Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Another one of the bands, Strange Boys, have been getting lots of hype in the past couple years as garage rock saviors, but judging from the two albums I've heard (last year's and this year's) they don't rock at all; just sound lazy and hazy and really low energy -- just more indie slackers. I don't get it. Though their new album (due out in late Feb) does have one song, "Da Da," where they seem to steal half the drunken tune, but none of the drunken rock, from "All Night Long" by Joe Walsh.

But truth is (what everybody reading this thread is already thinking), why am I even bothering with all that nerd-rock crap when there's a new Ratt album coming out? (Playing in the background now; sounds okay! -- Pearcy says they wanted to make it sound like it could have been the followup to Out Of The Cellar, and so far it kind of does!)

Best news I've heard all day! The last Dokken album sounded musically in line with Under Lock and Key and Back for the Attack, except Don can't really hit all the notes he used to hit and his voice just generally sounds beat. How does Pearcy's voice sound now?

Not bad! At least so far. I mean, his echo-screeching actually sounded kinda strained to me way back in 1984, but so far I'm impressed by the extent that his high register hasn't deteriorated since then. And the band doesn't seem to be dragging its feet, either! There are at least a couple songs that seem as fast as anything they did in the '80s. (But this is just my first time through; don't quote me. Album is called Infestation, btw, due out on Roadrunner toward the end of April.)

I had some good things to say about Pearcy's last solo album in 2008. I'm kinda looking forward to the new Ratt disc, as long as it sounds more like their earlier stuff than their latter-day stuff.

Earlier stuff, no question. (Wish I still had my copy of their debut EP on Time Coast Records with "Walking The Dog" on it, btw; how much is that worth these days?) Playing the new Airbourne now; maybe okay, maybe not, I'm not sure yet, but definitely nowhere near as good as the new Ratt (which comes out on the same day on the same record label.)

Finally caught up with Zalvation, the new Sensational Alex Harvey Band's record from 2006 without Alex, naturally. It's the originals plus a gamer who can't really pull off Alex's old Bertolt Brechtian/Kurt Weill naughty Euro-theatre and Cliff Richard impersonations. So it's really a Zal
Cleminson solo, or even more accurately, a reformulation of Tear Gas. Tear Gas was the pre-SAHBsters before Alex found 'em, with producer Davey Batchelor on vocals. One album, Piggy Go Better was not good, another s/t was a really good stab at ripping off Jeff Beck/Led Zep, much better than Leafhound, for example.

So Zalvation from 2006 redoes old SAHB numbers in the context of a straight hard rock/metal band which means it's Cleminson's show. First listen has it pretty good.

In Pennsy, all the bands influenced by the Dead End Kids did Alex Harvey and that eventually included Cinderella and Britny Fox and probably Poison when they were in Harrisburg. And Britny Fox finally committed to record the SAHB tune the Dead End Kids had been playing in bars from Reading to the Jersey shore for at least a decade, Midnight Moses. And that alone is worth the price of admission.

Cleminson ups the ante on it a little, supercharging the riff even a little more to make up for the lack of Alex. It doesn't really need an Alex Harvey to make it work though, any yob can carry off the vocal part since it's mostly just a semi-ontune stream of relation punctuated by shouts of "Hey! <pause> Hey! Hey! Hey!"

If you liked SAHB only because they were quaint you wouldn't like this so much because you only like the Alex Harvey part. If you liked them because of the Cleminson stuff, this is a go.

Angus Khan opened their album last year with a pretty deadly version of "Midnight Moses" too, I thought.

Best new Airbourne track so far: "It Ain't Over Til It's Over." Fast! (But seven songs in, and the first one not to make me impatient.)

Okay, liking "Steel Town" too. Aussies going for that blue-collar Pittsburgh AC/DC crowd. (Actually, there might be steel towns Down Under, too; I just don't know what they are.) Anyway, I should probably shut up about this record until I've played it through a couple times.

