Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Roe rocks more, though. (Before that, Little Honda by the Hondells, a Top 10 LP from 1964.)

My brother was a serious Tommy Roe 10-12 year old boy groupie, a big part of his audience. I heard this stuff every other day for a period of a 9 months to a year out of his bedroom.

so, i told m. popoff and don waller from the imperial dogs that they should post on this thread cuz its there kinda thing, but who knows, they might just stay dirty lurkers. figured it might be their kinda thing.

digging a record by boffalongo on united artists today. need to listen more. i'll report back.

Popoff interviewed me for a half hour yesterday morning over the phone for some show VH-1 is putting together about the history of metal (hair-metal episode specifically, apparently)! Not sure whether they're gonna send a camera to Austin or not.

And speaking of Moon Martin (well, I mentioned him a few posts up), I'm sure everybody is getting sick of me talking about him on these hard rock threads when he's not, uh, really hard rock enough, but I decided that the first side of that Southwind LP What A Place To Land is actually a bit too mellow and Deadheady for me to love it. Second side ("Dynamite" and "Buzz Me" and "Bootleg Woman" which Moon later redid) gets a little more boogiefied, but not all that much more boogiefied, and I definitely prefer the guy slicked up a few years later as a rockabilly new waver than as a rustic hippie, band or no.

And speaking of rockabilly new wave, Keith Sykes's I'm Not Strange I'm Just Like You turns out to be a surprisingly fun surrogate Dave Edmunds LP from 1980, especially in "928" (which may or may not concern the time a train is leaving) and "Makin' It Before We Get Married" (the latter of which could easily pass for a Nick Lowe composition from that era.) Don't think I've ever heard another Sykes album, though. (Like that album marginally more than Billy Swan's likewise rockabillified Rock N Roll Moon from 1975, though his mature vision of the genre is charming in its own way, plus Swan covers "Ubangi Stomp," very much an anomaly both for its less mature energy and barely subverted racism. And by now, this probably belongs on the country thread, so never mind.)

Er, the part of that one song that seems like a "Nick Lowe composition" to me is the words (about a couple -- whose astrological signs are named, even -- having sex a lot before being wed), and maybe the melody. But the album's sound, at least in its more raucous half (that song included) is way more towards the Edmunds side, guitars on down.

This blog post below says that Sykes (who has apparently written songs for Jimmy Buffett and Rosanne Cash, judging from Google) is one of the few onetime Saturday Night Live musical guests who does not have his own Wikipedia page. (I know basically nothing about him myself; just paid $1 for that LP because it looked, uh, so new wave rockabilly.)

http://onepoorcorrespondent.blogspot.com/2008/04/who-in-world-is-richard-baskin.html

Popoff interviewed me for a half hour yesterday morning over the phone for some show VH-1 is putting together about the history of metal (hair-metal episode specifically, apparently)!

They'll have plenty of stock footage from the special on the same subject two years ago. Will they again waste their time trying to get Mike Saunders to cooperate?

what the hell is mike listening to these days anyway. is he still on the disney pop train to tomorrowland?

No, now it's stream-of-consciousness e-mail on Lady Gaga. And Deep Purple video on YouTube. Or stuff about the kids who volunteer to run the merch table at Samoans shows and the debilitating (my assessment, I've seen a few) multi- mall and high school football jock punk/hardcore bands on the bills in places like Santa Cruz.

Ah, 'Horns fans are all over my side of town today, so I gotta start getting ready for a Apt du Smith
college football party. Did you know Jordan Shipley has threatened to be a country music singer/songwriter if the pros don't pan out? It worked spectacularly for Mike Reid.

he makes me dizzy. in a good way, i think. speaking of which, i wonder how don's doing. he hasn't posted on ilm in a long time i don't think. hope he's okay. don a. that is.

'Horns fans are all over my side of town today

Ha ha, they were out in droves here today too, needless to say -- shopping for burnt orange tailgate food all through the grocery store, even though they'll have to get pretty sloshed to be tailgating on a 20 degree temperature / 5 degree windchill night in Austin (coldest night in two years, or something like that.) Then it's going down to 16 on Friday -- hey, I thought I left to the north to get away from that.

