Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Glad to be of service -- though now I've clearly got some Coyne catching-up to do myself.

And now another '70s cult act (except maybe in their own country, where I get the idea they were a lot bigger than "cult") whose live album that I've got I suspect doesn't stack up to studio LPs I don't have: Gasolin', from Denmark. Been playing their 1976 double-live Sadan, and while you never doubt that the spirit is there, given the loose playing on-stage and less-than-stellar recording it's not so easy to figure out how well-formed or even rocking the songs are. They definitely liked rock'n'roll, back to the '50s variety: you can detect subliminal Chuck Berry influences here and there, and they cover Little Richard's "Keep A Knockin'." Yet there's no doubt they're a '70s arena band in sound -- just not sure whether that means glam, prog, boogie, or what. The fact that they mostly sing in a foreign language doesn't help the issue much; in fact, who they mostly remind me of is that East German band from the same time, Puhdys, who were known to do entire albums of '50s oldies on occasion. At least a couple of songs eventually click, though -- the medley of "Fi-Fi Dong/Inga, Katinka Og Smukke Charlie Pa Sin Harley" (catchiest thing on the record I think, and one of two originals with "Charlie" in the title) could be their equivalent of Chris Spedding's "Motor Bikin'". And "Refrainet Er Frit" on the fourth side convinces me they were most likely Slade fans -- they look pretty darn salt-of-the-earth backstage on the back cover, too. I get the idea more songs might sink in if I gave it more time.

Christgau gave their self-titled LP from the same year (which apparently came out in the States on Epic) an A-, but he mentions "the musicianship and symphonic textures of Yurropean technopomp," which I'm not hearing so much of on the live one -- the arrangements feel big enough, but not quite complex or majestic to read "prog" to my ears, not even in say a Golden Earring sense, though that band might still be another point of comparison. (Jasper/Oliver call Gasolin' "a strange mixture of hard rock -- early '70s style -- and weird European pop," which is intriuging but kinda vague.) Also Wiki lists a ton of Gasolin' LPs, and then more solo ones by Kim Larsen in the '80s (wasn't he marketed as new wave in the States? Or am I just remembering seeing a record ad in New York Rocker or somewhere?) So it's possible their sound changed somewhere along the line too, but I'm not sure how.

...Kim Larsen being their singer and a guitarist (they had two of the latter). Also, Japser/Oliver interestingly call the studio LPs spotty but recommend the live LP, which is the one I have. And they apparently still have enough fans that, from the looks of the links on their Wiki discography page, all their albums get individual Wiki page writeups -- hardly a given for even big American '70s hard rock bands.

(Re: The Call. I liked them a lot in the early years, when they were sort of like a U2 that stuck with New Wave. "Walls Came Down", their first bit hit, is from album 2, Modern Romans, but my favorites are the next two, Scene Beyond Dreams and Reconciled. After that they got mixed up with Robbie Robertson and tried to go gruff and soulful, which lost me. Leader Michael Been's son is the lead guy in Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.)

Back to actual past-expiry hard-rock, I was just looking through my records to see what bands, if any, I've liked pretty much unchanged (I mean, my liking of them has endured, and they have endured) since I started taking notes in about 1985. Rush are close, if only I liked the last couple records more. Black Sabbath can't quite count, with all the singer-changes and now the name-change. So the winner?

UFO.

Hearing way more Faces and Humble Pie on the second Detective album (It Takes One To Know One from '77) than I'd noticed the first, and it's just a more consistent album in general -- and right, they're dressed even more disco on the cover. Hearing "Help Me Up" and the appropriately funky "Betcha Won't Dance" as the most undeniable Faces rips; "Dynamite," more Humble Pie, locks itself into the album's best pocket. "Competition" reminded me of Rose Tattoo in their Faces mode (maybe just wishful thinking?); "Something Beautiful" has some Rod Stewart in its singing but it's just as much a Yes ballad, thanks to Kaye's fancy keys. And they save the two most swinging Zepalikes (as good as Fastway at least), "Fever" and "Tear Jerker," 'til the very end.