BTW, rather than post them all into this thread, select YouTubes:

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2010/01/sludge-in-70s-that-was-name-of-my.html

If you liked SAHB only because they were quaint you wouldn't like this so much because you only like the Alex Harvey part. If you liked them because of the Cleminson stuff, this is a go.

Never thought of SAHB as "quaint," but I must be in the former camp. Listened to most of the sound samples online and couldn't finish. Alex's yowl is sorely missed.

Like said, the Brecht/Weill drama through the Scotsman isn't there. It's Tear Gas doing SAHB
stories.

Metal Mike via email, fwiw; not sure what this is in reference to:

the third JPP album (on MCA) has zip, no good songs
but the 1st/2nd combined (with three lead singers total counting Joe) -- ALMOST total one great album (produced by jack douglas, both)
lead track East Coast, West Coast is particular balls out good sounding (on 2nd lp)
the imaginary Orange Bowl combined set (Joe Perry Project w/ace frehley on/off for his best songs) is nearly awesome

x-post: Kind of reminded me of when I saw The Tubes without Fee Waybill. They were actually still pretty good; the killer riffs were all intact, but the replacement vocalist just didn't have the necessary oomph (even though Fee was never really a good singer, he definitely had character.) I can see where the new SAHB might be really fun live.

That's a good comparison. "White Punks on Dope," "Mondo Bondage" are great tunes on vinyl with no
visuals. But Waybill executed them with his own vision. I'd just mentioned upstream the old pre-debut Tube album releases for the first time and there are some things which are mostly just Roger Steen adn the rest of the Tubes being musos and they're not the same thing as those with Waybill as
ringmaster.

George,

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Now playing: Barn Burners, Bangers. On Metal Blade for some reason, this is straight-up boogie metal from Canada, recommended to fans of Priestess, Saviours or even Early Man (but not as thrashy as the latter). They're probably closest in spirit and sound to Saviours - raw-throated vocals, ultra-primitive riffing, drums like cardboard boxes full of dirt. Dumb song titles ("Beer Today, Bong Tomorrow," "Brohemoth") and the rhythm section lets down the side from time to time, but there's some decent stuff on here. If this was the '70s these guys would be Point Blank, probably. But it's 2010 so they're not that bluesy, just pretending to be beer-sodden bikers.

I had a blast with Barnburners, personally. Your take is pretty on the mark, although I remember thinking there were some really catchy songs on the disc. Only listened to it through once, though, and that was in the background, so I don't have any specifics.

So what do you guys think of Priestess? The new CD (out this week) wasn't doing much for me, but then again I can't say I gave it much of a chance. My wife wound up liking it, though. Was I missing anything?

By the way, back in nerd-rock land, I've decided it's okay to mention this here now that Scott offically came out as a Vampire Weekend fan yesterday: Phil, you should know that one of my Rhapsody colleagues swears that their current single, "Cousins" (least twee thing on their new album) sounds like Plugz to him. I am not Plugz-cognizant enough to say one or the other. (It's basically a ska song, if that's any help.)

Also: decided the new Airbourne is basically ignorable, beyond a song or two. (Which might still be more than you could say for their debut.)

The new Airbourne is slightly better than their debut, but like you I find it totally ignorable/forgettable. I dig the new Priestess - I liked the first one, and this one does what that one did (combine stoner rock with early '80s metal a la Judas Priest or Accept) with slightly more compositional ambition. A few songs really get galloping, and there's an eight-minute epic right in the middle of the disc that's swell.

Hmmm...I should probably swipe Priestess back from my better half, when she's done with it. Which may be a while.