Don posted his Nashville Scene ballot on Rolling Country a few weeks ago. Haven't seen him much in these parts otherwise lately.

Burned John Parr's solo from 1985 back-to-back with the Nig-Heist's Snort My Load from 1984.

An interestingly schizo but slightly congruent set of values, John Parr being after the same thing as Mugger but more elegantly and tunefully, if less bone-jarring.

"Naughty Naughty" going well with "Hot Muff," "Woman Drivah," and "Balls of Fire." The Nig-Heist 'tunes,' the few better among them anyway are probably aided guitarwise by an uncredited Greg Ginn. His style is unmistakable although it's not on all of them by any means.

"St. Elmo's Fire" -- about a guy in a wheelchair -- coulda been just the material for a Nig-Heist like treatment. Although I still like it fine the way it is.

Most of John Parr is acceptable Foreigner/Nightranger-type stuff. Very glittery 80's movie as you
recall, right there with the same from Heart during the period.

Paradoxically, I saw both bands -- Parr opening for Heart at Lehigh and Nig-Heist for Black Flag in Philly. I can recall Parr doing "Naughty Naughty" and "St. Elmo's Fire," nothing about the Nig-Heist except Mugger shouting and wearing a wig. It probably sounded better maybe if you were in the front row and I wasn't.

For some reason, at the time, I always heard "Naughty Naughty" as a rip of Billy Squier's "The Stroke" (a/k/a also more or less the same funk-metal category as "Dragon Attack" by Queen.) Though I guess Foreigner's "Urgent" would be in a similar ballpark. Never liked "St. Elmo's Fire" back then, but now you've piqued my curiosity a little.

Oh come now. "St. Elmo's Fire" epitomized everything jolly and happy about the mid-Eighties back when you still thought everything was still going to work out all right. Listen to it through a gentle drunken haze and you'll be fine. Parr's solo album is the very essence of happy mid-Eighties AOR. He must have made a good fortune on the publishing for those two songs.

Parr's best known movie tie-in was definitely the St. Elmo's Fire theme, but I'll always remember "Naughty Naughty" for its use in the excellent vampire movie Near Dark. It soundtracks the movie's centerpiece, a scene where a gang of road-warrior vampires (they travel the Southwest in a camper with the windows blacked out) slaughter everyone in a crappy little redneck bar.

Got the new Airbourne disc in the mail today. Only played the first two songs so far, but I liked 'em a lot better than I remember liking the debut. The press release claims they slept in the studio during the recording sessions, 'cause that's the way Brooooooce did it back in the '70s.

I didn't recall that but Near Dark I do. It was a great movie. Adrian Pasdar vs. Lance
Henricksen and his crew.

are you guys down with the backstreet girls? i've never heard them, but this album cover kinda makes me want to.

https://www.bootlegbooze.com/shop/images/BsgBoogieSvart.jpg

backstreet girls have a lot of albums. including Hellway To High and Sick My Duck!

i still really need to listen to american dog too. i'm always afraid that they won't live up to their album covers.

http://www.badreputation.fr/images/albums/american_dog_-_scars_n_bars.jpg

so this guy has a huge list up of all the hard rock/aor/metal he owns, and he has tons of recent hard rock i've never heard on it. i'm gonna investigate some of the bands:

http://rateyourmusic.com/lists/list_view?list_id=73740&show=100&start=0

for instance, 2009 album by the band '77. any good? it's called 21st century rock.

http://hardrockhideout.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/7721stcenturyrock.jpg

01 Gimme Rock 'n' Roll
02 Hard Working Liar
03 Big Smoker Pig
04 Shake It Up
05 Wicked Girl
06 Your Game's Over
07 Less Talk (Let's Rock)
08 Let The Children Hear Rock 'n' Roll
09 Double-Tongued Woman
10 21st Century Rock

i wanna hear this airborne album too:

http://image.space.rakuten.co.jp/lg01/00/0000534900/90/imgc1d7715azik6zj.jpeg

1 Stand Up for Rock 'n' Roll 4:01
2 Runnin' Wild 3:38
3 Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast 3:42
4 Diamond in the Rough 2:53
5 Fat City 3:26
6 Blackjack 2:42
7 What's Eatin' You 3:36
8 Girls in Black 3:15
9 Cheap Wine & Cheaper Women 3:10
10 Heartbreaker 3:56
11 Let's Ride 3:28

http://www.amiright.com/album-covers/images/album_American-Dog-If-You-Want-BudYouve-Got-It.jpg

i love the fact that serious hardcore hard rock/aor fans own EVERY russ ballard album. that is commitment.