....Though actually Popoff claims "Competition" and "Dynamite" are the real Zep rips, and "Betcha Won't Dance" is mere "flippant party rock," so maybe my ears were screwed on wrong when listening. Unless his were.

So what do people think and/or know about Cock Sparrer? I don't think anything; probably used to have a couple cuts on oi! compilations, but I can't say they left a huge impression. But they were around since 1972, supposedly, which seems interesting. Also, they were apparently known to spar with cocks. Anyway, Home Blitz (which is basically Daniel DiMaggio of Princeton, NJ, who used to intern for me at the Voice and who wrote a couple reviews back then and who used to post occasionally on ILM) cover Cock Sparrer's "Is Anybody There?" (the original of which I don't think I've heard, but which seems to be about not getting to play on Top of the Pops), and give it powerpop jangle guitars out of the Searchers' "Needles And Pins" thus turning it into a zero-fidelity version of of maybe a Dwight Twilley or Bram Tchaicovsky song but with march beats in the middle on their new Out Of Phase album, and I like it. Also kinda like the other Jonathan Richman-whiney exurban no-fi nerd pop with intermittent late Flaming Groovies guitar parts Dan does, for instance one about driving scenically on Route 18 (toward Rutgers in New Brunswick maybe?), and I don't even mind that Home Blitz stick a couple quiet little noise-artfuckery interludes between tracks where it sounds like they're wheeling carts around the studio and breaking glass. No songs about baseball this time, but the label is Richie Records, the logo of which seems to be inspired by Richie Allen. Predict George and Phil would hate it, but there's a good chance Scott might like it a lot. No idea what Frank would think, but I'd be curious.

The Myspace lists Game Theory (?) and Big Star among their influences:

http://www.myspace.com/homeblitz

Something I wrote about them a couple years ago:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/07/hometown-heroes-do-the-ballroom-blitz.html

Also been liking the new album by Eddy Current Supression Ring from Melbourne, who also have tasty guitar jangle parts though probably not enough of a rhythm section, and also sound like regular guys singing about regular stuff regular people do. Album is Rush To Relax, on Goner. Not buying the Marquee Moon comparisons other people have supposedly made, but maybe I will someday. Previous album reminded me of Feedtime and Screaming Blue Messiahs; this one sounds spacier. My hunch is that that makes it not quite as good, but I could be wrong.

Their myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/eddycurrentsuppressionring

What I wrote about their last one:

http://www.spin.com/reviews/eddy-current-suppression-ring-primary-colours-goner

Also, Legendary Shack Shakers probably belong on this thread (well, for referencing past expiry hard rock at least) as on the country one. Here are some notes I wrote about their new one there. (For more on the new Shooter Jennings album, which is definitely way more loud rock than country, just not really all that good at it, back up a few posts):

Rolling Country 2010

Legendary Shack Shake myspace (might take a while to load, but the blog entries part has an extensive rundown of old "guitar-oriented stuff" they say they've been listening to, like Willie Dixon for instance):

http://www.myspace.com/legendaryshackshakers

For instance, implying that a sinister ruling cabal wants to turn America into a police state: that’s provocative, if unoriginal in rock. (Police states were the major concern of hard-core punk in the 1980s.) Borrowing, as Mr. Jennings does in “Summer of Rage,” a segment of a taped speech by Myron Fagan, the cold-war conspiracy theorist who believed that the Illuminati controlled the media and that desegregation was a communist plot: that’s unwise, at best. Using the speech as background in a rock threnody for the end of civilization with drum machine, rampant echo and weeping trumpet: that’s hilarious.

“Summer of Rage” is followed shortly by “The Illuminated,” with Walpurgisnacht Floyd riffs, clip-clop percussion and Autotune bombast, ending in air-raid siren. Illuminati ... Illuminated ... are we on to something? Dunno. The whole record is vaguely about coming to realize that you can’t trust anyone but your mother

Got this from your link on RC 2010.