Now playing: Thundertrain, Teenage Suicide, CD reissue on Gulcher from a few years back. Sounds killer. Boston band, originally came out on Jelly Records in 1977. Contains the original hard-rock "Hot For Teacher." Popoff compared them to DMZ, Dictators, Kiss, Dolls (most of which I don't buy) and (my favorite comparison obviously) "early Kix (early like before the first album.)" (How would he know??) I'm thinking maybe closer to...TKO? Streetheart minus the new wave disco embellishments? Hounds? Somebody in that school. Though those might be more due to the singer's bratty snotty teen high register (a voice I love, which no hard rock band I can think of has used in ages.) Really, I hear more Alice than Dolls or Kiss in their sound. Apparently singer Mach Bell went on to sing on (Popoff's words) "Joe Perry's worst solo record," which Popovic seems to agree with Metal Mike was his third. Jasper and Oliver on Thundertrain: "Very punky, similar to Twisted Sister in image and songs." Someday I should read the CD liner notes.

was excited to get a decent u.s. vinyl copy of the second battered ornaments album yesterday.

http://www.popsike.com/The-Battered-Ornaments-MantlePiece-Mint-UK-Harvest-69/390018256591.html

this was pete brown's group before he got, um, kicked out of his own group. doesn't COMPLETELY belong here, as its more of an improv/jazz/prog/rock kinda thing, but there is genuine rocking courtesy of chris spedding. pete brown belongs here though cuz he co-wrote i fee free, white room, and sunshine of your love with jack bruce.

the band history is kinda funny/sad:

"Brown formed Pete Brown and His Battered Ornaments in 1968 and in 1969 the band recorded two albums; A Meal You Can Shake Hands With In The Dark and Mantlepiece, with a line up including Pete Bailey (percussion), Charlie Hart (keyboards), Dick Heckstall Smith (sax), George Kahn (sax), Roger Potter (bass), Chris Spedding (guitar) and Rob Tait (drums). Brown then suffered the ignominy of being thrown out of his own band, the day before they were due to support The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park. Brown's vocals were then removed from Mantlepiece and re-recorded by Chris Spedding and the band renamed The Battered Ornaments."

oops:

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20090610/230348249702.jpg

also got a decent mono copy of The Hot Ones! by The Standells yesterday. that's their all-covers album. doing the hits of the day Standells-style. I needed that.

Thinking now that the best major label (or probably otherwise) sleaze/ glam album of the '00s (which I probably wrongly stated on last year's thread might be last year's Last Vegas album) might actually be the '01 self-titled debut by Beautiful Creatures, feat. ex-Bang Tango shrieker Joe LeSte' and sounding (in the background, as we speak) basically like a good Bang Tango album. (Not as good as Dancin' On Coals, but still good.) Only competition I can think of at the moment would be Silvertide's Show And Tell (BMG imprint J Records, 2004.)

finally listening to michael bolton's (a.k.a. michael bolotin) band blackjack. their 1979 album. not doing much for me. though definitely more listenable than regular michael bolton.

Now American Dog's Hard, from 2007. Way more melody and finesse and actual songfulness than I'd remembered, or than you'd expect from a biker band whose most memorable chorus goes "Sometimes you eat the pussy, sometimes the pussy eats you." Rocks a lot harder than Beautiful Creatures, too -- Or maybe than anybody else in the '00s; not sure who the competition would be off hand. (Actually, with respect to Phil, I'd hope this is what Point Blank would sound like if they came out right about now; really, it's not that much different from Point Blank in the first place. Pretty sure Jackyl, to name an obvious predecessor, didn't boogie this hard.) What's weird is I'm not compelled to go out and track down all the other American Dog CDs -- This is the only one I own, and somehow it feels like enough for them. How different can the other ones be? (George can answer that question, I guess.) Which must mean they're lacking something, if I don't care about owning their complete ouevre -- Guess it's not like most of their songs really stick with me when the album's over, maybe. But I don't mind that much.