underground aor fans are the only people who still buy pat benatar albums.

go ahead, google this band, i dare you:

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/big_cock/big_cock/

track-list for the big cock album:

Second Coming 0:21
2 Fucked Up 2:53
3 Real Man 3:12
4 Ride on Me 2:53
5 Rock Hard 2:45
6 She's a Lady 2:53
7 So Easy Bein' Me 3:07
8 Every Inch of My Love 2:40
9 Dirty Girl 2:56
10 Scottsdale Girls 2:31
11 Get Me Up 2:37
12 Take Me 2:33

What I could stand to hear from Big Cock was pretty submediocre despite the great fools-hall-of-fame name and audacious cover. Chigger Red was an average soCal bar band popular about a decade ago.

We used to like Crash Kelly around these parts but sadly the enthusiasm did not catch on.

I have Dirty Rig's Rock Did It laying around somewhere and liked it some, surprising since Mr. Warrior Soul has always given me a rash.

Doomfox got love on this thread a couple years ago. Typical Australian bar-fighters.

The Kevin Dubrow solo album was a great selection of glam rock covers. I think he even put a well done Budgie number on it.

The Flairs Shut Up and Drive was consistantly fair to good as pop punk metal.

Foghat Live II is actually great. And then band -- since half of Foghat 1.0 is dead, should probably be called Foghat 2.0.

Fozzy was Stuck Mojo fronted by wrestler Chris Jericho and terrible. Wasn't it started as a joke band with some manner of Spinal Tap-ish false history?

Funny Money's Stick It was great, call it Kix 2.0

Couldn't stand Get Animal. Wasn't that some celebrity rocker group?

Girlschool has consistantly been given love here for their more recent records.

Great White's Tribute to Led Zeppelin was decent and had the advantage of not making you feel you were a leering old cod if you listened to Zepparella or Lez Zeppelin CDs.

I used to see the Hangman in Hollywood a lot. They made fairly monotonous hard rock records with an I'm a loneseome ex-junkie rocker cowboy vibe. However each one always contained one or two keepers. Much more entertaining in 45 minute live sets.

Hot Leg is a successor band to The Darkness and everyone seems to have ignored it.

I have an Iced Earth box set with their first four albums included and like most of it.

Michael Katon has been making Brownsville Station/George Thurrygood-like albums forever. Every one as good as any other.

Aynsley Lister is a Brit guitar hero I mentioned briefly late last year. Does blues rock with a lot of modern US country rock style thrown in, that is I liked him a lot better than Jason Aldean.

Paperback Freud is a great fools-hall-of-fame-name.

Every Axel Rudi Pell record ever made has moments of greatness and even greater cover art.

Why would you call yourself Powerage? It's like putting a kick-me sign on your butt.

There's a new Shakin' Street album, Love Channel?

Shitbone Loves Your Wife is a great thing to say. Any album would almost have to be a letdown.

Silvertide's Show and Tell was sure great sounding but Philly appears to have swallowed them up after they were the house band in the Lady in the Water movie.

Steve Stevens Memory Crash got an honorable mention here.

Xtian band from San Diego, Thieves & Liars, made a good album mention well late on last year's thread.

Pete Wells, Angry Anderson & the Damn Fine band is Rose Tattoo doing classic rock covers, which you like when you hear it the first time.

jeez louise that guy owns 17 gary moore records. that is a whole lot of gary moore.

11 night ranger albums is likewise taking things to extremes.

and yet owning 13 saxon albums seems fine to me.

had no idea that there was a new shakin' street album either. although nothing surprises me in reunion world.