So Shooter Jennings is a Tea Partier and one of the more fringy ones, at that. I'd get the record to see if it has the usual Bilderberg/Skull & Bones/Council on Foreign Relations stuff -- which always seems to accompany the Illuminati, too -- but "rampagingly awful" is too big a putdown to sacrifice a few bucks on.

You know these guys would be doing rock opera's based on the The Turner Diaries if they thought they could get away with it. And it just hadn't inconveniently been written by a neo-Nazi and the hang and shoot all the people of color part had just been buried a little more with regards to blowing up government buildings, killing the tyrants and taking the atheists off to concentration camps.

Ah, don't have to get the album. The big magilla -- the overlords, the CFR, big Alex Jones fan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvHEmTiFEts&feature=related

The Runaways movie soundtrack album. Glam record of semi-stuff, some of it bad

1. Nick Gilder - "Roxy Roller"
2. Suzi Quatro - "The Wild One"
3. MC5 - "It's A Man's Man's Man's World"
4. David Bowie - "Rebel Rebel"
5. Dakota Fanning - "Cherry Bomb"
6. The Runaways - "Hollywood"
7. Dakota Fanning - "California Paradise"
8. The Runaways - "You Drive Me Wild"
9. Dakota Fanning & Kristen Stewart - "Queens Of Noise"
10. Kristen Stewart & Dakota Fanning - "Dead End Justice"
11. The Stooges - "I Wanna Be Your Dog"
12. The Runaways - "I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are (Live)"
13. Sex Pistols - "Pretty Vacant"
14. Joan Jett - "Don't Abuse Me"

MC5's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" is James Brown, I think, and you know why they picked it. But this is one no one's gonna want to listen to more than once.

One usually picks a really cool number to start off. So it's a mystery why Nick Gilder is here. Well, no, it's probably not. It's probably used for an early seen hanging out at the Roxy.

I'll be interested in hearing the updated version of "Dead End Justice" since it's basically half
a really poorly acted skit. Which I originally thought lent unintended charm to the number.

"He beat me with a board/It felt just like a sword."

Ogden Nash'd be proud.

I can't help but think Dakota Fanning is in this because of "The Secret Life of Bees."

Hey, for xhuxk, check the 'songs about prostitution' thread for the youtube steal of Armand Schaubroek's "Ratfucker." Did the Tubes' Young and Rich just drip that or vice versa or not? Rhetorical question, obviously.

I can definitely hear a connection. That and the Kevin Coyne song that George sent me a youtube link to today, "Good Boy," both have lots of crazy musical force to them, vocal and otherwise. Both mainly....rants, I guess. Have never actually heard Shaubroeck (Steals) before, I don't think, though I've been hearing about him forever. How good was he?

Lots of Coyne here, if anybody's interested:

http://kevincoyne.blogspot.com/

Also, I actually do like "Roxy Roller" -- though maybe more so in the Sweeney Todd version, featuring Bryan "Guy" Adams. (Actually like Nick Gilder in general, and appreciate the contribution he made in keeping glam rock alive in Vancouver in the mid to late '70s when it apparently had died most everywhere else, thus paving the way for Streetheart.)

Pulled out Fanny's Fanny Hill from 1972, and it definitely had more organic boogie dirt beneath its nails than that later post-touring-band album I talked about a bunch of posts above. But I'm not sure that makes me like it more, to be honest. Their version of "Hey Bulldog" fucking kills kills kills, and the the first couple songs on Side One ("Ain't That Peculiar" cover and "Knock On My Door") have some okay thump to them, and "Rock Bottom Blues" is a decent midway point between pop boogie and pop glam even if its opening does remind me too much of "Your Mama Don't Dance" by Loggins & Messina (same year.) But lots of the rest just sounds too frigging hippified for my taste -- you can really hear the lesbian-folk boat about to roll ashore in June Millington's ballads. She even has one called "Think About The Children," for God's sake, and she's not joking! Guess the gospel backup and bullfight bolero horns in the closer "The First Time" should be interesting on paper, but I could live without them, too. So I dunno.