Now Necros Tangled Up/Live Or Else CD reissue on Rykodisc, from 2005 (recorded between 1986 and 1990). Kinda surprised to be finding the live tracks (the last 14 out of 25, ending with a ragged but still reasonably righteous "Nugent Medley" that's got "Great White Buffalo," "Strangelhold," "Cat Scratch Fever") sounding so much deadlier than the studio ones. In fact, too much of the actual Tangled Up album, give or take the classic title-track single and the Pink Floyd cover "Nile Song" and maybe the demiclassical instrumental "House Full Of Drunks," seems caught in some awkward in-joke No Man's Land between hardcore and grunge. On Live Or Else they come off a lot more like a legit hard rock band, somehow. "Race Riot" sounds like a bunch of skinheads in the audience getting rowdy though. (I saw them live plenty of times in the mid/late '80s; also went to shows with Barry Hennsler, who moonlighted at Kinko's in Ann Arbor and whose favorite new bands in 1987 were Guns N' Roses and White Zombie. His liner notes, frequently concerning the idiocy of Megadeth and Overkill fans the Necros encountered when they toured together, are really funny -- may have been published in Motorbooty first.)

George can answer that question, I guess.) Which must mean they're lacking something, if I don't care about owning their complete ouevre -- Guess it's not like most of their songs really stick with me when the album's over, maybe. But I don't mind that much.

I have Hard and the four tunes on that biker rock sampler from a ways back. Had the debut but can't find it anymore so it probably went out in sale at Amoeba.

American Dog are like the perfect chili cheese dog of the genre. Once they or you get it right, it's hard to ever mess up again. And you always like it a lot but if you eat them every day it considerably diminishes the enjoyment and makes you unpopular with women. That said, while such records are consumables, they are not food and seem to be governed more by the economic law of diminishing marginal utility in which 'utility' is the same as satisfaction.

That is, every subsequent album after the one you enjoy the most, even if it is identical, or a little worse, or even a bit better, seems to yield less. So you probably only need one. Sort of. In hard rock this is pretty reliable because the genre bands don't do things like go from being a Cavern Club mod pop rock band to Sgt. Pepper anywhere in their career.

In the Seventies, marginal utility was overcome by hype and press accompanying new releases building up expectations more than you get today now that you are old and your brain pathways/taste buds have been
overexposed. In this I find I don't ever listen to all the old classic AC/DC albums. One from each singer does it, thank you, even though I have most of them. But I remember thinking differently at the time.

I don't know how you obviate it now.

Foghat the same way. Foghat Live and Foghat Live II or the live one last year from some blues rock house on Long Island. It's great, BTW, so if you see it used ...

Savoy Brown -- always come back to Live in Central Park. That was the apex for me even though the band which preceded it, with Chris Youlden and Foghat, made artistically better albums which were marginally better or just marginally worse. It all came together live for that recording and that's what Kim Simmonds company did best ever. By only a few increments. And I must have everything by SB except the last
two.

Speaking of genre bands and diminishing marginal utility, the vault reissues put out Detective doing a live show for the swells at Atlantic Studios, something which once only available as promo.

Detective being Michael des Barres doing Silverhead without the glam look and dirty lyrics about getting head and so on. Half of the first album was produced by Jimmy Page under a nom de plume and it has the MOST John Bonham-esque drum sound. Which makes a lot of it pretty bombastic. And it's carried over live on the songs from that album, notably their two best -- "Detective Man" and "Heartache" -- the latter of which is probably the best thing des Barres ever did. It wails. Detective also known for having Michael Monarch, the guitarist for Steppenwolf, before he disappeared from the industry.

Blackjack albums were pretty mediocre. The appropriately named imprint Lemon reissued them. The first was produced by Tom Dowd, which was a really bad choice. The second by Eddie Offord, kind of a bad choice but not quite as bad, and for different reasons. Michael Bolton fought to have these two records
suppressed.

Jonathan Hall from Backbiter (whose Time Again/Magnet Heart Suite hard rock CD from 2005 I liked when it came out and should dig out of the storage box again someday), answering Metal Mike via mass email (and mentioning a band I mentioned here yesterday):

I prefer the JPP version of Let The Music Do The Talkin’! Plus, Mach Bell from Thundertain “I gotta rock Steven, I gotta rock!!!” I recently got a USB turntable to start digitizing some of my vinyl. I did an awesome rip of Cactus – Restrictions. Great pressing, awesome Howlin’ Wolf cover of Evil. Also, ripped The Haunted lp with 125. Unfortunately, I’m finding that I partied a little too hard with most of my records with many skipping. Which sucks for The Moving Sidewalks, because they’re so hard to find on CD.