What I wrote about Funny Money a couple years ago:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/10/funny-money-kix-starts-your-heart.html

First Airbourne album (which wasn't that good tbh) + Rich and Famous:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/03/airbourne-and-the-rich-famous-do-dirty-deeds-dirt-cheap.html

On Crash Kelly (in Harp):

CRASH KELLY Electric Satisfaction (Liquor & Poker) On their debut last year, these riff-and-tune-happy Canadians gave a Cheap Trick song Gary Glitter beats, cribbed from Aerosmith’s “Same Old Song and Dance,” and louie-louied a “Since You Been Gone” (formerly Rainbow’s and Head East’s) that gave Kelly Clarkson a run for her money. This year they exhume Alice Cooper’s necrophilia classic “Cold Ethyl” after powerpopping a couple cracked-actress glam originals, and I had to google to make sure those weren’t covers, too: “She Put the Shock (in My Rock and Roll),” which talks about ’74 and ’75 and which could’ve been done first by Mott the Hoople or Slade but wasn’t, and “33 on the Charts,” sort of like if Bowie rewrote Pete Wingfield’s “Eighteen With a Bullet” except it’s about riding a superstar’s coattails onto the cover of NME. (Math-rock alert: “Count On Me, Count On You”)

George on Crash Kelly and other current glam-rock bands:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-07-26/music/wham-bam-thank-you-glam/

Me on the most recent Night Ranger album (in Blurt):

NIGHT RANGER Hole In The Sun (VH1 Classic)
Yeah, that Night Ranger. Not only are Jack Blades and Co. still around; they recently even entertained the troops at Guantanamo. Their late ‘90s Seven and Neverland are smarter and more muscular melodic rock albums than you’d ever suspect, and so is this one; in fact, give or take the inspirational-piano blandout “There is Life,” the most ignorable track here may well be the “bonus” acoustic retooling of their eternal Boogie Nights Nerf-metal prototype “Sister Christian.” They have more luck with a lovely unplugged-Zep-style update of 1983’s “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me,” but the real keepers are new music: Power-funk metal with pompy chord progressions in “Tell Your Vision”; Marilyn Manson horror beats under Judas Priest overdrive and clearer singing than either in “You’re Gonna Hear From Me”; Everclear verses surrounding a sterling ‘80s hard-pop chorus in “Whatever Happened”; Electric Six-as-Robert Palmer machismo in “Drama Queen.” They even do a “Rockstar” song – take that, Nickelback!

On Axel Rudi Pell's last album (scroll down -- also an exactly one-year-old comment from George about Panzerballet's name that I never noticed until just this second):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2009/01/panzerballet-panzerballet-bad-land-this.html

i'm actually listening to Died Pretty right now (free dirt album). i didn't think i knew their stuff at all, but the first song i'm hearing "blue sky day" i totally remember from college radio. singer sounds like the flesheaters guy and a little like chris bailey and a little like the guy from straightjacket fits. and the music is definitely (latter day)saints. i actually like this a little! doesn't really belong here though. belongs on that bodeans/cruzados/green on red thread probably. are thin white rope fans the only people who still listen to old died pretty albums?

Nah, mainly just aging Australians. I actually kinda liked that Free Dirt reissue a couple years ago, though; also last month I pulled out my copy of the Caressing Swine (...And Some History) CD that Columbia put out in the U.S. in 1994 (and I apparently bought at Repo Records in Philly for $2.99 a few years later), and liked it more than I thought I would. But sure, they could have rocked harder; no question. I posted a little about them somewhere on this thread:

Died Pretty C/D S/D

i was probably still listening to hunters & collectors when free dirt came out.

George on American Dog and other early '00s biker rockers:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-01-14/music/ride-hard-die-hard/

I actually reviewed Free Dirt for Creem Metal when it came out! (I still have the hard copy, but it's nowhere on the web.)

i like it. i have one of the EPs you like too. next to nothing. gonna play that today sometime.

Oh, no I remember, Get Animal was Adam Bomb. And he had a thing for putting Vern Troyer on his covers, twice. That worked well.