Occurred to me that the first Home Blitz album from a couple years back and Cheap Trick's Latest album from last year have something in common in that, in both cases, the best track was a lesser-known Slade cover: "My Town" and "When The Lights Are Out," respectively. (I wound up liking the Home Blitz set more myself, but I get why some wouldn't.)

Got an archival CD by a St. Louis band called Raymilland in the mail today: Recordings '79-'81. Theoretically "post-punk", and definitely sounds like brainy kids playing with their chemistry kits a lot (think I stole that from Frank), but who its melodies and singing keep bringing to mind for me is actually the Bizarros, for some reason.

Alex Jones's Wiki page lists KRS-One and Willie Nelson as also having appeared on his show; I definitely heard Dave Mustaine on there a month or two ago too. My car dial always seem to land on the show on Saturday afternoons, for some reason. Jones is based here; not clear to me whether he's as big a radio presence anywhere else -- but in general, I get the idea Austin counts as some kind of conspiracy-theory capital. The mood here just feels conducive to that kind of thinking, somehow. Lotsa Ron Paul stickers around, still. Theoretically outlaw city that's been home to aging hippies with fried brainpains for decades ("keep Austin weird") in an archetypally right-libertarian cowboy state that wants to indoctrinate Christianity and creationism in school history and science classes, so no big surprise. Neither was Joe Stack, maybe.

Some maniac posted almost an entire 12/23/72 Grand Funk Railroad concert on YouTube. Enjoy! http://bit.ly/g_f_r

got the moses cd reissue on shadoks and i'm really digging it. very cool danish power trio. only made one album. love the arrangements and production. some cream, some sabbath, you know the drill. but definitely worth a spin or five. phil, you would dig it. i think.

http://psychedelic-music.com/GIF/Moses.gif

(one of those albums i'd always heard about but never got around to hearing till now.)

mentioned the "official" reissues of amazing african psych records by witch and amanaz on the reissues thread, but i feel like i should mention them again since i can't stop playing them. the witch album *lazy bones!!* definitely belongs here. hard and heavy zambian psych/hard rock.

http://www.exiledrecords.com/shop/images/witchlazybones.jpg

I got those African albums - Witch and Amanaz - in the mail this weekend, and really didn't like them as much as I'd hoped to. Nigerian rock bands (BLO, Moussa Doumbia and Ofo the Black Company in particular) just stomp all over 'em. More fuzz, wilder rhythms, over-the-top vocals...the Nigerians had everyone beat in the '70s. I think I had that Moses disc at one point, too, but it kinda slid under a pile of other stuff.

i think the amanaz is sublime. and a wonderful psych album. as far as witch goes, let's just say that i'm pretty easy to please as far as 70's hard rock goes and its got some cool moments.

Count me among those who think there is a ruling elite of some sort and that it's worth investigating the visible organs of power (e.g., the CFR), that it's not ridiculous to talk about the risk of the U.S. becoming a police state given the extent to which our rights have been trampled on in recent years (continuing into the current administration), that the revolving door between Wall Street and the Federal Reserve is more than a little troubling, etc., etc. The people I relate to the least are the ones who feel not outrage about anything and seem incapable of imagining how fucked we actually are.

(But no, not a fan of Alex Jones.)

I guess this is just crazy conspiracy theory too.

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/nov/01/00006/

And I guess it reflect poorly on me that I wonder why the corporate media has almost completely left this story untouched.

She started her own website, incidentally:

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/

But lots of the rest just sounds too frigging hippified for my taste -- you can really hear the lesbian-folk boat about to roll ashore in June Millington's ballads.

You need to dig out Mother's Pride too. You should see all the pics in the Rhino Handmade box. They really did drip that rock hippie house off Sunset vibe where Lowell George would come to teach 'em to play slide and everyone would hang vibe. My only gripe is they could've been encouraged to inject more venom at a time when the guys were certainly doing it.