Now playing: The Replacements' Sorry Ma Forgot To Take Out The Trash, which, as years go on, I increasingly believe they never topped.

As for American Dog, George's chili cheese dog analogy makes perfect sense. (And I've still got their cuts on that Outlaw Raw Trax comp around here somewhere too. Which reminds me that one '00s album that might give them a run for their money, rocking-hard-wise, might be Billy Butcher's Penny Dreadful, also on Outlaw, from 2004).

Never heard those Blackjack albums myself, and now I'll avoid them even more. But still think Bolton's '83 debut solo 45 "Fools Game" was real good hard pop, in the manner of what Bryan Adams was doing around then.

Now the Left's Jesus Loves The Left: The Complete Studio Recordings CD comp on Bona Fide, from 2006. Great Hagerstown, MD (home of Kix) punk-rock band from the late '80s; a couple EPs by them are in Stairway, and all the tracks from those are here. Anyway, just realized "The Viet Cong Live Next Door" predated Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino by more than two decades; yeah, Clint's neighbors were Hmong, but it's not like he cared about the distincition. (Not sure yet what "AIDS Alley" and "Redneck 7-11" predated, but probably something.)

chuck, do you have the frankie eldorado album on epic from 1980? if not, keep an eye out. i think you would dig it. power-pop mostly, but nice touches. neat drum beats, riffage, hand claps. very bubblegum at times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBMKgz5AjcI

for the purposes of this thread, kasim sulton plays bass on the frankie eldorado album.

<img src=http://dickdestiny.com/queerpills.JPG />

1981, The Angry Samoans try to get around Rodney Bingenheimer's black list by releasing this, originally unmarked, as The Queer Pills. Somewhat less than two minutes all told for four blasts of the style which would carry over into [i]Back from Samoa</A>. "They Saved Hitler's Cock" is the famous tune, differing with a rawer more echo'd vocal. All vocals by Todd Homer, all the aliases chosen from various interests, A. Fish being Albert Fish, one of the first murderers if not the first to get the electric chair,
'Grace Bud' -- one of his victims spelled wrong (Budd), Frank Howard, the baseball player...

Maximum Rock 'n' Roll immediately pegged it as the Samoans in disguise. At which point the band began stamping unsold copies to go out with the name. It was awhile ago but I think 'ats what they told me.

<img src=http://dickdestiny.com/blatantsmall.JPG />

1978, from Jayne County & The Electric Chairs. Think we talked about her late last year or upstream?

Paradoxically, this is not so queer or punk rock as it lets on. "Fuck Off," the lead number is standard blooz rock played fast with guitar solo. If you want to play with Jayne's knee be prepared to put
out, if you don't want to fuck fuck off, if you want to stand in her bread line you'd better be ready to give of the meat. Rather funny still and well played.

"Mean Motherfuckin' Man" is about the second best. "Night Time Is the Right Time," the old blooz rock standard, done straight up.

Definitely a hard rock record originally with cachet in New York because it was, y'know, Wayne County.

Jayne's nose is still a big honker in the sleeve back picture, she'd later have it fixed, retold if I do recall correctly in the autobiog, Man Enough to Be a Woman.

<img src=http://dickdestiny.com/talesofmarcushook.jpg />

1973, Marcus Hook Roll Band 'Tales of old Grand-daddy' George Young and Harry Vanda before there was AC/DC but the Young brothers are playing on this and you can hear it. "Shot In the Head," ably covered by Savoy Brown, definitely shows the direction AC/DC would take. As do a few of the others and you might even hear traces of riff later recycled in the first couple AC/DC records. "People and the Power" still hasn't
aged with the chorus of "People don't have the power to change things anymore."

This record is uniformly good to excellent. If you're a big AC/DC fan and haven't heard of it before, you're in for a small but pleasant surprise.