Just gave Earth Quake's live '75 Rocking The World a spin -- definitely has more of the soul/r&b/boogie influence that George mentioned above than 8.5 which I talked about above, and I assume Leveled too -- and yeah, maybe even some Marriot in the vocals, though Gary Phillips (who sings the cover of Marriot's Small Faces' "Tin Soldier'") only gets one lead vocal, as does Stan Miller who totally fucking kills ELO's "Ma Ma Ma Belle", basically turning it into the Slade song (look at the title) it deserved to be all along. John Doukas lead-vocals the rest, and he's got more suburban whiteboy in his singing I think; still really like what he does with the Easybeats' "Friday On My Mind." All told, only three originals out of eight tracks. (They also cover "Route 66" and Lou Reed's "Head Held High.") At first I was thinking the album was maybe a little too humorlessly purist/bar-band-boogie stodgy compared to the other Earth Quake ones I've heard (basically the impression I got about Brownsville Station's nonetheless still good also-'75 Motor City Connection the other day fwiw), but a few cuts in, it really kicked in. Apparently it was their third album; first two came out in '71 and '72 on A&M.

"Sittin' In the Middle of Madness" is probably the whitest thing they did. Hot riff and syncopation is the best part of it before the vocal, the song structure of which makes singing a bit out of reach. Anyway, I thought they were going for Aerosmith on "Sittin'" and the first time I saw the album I thought they were trying to look like 'em, too.

I had the '71 and '72 albums. "Trainride" came from them and they'd do it again for Leveled. They had a second live side recorded at Rockpalast in Germany and that appeared with a Beserkley Euro-only release with one side of Greg Kihn, one side of the Rubinoos, one side of Tyla Gang, and Earth Quake. It was in support of their Leveled tour and the band is a bit more guitar muscled and pro/less garage on it.

i really like the second album *why don't you try me*. never heard the first one. but the first one is supposedly their least rocking. trainride is on the second album. why don't you try me can usually be found cheap.

i never see the live album used. i can only imagine that three or four people total even bought it new.

so, basically, i've never heard the first album, the live album, and the last album, two years in a padded cell. and i like the 2nd album, 8.5, and leveled. that about covers it for me for now.

earth quake were on a dutch ariola records comp in 1977 called GEEF VOOR NEW WAVE. check out the track-listing:

A1 The Rubinoos - Rock and Roll is Dead
A2 The Motors - Dancing the Night Away
A3 Johnny Moped - No One
A4 Eddie and the Hot Rods - Do Anything You Wanna Do
A5 The Adverts - Gary Gilmore's Eyes
A6 Generation X - Your Generation
A7 X-Ray Spex - Oh Bondage Up Yours!
A8 Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Anything That's Rock 'n' Roll
B1 Jonathan Richman - Roadrunner
B2 Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant
B3 Motörhead - Motorhead
B4 Dwight Twilley Band - I'm On Fire
B5 The Radiators From Space - Television Screen
B6 Radio Stars - Dirty Pictures
B7 Earth Quake - Trainride

that's my kinda punk comp!

i can only imagine that three or four people total even bought it new.

Then I was one of 'em.

I used to have the Radio Stars album with "Dirty Pictures" on it. Great song, can't remember much else about the rest of it except it was glammy hard rock.

Oh My God! "Sex Shop" on Shakin' Street's 2009 reunion, "21st Century Love Channel," is almost as good as "Suzie Wong," right down to the Toss the Ross the solo. About Fabienne working in a sex shop on Place Pigalle in Paris, naturally. Maybe she actually did because she puts herself into it. Gotta like her
FrancoisEnglish, though. "I sell them gadgets that you wind; I turn them on and blow their muaaau-ind!"

Oh I'm gonna have to tease ya xhuxk on 21st Century Love Channel -- you're definitely going to want to dig this one up as it is to Shakin' Street's cat what the 2008 Rose Tattoo album was to theirs.

A total surprise, starting slow and then all of a sudden the songwriting kicks at the halfway point and band runs off five really good songs in a row. Addition of organ, which the old records didn't use, gives it a happy swagger plus some Who's Next sequencer sound in places.

"Streets of San Francisco" seemingly takes back to the second Shakin' Street album. Seems to contain references to her old beau, Damon Edge.

First couple listens and I rate this about as good or as good as that record. While "Sex Shop" and "San Francisco" aren't quite as good as "Suzie Wong," there's nothing as bad as "I Want to Box You" on here.