Don't have any Mother's Pride; decided instead to go full-on early '70s pre-fab in order to clear all that hippie fiber from my guts: The Wild Thing album by Fancy (who I used to get confused with Fanny oddly enough -- and yeah Scott, I've always mixed up Ayers and Coyne too), on Big Tree Records (also home of Brownsville Station for some years there), from 1974. Title-track Troggs cover was a #14 hit; followup single "Touch Me" where the girl in the band tries to sound al sexy, went #14. Don't think I've ever heard either of those songs on the radio. Apparently they were British, and maybe it's possible they actually played live sometimes, but they sound like such a disco-forecasting studio concoction they make the band on the first Ram Jam album seem like, uh, the Grateful Dead. Liner notes: "Wild Thing, an old song, a new version, a chart record. Fancy, a New Band, great guys, fantastic chick. Don't listen to this ecord alone, it takes two to...Tango?" Four good-looking people probably in their twenties on the cover, two trying to look tough in their leather jackets, one who looks more a junior professor type, and a blonde squeezed into cut off jean shorts. All conceivably on cocaine, or hoping to look like they are.

Lots of cowbells and congas all over, but also chunky bubblegum hard rock riffs -- really, given this was England, maybe not far from Chinn and Chapman's early works for the Sweet (or maybe even Chicory Tip or somebody more mysteriously Brit like that), though here the producer and principal songwriter turns out to be some guy named Mike Hurst (who Wiki explains had earlier produced Brit hits for the Move and Manfred Mann, and later managed Shakin' Stevens and discovered Samantha Fox.)

Catchiest non-singles are probably Fancy's clueless bid for mid-American high school parking lots sock-hop nostalgia number "Move On," extremely Diddleyfied "Between The Devil And Me," and percussive closer "Feel Good," none of which one recalls much else about once they end. Okay, just found this on last.fm: "Fancy is a British white funk band of the 1970’s most famous for their cover of the Trogg’s 'Wild Thing,' a single which went gold in the U.S. Former Penthouse pet Helen Court sang steamily, Rick Fenwick ex-of the Spencer Davis Group played guitar, Mo Foster bass, Henry Spinetti drums and Alan Hawkshaw keyboards. Fancy released several subsequent albums replacing Court with Annie Cavanaugh from the cast of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, but failed to regain the same success." So there you go.

Finally, fwiw, I definitely think there is some middle ground between believing that all is for the best in the best of all possible words and thinking Boxcar Willie was a lizard person. But that's just me.

Actually "Touch Me" went #19, oops. (And then in 1986, Samantha Fox had her first hit, also named "Touch Me," which went #4. Coincidence?)

Also meant "Don't listen to this record...," obv. (And didn't mean to imply Chapman/Chinn produced Chicory Tip; that came out wrong. Also don't think Fancy get anywhere near as catchy as the Sweet.)

i love the fancy wild thing cover. i have the 45. i need the album. or i want to hear it at least. i'll find one out there.

(Also, duh -- Mother's Pride is a Fanny album, not a band! Don't think I've ever actually heard that one, but I'll keep an eye out.)

i always want to like fanny records more than i do. i've tried over the years. i think i've heard them all. there is a great comp to be made of their strongest songs. but for the length of an album...usually i get kinda bored. even the glam makeover doesn't do too much for me. i'll take that debut by Isis for rockin' 70's ladies.

Coyne videos linked here so they don't clog, along with excerpt from the thread. See 'blogroll meta' in sidebar for attrib.

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/03/01/brit-idiosyncracy-always-waives-the-rules/

Uh, well it displays on the main page.