Ahh, outsmarted myself. If you click the links you'll get the record covers.

http://dickdestiny.com/blatantbacks.JPG

More like it.

And Jools Holland even plays pianer on "Fuck Off." "You think you're hot shit, I heard/But you ain't nothing but ... a cold turd."

Mason Ruffner, Gypsy Blood. Spotted this guy's name in an article a buddy wrote and downloaded it on a whim 'cause I owned it on cassette in '87 and hadn't heard it since. A tragic waste, really; he was a Texas hard rock/blues guitarist who could really play, but the album (his second for Columbia) is slathered in horrifying synths and huge, vault-door-slamming gated drums (when the drums aren't programmed like something off the Miami Vice soundtrack). Closest point of comparison: probably Jeff Healey circa his appearance in Road House, except I actually like this better - or at least I want to. I never even wanted to like Jeff Healey.

So here's a question for any Canadians out there: How big were Max Webster, exactly? Were they superstars? Here's what Wiki says:

The band was successful in Canada, with hits such as "A Million Vacations," "Let Go The Line" and "Paradise Skies", although they never made it big outside of Canada. "Paradise Skies" was a minor UK hit, reaching number 43 on the singles chart there.

If you go to the pages for individual albums, a handful were supposedly certified gold in Canada, and one (A Million Vacations from 1979) platinum, but I don't know if that means they were really big upon release, or just sold over time on the long tail. In other words, it doesn't say how high they charted, or how long it took to earn those certifications (also, I have no idea how hard it is to get gold and platinum albums in Canada, though I assume the Content Code helps.)

They never had a single Billboard 200 album in the States. Kim Mitchell solo had one -- Akimbo Alogo, #106 in 1985, with the atypical goofball novelty hit "Go For A Soda" going #86. (It got a smattering of AOR airplay in Detroit, I remember -- maybe Buffalo, too? Where else?) Popoff claims Max Webster were revered "amongst small pockets of discerning rockheads throughout the States in Europe," but doesn't say how small, or where the pockets were, or whether they toured here much.

I'm guessing they mainly stuck to home. They seem like such an enigma to me -- hockey-barn prog, Zappafied hard rock. Closest musical U.S. equivalent would be who, Crack The Sky maybe? (Who sold steadily enough in the Middle Atlantic to chart between #124 and #186 on the U.S. album chart five times, between '76 and '90. Still, just a weird cult band.)

Just played Akimbo Alogo, which looks like a sellout record, and starts out like one, with that soda song, but still has four or five cuts ("Diary For Rock N Roll Men," "Love Ties," "Lager & Ale," "Rumour Has It") intense and twisted and metal enough to fit on any Max album I've heard. Popoff gave it a 9, and he gave Webster's Live Magnetic Air from 1975, which I also just played, an 8. The cut that most sticks with me, "Paradise Skies," was apparently their U.K. hit. No idea why they attempt something called "Sarnia Reggae." (Did many prog bands do that in the mid '70s? I was just noticing that Be-Bop Deluxe also did a couple lame reggae things toward the beginning of the first side of Live In The Air Age, which gets louder and better later. Maybe only prog bands with live albums with "Air" in the title did it.)

I also like that Max Webster have receding hairlines, and wear hockey jerseys. Actually, I'm not even clear they were considered "prog." Though Geddy Lee makes a fairly remarkable cameo appearance in one song on Universal Juveniles from 1980, so they probably were.

Also, how big in Canada were Goddo??

Jasper and Oliver: "Their music was appealing, subtle time-changes merging with powerful, stabbing guitarwork. On stage Mitchell stole the show with his outrageous dress and extrovert presence. Pye Dubois wrote the lyrics and they are sung as if by a madman!"

So what sort of things did Mitchell wear, exactly? Moose costumes?