When you start the CD the first couple bits seem average. After which out trots the good stuff and
everyone's on fire with the glory of it by the end. Not bad.

Okay, I obviously need to figure out a way to get ahold of that record. (Had no idea until yesterday that it existed, either -- And I'm somebody who actually likes "I Want To Box You"!)

Decided that, once you get past "Black Betty," the second side of the first Ram Jam album is way better than the first side, which really does come off kinda pre-fabricated, somehow. Second-best song is almost for sure the closer "Too Bad On Your Birthday," which starts like "Bang A Gong" and which Joan Jett covered a few years later. But "404" sounds like the guitarist had been listening to "Stranglehold," "High Steppin'" has some really cool prog Allmans type thing going on, and the '70s high school parking lot bubblegum boogie of "Overloaded" and "Hey Boogie Woman" are also very neat. (Also just noticed that Tuff Darts get a partial writing credit for "All For The Love Of Rock N' Roll" at the end of Side One; still don't know if they were any good.)

Just got offered an interview with Ritchie Blackmore, pegged to a new Blackmore's Night album coming out in January. I told the publicist I'd do it if and only if he was willing to talk about his older bands (which he's gotten testy about doing in the past); I'm willing to indulge him with a few questions about his and his wife's puffy-sleeves folk thing, but if he thinks I'm not gonna ask Rainbow questions less than a year out from Dio's death, he's fuckin' nuts.

yeah, 80's stuff in general was all about that bombastic mix. just get an eddie money record. he even stole phil's girl!

for the wall of sound thing, maybe Mott's Brain Capers for the solid echoey mass, or for the big over-ornateness, Kiss Destroyer or Use Your Illusion.

definitely Dream Police and The Move's Looking On (their heaviest IMO). also Mott's album "The Hoople" - really thick soupy sound.

speaking of which, i recently got beautiful U.K. pressings of Ian's S/T album and Overnight Angels and they are both pretty massive sound-wise. Overnight Angels got the Roy Thomas Baker treatment.

bought lotsa 50-cent past expiry hard rock vinyl today

"I'd buy that for a dollar!" Great purchases for a buck or less

>>The Kids "Anvil Chorus"

aka The Heavy Metal Kids. It's their second album. Not quite as good as the first but still way better than average. Singer Gary Holton wound up on a very popular Brit TV show as one of a crew of migrant bricklayers and construction workers, then died just as he was getting famous, of a drug overdose. Was definitely mining the street glam rock thing and I recall posting a couple YouTube vids of them on some German music show.

The television series produced a good crew of Brit actors you now see in American productions -- Tim Spall, Bill Nighy, for example -- so if he hadn't up and died he might now be famous, too.

Listened to The [New] Runaways "Fast and Loud", a Kim Fowley production effort to revive the band with new personnel sometime in the late Eighties, I think. I never actually saw a copy when it was released, so it might have been enjoined in stores but has now been reissued because of someone's desire to ride along on the minor success of The Runaways revival.

It was a band of laughably lousy ringers, doing songs with embarrassingly sub-moron lyrics like on the first two Runaways albums. But with absurdly tacky, sometimes hilariously inappropriate production and two singers of much less talent than Cherie Curie and Joan Jett. The only thing that came to mind when I was listening was Daphne & Celeste fronting a band of mates trying to do late Eighties Alice Cooper mixed with teen angst torch songs about wanting to be with the bad boys, or the guy/graffiti artist with "boots of fire" -- no joke. Seriously, boots of fire. And they do a song called S-P-E-E-D-M-E-T-A-L which is more like speedy Cramps novelty material.

Actually, the record is so bad I'm having a great time making jokes at its expense. Perversely, xhuxk might actually like parts of it because it has those qualities that led him to put those entries in Stairway to Hell that intensely irritated purists. Kind of an accidental whoopie cushion of a record which I will probably listen to, at most, only one or two times again in my entire life. Two might really be stretching it. Once again, maybe.

And I actually saw a copy in BestBuy where it was listed with The Runaways, with the same name on the label, waiting to trick some unwitting person who doesn't smell the rat.