Listening to a disc today that I highly recommend to Scott and George and recommend Chuck totally ignore: Walk the Nile, by Elephant9. They're an instrumental organ-bass-drums trio on Rune Grammofon; this is their second album. Ultra thick prog-rock grooves, like what might have happened if Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Gillan had fallen off the stage during a Deep Purple show in '72 and the other three had to vamp for an hour. The drummer is from Shining, whose latest album Blackjazz combines free skronk, death metal and industrial into a huge howling roar (and closes with a massively ear-destroying version of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man") and the keyboardist is from Supersilent, but don't let that fool you - he's in full Lord/Emerson territory here, and the bassist (who's from a group I've never heard called National Bank) is working a groove somewhere right between Chris Squire of Yes and John Lodge from the Moody Blues. This is a really heavy album that kinda blindsided me with its awesomeness; made to be played loud, for sure.

i was actually gonna recommend that elephant9 album to YOU, phil, a week or two ago. but i forgot to. i love it. been playing it a lot.

recommend Chuck totally ignore

Uh, doesn't sound like something I'd hate, Phil! I might even like it. (Fwiw, a weirdo prog album on Rune Grammofon, Jono El Grande's Neo Dada, made my Pazz & Jop last year. And "massively ear-destroying version of King Crimson's '21st Century Schizoid Man'" sounds like it could be a real cool thing; ditto extended Jon Lord-style organ vamping. So, not like I'm averse to that kind of stuff -- though if you're guessing I might prefer it with a singer, you could be right.)

I was totally into Lee Michaels Live, which -- between the singing parts, had huge amounts of B3 and drum vamps. So yeah, this sounds like a hit.

the elephant9 album has such a cool sound to it. it's refreshing in a way. that combination of instruments sounds really good to me at the moment. i've been slogging my way thru 9 or 10 brian auger albums trying to sift out the wheat from the chaff and to hear a new group that just cuts to the chase and gets to the good parts right away is a relief!

there is live elephant9 footage on youtube but its more stretched out and noodly stuff then the album. the album has good concise punchy tracks on it.

So has Giorgio (Moroder)'s goofball protest against policemen, "Watch Your Step," from his 1972 LP Son Of My Father showed up on any of those velvet goldmining glam-rock nuggets reissue CDs that've come out in recent years? I haven't heard any of those, but it should. What a rocking song -- really, maybe more legit '60s garage punk than '70s glam as far as its sound goes. (Rest of the album has parts that could maybe pass for Mud or Gary Glitter, but not super rocking ones. Still a real good prehistoric synth-pop record though. Title track went #46 in the States; Moog beauty "Tears" wound up getting sampled on DJ Shadow's Endtroducing; "Lord Release Me" could be a Boney M prototype.)

Also played Barrabas's RCA 1973 Power, easily one of the very funkiest rock LPs of the early '70s, today. Scott's a big fan, too --sextet from Spain, maybe trying to be Santana but totally out-grooving them. Killer cuts: "Mr. Money," "Casanova," "Children," "Boogie Rock." Heart Of The City from '75, which charted #149 in the States, is good too, but this one's better. Have never heard their '71 debut Wild Safari. They got played a bit in very early discos, apparently.

and that's LITERALLY 9 or 10 brian auger albums. believe you me, they are not all created equal.

i've really been enjoying the Mark-Almond Band lately. i like all the stuff with dannie richmond.

and IF! been playing a lot of IF. they had some great heavy moments for a proggy horn band.

every Barrabas album has gems on it.

chuck, you HAVE to hear the sandy nelson disco cover of in-a-gadda-da-vida i was listening to today. so awesome!

I'll try! But is it better than the Disco Circus or 16 Bit versions?

By the way, speaking of prehistoric organ-metal and disco-rock, anybody ever heard a whole album by this band Titanic, who did "Sultana" (from 1972's Sea Wolf) that supposedly was a big hit across Europe and got worked into DJ sets between soul classics in very early (like 1971) New York gay discos? Jasper and Oliver call them "heavy Uriah Heep-style thrash rock" and say they came from "UK/France/Norway". (They also say they went downhill after their third album in 1973.) I don't think I've ever seen an album by them, but maybe I will someday.

"and that's LITERALLY 9 or 10 brian auger albums. believe you me, they are not all created equal."

The two CD Live Oblivion is the one to hear. The live versions smoke most of the studio takes. I do think Auger had a nice mix, even though it is jazzy rock, it really is more reminicent to a rockish take on a modal or cool jazz group than fusion. The studio albums are a bit more spotty, but they seemed to be one of those groups that never really had a steady singer and the guy that is on the live records is also on Closer to It (I'm pretty sure), which I think is one of the better ones.

