Rock ‘n’ Roll Farm Report: Anti-Flag, The Kickbacks, Saga, Michael Sanders & One Nation Tribe, Wolfmother (June 2006)

June 2006

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

ANTI-FLAG – For Blood and Empire
Since punk rockers are an argumentative bunch of boojies under any circumstances, I’m sure that the major label defection of indie hardcore stalwarts Anti-Flag has already been chewed over and spat out on dozens of chat rooms and message boards across the star-spangled ‘net. Maybe the Reverend is too old for this sort of hijinx, or maybe I just don’t give a damn. These ears honestly can’t hear much diff between For Blood and Empire, Anti-Flag’s controversial major label debut, and the three or four other AF CDs that rotate off my shelf and onto the music box from time to time. Let’s take a peek at some of AF’s new major label concerns, shall we? Anti-war? Check. Anti-racist? Check. Anti-corporate? Check. Anti-WTO, “Big Media,” and social injustice? Check, check, and checkmate.
    The music on For Blood and Empire still blisters and peels, the guitars cut all the way down to the bone, and frontman Justin Sane’s vocals still spit out venomous lyrics with an admirable fury. Is Anti-Flag signing with Sony BMG to reach a wider audience with its radical agenda any different than Bad Religion releasing albums through WEA? I say that Justin and crew should grab the cash and hightail it back to Steeltown before the Germans running RCA wake up and realize what they’ve done. In the meantime, all you young punx relax…Anti-Flag still kicks ass and For Blood and Empire is the balls. The Reverend sez so… (RCA Records)

THE KICKBACKS – Motel Stars
Is there room for intelligent music in today’s corporate environment? Probably not, but thank gawd that some bands still have the balls and brains and desire to crank out 90-proof rawk ‘n’ roll. Take, for instance, the Kickbacks. The Boston band’s fourth trip to the plate is an infectious and lively sonic brew of jangling, guitar-driven pop, gilded riff-happy rock, and enough twang to appeal to the Americana crowd. Motel Stars may tip the scales at a lightweight half-hour, but the album’s carefully constructed tunes hit your ears like ten perfectly-timed, three-minute jolts of electricity. Back in the day, once upon a time, in a land far away and all that rubbish, songs like the punchy “Lazy Eye,” the shimmering, dreamy “SSS,” and the wickedly delightful “Lethal Charm” would have been snapped up on 45rpm vinyl by music lovers and blasted by discriminating radio stations out of car radios across the fruited plains. In the modern world, however, where Sturgeon’s law* has been diluted by corporate greed and listener fatigue, the Kickbacks will have to rely on word of mouth and live performances to drive people to their page on CD Baby. It’s worth the trip, though, Motel Stars a long shot at rock stardom but a short walk to some of the highest quality pop-rock jams that your ears will ever enjoy. (Peeled Label Records)
         

SAGA – Trust
Canadian proggers Saga hit the racks this month with Trust, the band’s 17th album and, perhaps, their best effort yet. With thirty years under their creative belts, Saga stands as one of the original graybeards of the prog-rock genre, and with Trust they extend their already impressive rep with a solid collection of melodic rock that combines the best elements of AOR vibe with prog grandiosity. Mainstream critics, corporate hacks that wouldn’t know King Crimson from King Diamond (or King Missile), have pointed to instrumental doodlers such as Mars Volta or Coheed & Cambria as today’s progressive rock bands. Sez who? They should pull their heads (and ears) from their collective patoots!
    Those bands are fine, but if screeching axes alone made a prog-rock band, why isn’t Ted Nugent fronting the Flower Kings, eh? No, Saga is the real deal, the tunes on Trust a sturdy amalgam of perfectly blended, complex instrumentation (driven by guitar and synth/keyboards), imaginative lyrics, soaring vocals, and a musical chemistry that doesn’t happen by chance, but rather through hard work and plenty of nights spent on stage. These guys helped built the foundation for modern prog-rock; hopefully Trust will earn Saga their rightful place in the progressive pantheon. (Inside Out Music)

MICHAEL SANDERS & ONE NATION TRIBE – Servants of A Lesser God
Growing up in the shadows of Motown in London, Ontario, Canadian guitarslinger Michael Sanders may have been poor, but he soaked up some impressive musical influences. At first fronting the brutal hardcore cult band Dyoxen, Sanders later left Canada and made his way to LA to pursue his own unique musical vision. Sanders’ debut, Servants of A Lesser God, brings together a myriad of influences. Fronting the “One Tribe Nation,” a pick-up band of like-minded young talents and grizzled session pros like percussionist Luis Conte and vocalist Bernard Fowler, Sanders strikes with the stealth of a stage magician and the menace of a coiled rattlesnake.
    Servants of A Lesser God runs the gamut of hard rock, blues, jazz, funk, and Latin genres, all of them tied together by Sanders’ amazing six-string abilities. He reminds me a lot of a young Carlos Santana in tone and range, but Sanders aspires to achieve much more. The guitarist is not afraid to sit back and allow his band to fill in these songs with a joyful noise, resulting in the same sort of groundbreaking performances we heard back in the day from titans like Santana and Weather Report. Sanders & One Tribe Nation experiment with both style and sound, creating a satisfying multi-cultural stew and one breathtaking debut. (Esoterica Records)

