayed in London and recorded his influential 1978 solo album, So Alone, with a cast of friends like Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott, Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols, and special guests like Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), Steve Marriott (Humble Pie), and Peter Perrett (The Only Ones).

Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers

With both the Dolls and the Heartbreakers (temporarily) in the rearview mirror, Thunders moved from the U.K. to Detroit in 1980, where he performed in a band called Gang War with former MC5 axe-wielder Wayne Kramer. From there, there would be various Heartbreakers reunions, then back to Europe, Thunders and his family living in Paris and Stockholm while the guitarist released a series of solo albums on dodgy, often fly-by-night labels, recordings typically comprised of a handful of studio tracks padded out with (often) poorly-recorded live performances. Some of these albums were pretty good (1984’s acoustic Hurt Me, 1985’s Que Sera Sera) and some were mighty ugly (1982’s In Cold Blood, 1983’s Diary of A Lover).   

One of the best representations of Thunders’ talents was released in 1988 and passed by without notice by all but the most fervent of the guitarist’s fans. Recorded in London and inspired by John Lennon’s Rock ‘n’ Roll album, Copy Cats is an affecting and heartfelt collection of vintage 1950s and ‘60s cover tunes that influenced Thunders in some way or another. The guitarist shares the spotlight on Copy Cats with singer Patti Palladin, a NYC veteran who was one-half of the punk duo Snatch and a former member of the Flying Lizards. Palladin also provided backing vocals for So Alone and Que Sera Sera, so the two already had a history and musical chemistry together. Palladin is also credited as producer for the album, which was reissued in 2023 for its 35th anniversary by Jungle Records in the U.K.

Johnny Thunders & Patti Palladin’s Copy Cats

Johnny Thunders

The album’s name came from a Gary “U.S.” Bonds song, “Copycat,” which was recorded but never released, and Thunders and Palladin called in all their chips to piece together a solid studio band to record the songs. Former Heartbreakers Billy Rath and Jerry Nolan provided the rhythm section, which was accompanied by talents like guitarists John Perry (The Only Ones) and Henri Padovani (Wayne County & the Electric Chairs) and backing vocalists Chrissie Hynde and Jayne/Wayne County, and a wealth of other musicians, including a full-blown horn section. The song selection for Copy Cats was truly inspired, ranging from psychotic R&B (Screamin’ Jay Hopkins) and psych-pop (The Seeds) to deep soul (The Chambers Brothers) and obscure proto-Americana (Tarheel Slim).

Jungle Records has seemingly shuffled the order of the tracks with every new reissue of Copy Cats, but the core material remains the same, the label adding two bonus tracks to its 2007 CD reissue (the bawdy, brassy “Let Me Entertain You” and a magnificent, infectiously-rhythmic take on “Love Is Strange”), which appear on the 2023 version, with no further outtakes or additions. What Thunders and Palladin gave us is plenty fab, however – witness the raucous reading of Hawkins’ 1958 song “Alligator Wine,” a delicious swamp-blues stomper with haunted vocals, searing guitar, and kudzu hanging from the studio walls. Thunders’ gritty vocals are tailor-made for Tarheel Slim’s bluesy “Two Time Loser” and perfectly contrast with Palladin’s smoky, sultry vox.

The Elvis Presley recording of “Crawfish” (from the 1958 movie King Creole) serves as the template for Thunders’ cover version here, the guitarist bringing a light-hearted touch to the otherwise heavily-ambient performance. Thunders and Palladin get their girl group-groove on with the Shirelle’s “Baby It’s You,” the duo perfectly capturing the romantic zeal of the original with Palladin’s mesmerizing vocals and Thunders’ masterful acoustic strum. Sky Saxon’s “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine” – a minor 1967 hit for the Seeds – is afforded a similarly yearning performance, Thunders’ wan vocals well-suited for the song’s heartbreak lyrics. Jay & the Americans’ 1962 Top Ten hit “She Cried” is reimagined here as “He Cried,” the performance spotlighting Palladin’s enchanting girl group-styled vocals floating above the song’s rich instrumentation.

The R&B-tinged rocker “I Was Born To Cry” proves that, while Thunders is no Dion DiMucci, he can deliver a powerful and effective vocal performance when so inspired. Originally, Copy Cats closed with the Chanters’ 1954 song “She Wants To Mambo,” performed by Palladin and Thunders with theatrical flair and over-the-top humor similar to David Johansen’s approach to “Stranded In the Jungle” on the Dolls’ Too Much Too Soon. Although Copy Cats only clocks in at roughly 32 minutes (add seven minutes for the bonus tracks on the CD reissue), there are plenty of high-quality rock ‘n’ roll cheap thrills to be had. Thunders’ fretwork is atypically subdued throughout the album – less buzzsaw and more scroll-saw, as it were – the guitarist customizing his licks in service to these reverent performances. Although Thunders’ vocals would never be confused with, say, Mick Jagger’s, he found a perfect musical foil in Patti Palladin, and their collaboration together on what would be the guitarist’s final studio album is pure magic.      

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Johnny Thunders got off the bus in 1991, dying at the St. Peter Guest House in New Orleans at the young, abused age of 38 years, his tortured soul damaged by years of drugs and drink and fleeting notoriety. Even his death is the stuff of legend – was it the cocaine and methadone found in his system by the New Orleans coroner that killed him – or was it the untreated, advanced leukemia that had left his body a gaunt, shambling mess held together with bailing wire and superglue? Despite the family’s pleas, the New Orleans Police Department couldn’t be bothered to investigate the death of just another junkie musician. Or was it foul play? In his 1998 biography, Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones, Dee Dee Ramone claims that “they told me that Johnny had gotten mixed up with some bastards…who ripped him off for his methadone supply. They had given him LSD and then murdered him.”

No matter how he died, over the ensuing years Johnny Thunders has become a Christ figure, an obscure rock ‘n’ roller resurrected by a profitable underground cottage industry of crappy live recordings, dodgy biographies, and questionable documentary films. Decades of rumors and innuendo have made Thunders the avatar of a certain kind of sleazy rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, inspiring bands like Guns N’ Roses, Hanoi Rocks, D Generation, and the Wildhearts, among many others. Although his meager recorded legacy doesn’t support such enduring mythology, it has been artificially propped up by an unfair image of Thunders rather than reality. Separating the man from the myth, Thunders was a guy that just wanted to play his guitar…and he seldom brought more skill, focus, and care to his performances than he did on Copy Cats. (Jungle Records, reissued 2023)

Buy the album from Amazon: Johnny Thunders & Patti Palladin’s Copy Cats

Also on That Devil Music:
The Heartbreakers' L.A.M.F. Live At The Village Gate 1977
The Dirtiest Dozen: Punk's Most Important Bands