Jasper and Oliver on Mitchell solo: "Solid weirdo hard rock, with lyrics to suit."

if you were a rush fan in canada then i think max webster would fit right in as far as quirkiness goes. kim mitchell might not have been as revered as alex lifeson, frank marino, or rik emmett, but they are all national treasures. you know?

still consider this one of the greatest "we are comfortable with our image and who we are" record covers of all time:

http://www.lpcd.de/1/E3462_01.jpg

devin townsend - of weirdo canuck metal fame - is soooooooooo right in that same un-self-conscious world where his balding skullet ends up being some physical manifestation of his genius and not a sales liability.

http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/BIPOLAR/Devin-Townsend.jpg

and geddy of course is the grand dame of supposed liability (huge ass nose, impossible falsetto, horrible hair) ending up being nothing but strength.

in the end: canadians more forgiving of physical imperfections. apparently.

(though rik and frank marino are exceptions...fairly photogenic chaps.)

I'm guessing they mainly stuck to home. They seem like such an enigma to me -- hockey-barn prog, Zappafied hard rock. Closest musical U.S. equivalent would be who, Crack The Sky maybe? (Who sold steadily enough in the Middle Atlantic to chart between #124 and #186 on the U.S. album chart five times, between '76 and '90. Still, just a weird cult band.)

They were part of the Rush management stable of acts and had a fair profile in the east for awhile.

Their debut was called Hangover in the US. The title cut is smart big guitar boogie and not nearly as weird as a condense from Jasper & Oliver would suggest. Crack the Sky was way weirder.

Some of the debut is very nicely written hard pop sung with winsome vocal -- "Blowin' the Blues Away" is one example.

"Lily," the last song on the LP, is a perfect example of this starting out as a piano ballad, morphing into a bits of prog, a stately march, some Who-like mini-opera strolling minstrel rock. By the end it sounds like what Blue Oyster Cult would sound like from Fire of Unknown Origin to Club Ninja which, you'll haveta admit, is fairly ahead of the competition if you like that stuff. Kim Mitchell can play like Buck Dharma, too.

Eccentric at time but not eccentric in a Zappa-like way, "Coming Off the Moon," for example being a straightforward hard rock smasher which definitely WILL remind of Crack the Sky in that the riff is straightforward but often the guitar goes off and does things which aren't hack or typical.

I really like "Hangover," "Blowin' the Blues Away" and "Lily" which divides into a mix of straight hard rock, a pop tune, and one that mixes it all up.

High Class in Borrowed Shoes was next with pic of the bank looking like Bowie-type glamsters on the cover. Which they sounded nothing like. Starts with a no-nonsense straight hard rock boogie, the
title cut, with a catchy hook.

Same formula as first album, mostly, second song is a pop ditty, something a little sappy in a McCartney way, then they unfurl more hard rock prog, "Gravity" which sounds like something from the first two Tubes albums, except before them I think.

"America's Veins" more midwest hard rock filtered through a Tubes-like sensibility. Seems to be about meeting a girl who was more than bargained for in a weird way on tour.

"Oh War!" -- metal sludge, "Oh war, it's been done before." Lots of fuzz guitar.

Neither of these records have obvious US FM radio singles on them and perhaps they were just a little too busy for the market here. Or maybe Anthem was far more interested in working Rush, an easier sell in the mid-size US theatres.

Mutiny Up My Sleeve was the last one I had. No longer do although the first two remain. "Astonish Me" was a great pop tune, maybe their best. Could have worked at radio as a bit more than a ballad, something hopeful and warm, something Steely Dan could have put in Can't Buy a Thrill.

For the lurkers, a lot of the stuff mentioned on this thread gets booted into YouTube, so it's fairly easy to sample with slideshows of album sleeves and band photos.

Now don't get overenthusiastic and bog the thread, pl-eee-z? I try to fight it myself.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/shaun.morris/Press/coventryeveningtelegraph260778.jpg

Amusing review of Wayne County's Blatantly Offensive EP.

And this is nicely done.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/shaun.morris/Press/Theprovince200680.jpg

that was me talking about wayne county albums. very impressed by the two late 70s albums i got a while back. was expecting some sort of haphazard novelty act a la cherry vanilla or divine, but instead got killer rock records that are totally in my keep pile.