I get into times though I really like to listen to rock bands or jazz groups that use a bunch of Hammond organ. That is a sound that just isn't around much now and if it is, it's not the same.

The record I came across via emusic that kind of fits this thread that really blew my mind was getting Johnny Guitar Watson's "What the Hell Is This?" A title very fitting, no doubt...criminy that thing is one crazy mix of stuff. "I don't want no one to taste my cognac before I can have a drink..." This stuff is from some pocket universe. It's like chocolate, peanut butter and grape jelly melted down into a tasty goo.

Zappa was a major fan of Watson. So was Steve Miller.

I had heard some of his blues stuff and knew JGW did funk in the 70s, but this record is quite cool. It definitely holds up well with some p-funk or bootsie.

really turned off to Shooter now. dang

Reflects a lot of his audience and upbringing, I suppose. Although he spent a lot of time in an unsuccessful LA glam band.

Article on Daniel Davies and his band, Year Long Disaster, in today's LA Times. In an inauspicious start, it devotes a good third of its length to the lede which is on how Daniel Davies is a remarkable van driver, able to get across the country in three days.

No idea what the music sounds like from the piece except it's loud hard rock, nothing like Dave Davies' guitar playing and the impression that Davies and his son don't like each other too much, now living on opposite sides of the world. New album threatened on Monday. Anyone heard it?

It was an interesting read, something someone spent time on, as opposed to Tuscaloosa Ann's bit on Jimi Hendrix on Saturday. What would Jimi have thought of hip hop? Would he "have had a hand in inventing
it?" If you ever wondered about the evidence for a deity, then Tuscaloosa Ann on Jimi Hendrix is good evidence of god playing a little bit of a practical joke.

speaking of canada, picked up hammersmith's second album tonight for the princely sum of two dollars. 1976. i dig it. some proggy flourishes and a six minute song called "under the sea", but mostly just short sweet hard rock songs and some pop rock stuff a la styx. two guitarists. they never really stretch out and jam for long, but the sound they make is satisfying.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_xQ-zn51BoTk/ReEXXk2q14I/AAAAAAAAADM/vywWtJJ0gBQ/s320/cover.jpg

Heard the 75 debut last year, liked it. The usual good slice of meat and potatoes Canadian hard rock.
Here's what I thought at the time.

Way better odds is Hammersmith's debut from '75. Canadian undercard party rock band. "Late Loving Man" is BTO cowbell rock, "Money Rock" same funky and tongue-in-cheek style as Joe Walsh would be doing on Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet -- a really good song, maybe the best on the album.

"Nobody Really Knows Why the Sun Goes" -- Eagles Hotel California melancholia. In fact, on the chorus it sounds exactly like the Eagles, with heavier guitars.

Lots of funky hard rock on this, second hight point probably "Funky as She Goes," the
penultimate number. Again, this one is very Joe Walsh solo inflected, ripping off the riff "Play That Funky Music, White Boy" in the song's intro.

speaking of canada, listening to the 1978 debut by Aerial. Aerial was apparently a Beatles tribute band called Liverpool before they changed their name. so you can imagine what their album sounds like. very Beatles-y. i like it. they weren't a one-note power pop band though. lots of guitars, lots of synths and even mellotron and a song entitled "Indispensable Thomas Hensible" that i really like a lot.

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/s19172.jpg

so, you know, if you are a klaatu fan, you would dig the aerial album.

just to prove that i can be mean and nasty on the internet i gotta warn men women and children away from the horrible new "space rock" album i got in the mail yesterday by someone calling himself "the flowers of hell". one guy and about a ZILLION other people playing everything except a jews harp and the spoons making the most tedious go nowhere sub-Spiritualized "orchestral" racket that i've heard in a long time. this is supposed to be "ambitious". or something. it actually makes the deadly boring Japanese crescendo-rock band Mono - who i can't stand - sound lively by comparison. yuck.