WOLFMOTHER – Wolfmother
Yeah, so they sound like Led Zeppelin jamming with Black Sabbath in some sort of Jim Morrison wet dream. This is a bad thing, eh? Aussie shrimpboaters Wolfmother wax ecstatic with self-titled debut, pursuing their childhood dreams of a big boot beat and the endless, eternal riff. Yeah, we’ve all heard this sonic wind before, but for those of us who teethed on strats-n-stadium booger rock, Wolfmother is a blast of nostalgia so real you can smell the pot smoke. Besides, any argument about retro-sounds or the derivative nature of Wolfmother’s chosen milieu are ill-conceived and quite possibly stoopid. These songs rock with a fierce passion that trendier popcrit moozak-fantasies like Coldplay or the Arctic Monkeys will never muster in our lifetimes. God bless ‘em, but these boys really wish they were living their bell-bottom dreams back in ’73 (shudder). Slap “Woman” on the box and prepare to have your eardrums slapped back to yer high school daze. It’s just that damn good... (Interscope Records)

Archive Review: Saga’s Worlds Apart Revisited (2007)

There are “musical legends,” and there are bona fide “Musical Legends,” and it would suffice to say that Saga falls into the latter category. While punk was being rediscovered and the “Class of ‘77” anointed in England, Saga was forming in Toronto, part of the late ‘70s prog-rock movement in Canada that spawned bands like Rush and Triumph. Saga fit into the same mold, albeit with slightly more of a pop edge.

The band released its self-titled debut album in 1978, toured constantly, and subsequently cranked out a new album every eighteen months or so through the end of the ‘80s; thirty years after forming, the band still creates vital, spellbinding music. Among the some 20 albums in its extensive discography, Saga has continued to show enormous growth in artistic vision and technical proficiency as a band, making them one of the most respected and popular of the second wave of prog bands with hardcore fans.

Saga’s Worlds Apart Revisited

In 1981 Saga released its major label debut, Worlds Apart, just in time to take advantage of a music revolution partially fueled by the creation of MTV. The album showcased an infectious prog-pop sound that was influenced by Genesis and Gentle Giant, but also displaying a great deal of originality. Beating the subsequent wave of similar-sounding, but geographically-named bands like Asia and Europe by a good year or two, Worlds Apart yielded an AOR-radio hit in the song “On the Loose,” with its accompanying video among the first to be broadcast on the new music video network. Reaching a lofty number 29 on the Billboard pop chart, the album’s success would put Saga on firm footing during the new decade.

In December 2005, around Christmas, Saga appeared onstage in Prattein, Switzerland to perform Worlds Apart in its entirety, almost 25 years after its original release. The performance was recorded on both audio and video with an eye towards future release on CD and DVD, both of which have been delayed but should be released later this year. Since the Reverend was lucky enough to get his greedy little music-loving hands on an advance copy of the two-CD Worlds Apart Revisited set, let me tell you that if you’re a fan of pop-oriented prog and melodic rock, this Saga CD should be placed on your “want list” post-haste.

As stated above, Worlds Apart Revisited features a complete performance of the original album. With much of the same crew in tow from back in ’81 – the foursome of vocalist Michael Sadler, guitarist Ian Crichton, bassist Jim Crichton, and keyboardist Jim Gilmour have played together for better than a quarter-century – these songs sound much like they might have when Saga originally played them at the dawn of the ‘80s. The band’s famous guitar-keyboard interplay is still very much prominent in this performance, the chemistry between Crichton and Gilmour as incredible as that between Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman back in the glory days of Yes. The rest of the band remains equally impressive musically, while Sadler’s vocals are every bit as powerful today as they were when he first cranked up the pipes in 1977.

Alongside well-loved chestnuts like “On the Loose,” “Framed” and “Time’s Up” from Worlds Apart, this two-disc set includes an abundance of vintage material from the band’s first three albums – “Ice Nine,” “How Long” and “Humble Stance” from 1978’s Saga, “See Them Smile” and “You’re Not Alone” from 1979’s Images At Twilight and “Careful Where You Step” from 1980’s Silent Knight; as well as “Scratching the Surface” and “The Pitchman” from Heads Or Tales, the 1983 follow-up to the band’s commercial breakthrough. There’s also a bit of more contemporary material to be found among the 22-songs on Worlds Apart Revisited, including “Keep It Reel” from 2005’s excellent Network and “The Runaway” from 2001’s House of Cards. All of the performances can boast of Saga’s legendary instrumental prowess and progressive musical arrangements.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Prog-rock is still painfully disrespected in the United States, no band so much as Saga. Representing, perhaps, the last of the ‘70s-era progressive bands, Saga has survived numerous musical “revolutions” – from punk and new wave to nu-metal and grunge – with its sound and dignity intact. The band has retained a loyal following for three decades, both in the states and in Europe and Asia, by playing well and staying true to their original vision. Worlds Apart Revisited is a testament to both Saga’s longevity and dedication to their craft. (Inside Out Music, released 2007)

Review originally published by the Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog