Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

xp Yeah, I also very briefly used to have an earlier Scott Morgan CD from the late '80s or so, probably with "16 With A Bullet" on it, and it definitely struck me at the time as more Cougar/Bruce heartland stuff, less powerful, than the new one does. Decided at the time that it was too dull and stodgy to hang onto; conceivable I underrated it, I guess. Wish I'd kept the "16 With A Bullet" 45, at least. (New CD, fwiw, is self-titled; none of the tracks coincide with what's now on his MySpace.)

So, anybody have any opinion about early solo Sammy Hagar? Never thought to have an opinion before myself, just always hated "I Can't Drive 55" so much I figured the earlier stuff was just as wretched, but a copy of his 10-song '82 best-of Relapse was in that bottomless Metal Mike charity box, and it's better than I would've guessed. First three songs on Side Two -- "Trans Am (Highway Wonderland)," "Love Or Money," and the kind of hilariously quasi-evil "This Planet's On Fire (Burn In Hell)," all from '79-'80 -- come real close to the speed and density of that era's NWOBHM to my ears. Also like "I've Done Everything For You" (comparable to the Rick Springfield version), "Rock N Roll Weekend" (for the riff, which I swear sounds like Joy Division's "Interzone," which in Stairway I compared to Diamondhead's "Shoot Out The Lights," which I haven't heard since), and "Bad Reputation" (not the Joan Jett or Thin Lizzy songs but still really really hookful, about a working class girl in trouble iirc). Have never listened to any of Hagar's early solo LPs, but Popoff says the self-titled debut from '76 and Street Machine from '79 are the best ones. (He hated VOA, though.)

Even better in the Metal Mike box: self-titled '80 Epic debut by Speedway Blvd., who don't show up in Popoff, Jasper/Oliver, or the Rolling Stone Record Guide. Five guys -- three white, one black, one possibly somewhere in between, hard to tell from the cover photo. First side is good hard macho late '70s Foreigner/Bad Company AOR with cool keyboard parts, "Chinatown" maybe the highlight; second side gets more ornate, almost toward a bizarre ahead-of-their-time cross between late '80s Queensryche and late '80s Loverboy at some points, but less awful than that sounds. Almost new wavey (Hounds via Thomas Dolby?) "Telephoto Lens" and musclebound but complex rocker "(Call My Name) Rock Magic" my two favorites, overall. Did an admittedly perfunctory Google search a few days ago, and the most promiment mentions of the album I found were on a Dream Theater (!?) website; not sure if there's a personnel connection with them, or not. First and last songs on the LP are decent ones with "boulevard" in the title; very '80s word (see: Journey, Jackson Browne, Robbie Dupree), so maybe ahead-of-time there, too.

Speaking of new wavish keyboard hard rock (Speedway Blvd definitely have some Cars and maybe even Knack influence in there too), I also gave the first Fischer-Z album from 1979, Word Salad, a spin for the first time in a while yesterday, and it sounded good in the background all through but I can't say any songs totally killed me. Loud enough, but probably still a bit too un-rock'n'roll Brit-robotic in the rhythm section. Was surprised by how Jon Anderson-like the singer's high register sounds, and how much reggae they worked in (two or three songs I think -- Speedway Blvd had one, too.)

I like Sammy Hagar's Capitol recordings. They're all generally good, the s/t having the most durable songs from the period -- Red, Cruisin' and Boozin', Rock 'n' Roll Weekend, and his fascination with little corny sci-fi operas: Little Star/Eclipse. Also hear Crack in the World from Musical Chairs, also Turn Up the Music, Don't Stop Me Now and Reckless.

Actually should've said that Popoff went for Nine On A Ten Scale, not the self-titled -- which is the Capitol one he likes least (3 out of 10). Also gives All Night Long (live, apparently?) a low grade, but says when he was younger it reminded him of Derringer Live, hmmm. As for that "Red" song, man, I don't know. I just don't get the guy's weird obsession with, like, redness. (Loverboy and the Romantics like that color just as much, but didn't feel the need to sing about it!)

Red clothes, red sports car, red guitars -- even the Capitol albums were mostly red. His box set from a couple years ago -- actually 2 CD best of -- came in red. He was the Red Rocker. Paradoxically, when he lightened up on the red and went to a different label, he had more success saleswise. I saw his tequila in the grocery store behind the lock-up. It was not red. And I never got the feeling he did much of the red thing when he was in Van Halen, looking just like one of the boys.

I guess at Capitol it was glommed onto as a potential sales thing, something that made him stand out as a brand.

Unrelated but a post as a consequence of work I started at the Voice. It took eight years for a bad publicity result I contributed to accumulate to the point that the plug was pulled on an exotic stupidly mean weapon called the Active Denial System (ADS) that was in Afghanistan.

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/07/26/cult-of-emp-crazy-wonder-weapon-sacked-as-potential-publicity-disaster/

The Daily Chav:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/07/30/article-1299049-0AA2E073000005DC-618_468x723.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1299049/Snooki-handcuffed-arrested-disorderly-conduct-Jersey-Shore.html&usg=__kFjHqR8HKSl__OXEktwolweZ1hM=&h=723&w=468&sz=112&hl=en&start=29&tbnid=fEP5FfXsy4C6KM:&tbnh=140&tbnw=91&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsnooki%26start%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1

Back in Past Expiry land, Jasper and Oliver hilariously on-point in re King Of Hearts' Close, But No Guitar (Capitol, 1978 -- maybe the only '70s album that I own only as a "test pressing" btw): "Pretty-boy duo specializing in sub-funk close-harmony soul, until side two of their LP is played. Two of the most lethal doses of metallic majesty on this side leave the listener confused and drooling for more." Only quibbles: The two guys in the "band", singer Robert Fitoussi and guitarist Marc Tobaly, are not all that pretty, despite blow-dried curls; or at least Tobaly isn't -- dude's a bit of a chubster, with a major overbite and more than a few wrinkles, judging from the back cover photo. Also, I count three metal (in the funky post-Who '70s Detective/Derringer/Piper sense, or thereabouts) cuts on Side Two, not just two: "Ridin' On," "Fancy Dancer," and "Love For Hire." Bet they meant the first two of those, but the third'd fit fine on a Flame album, I'd think.

Also played Be Bop Deluxe's Axe Victim a couple times this week, and definitely do now agree with George that it's not one of their more impressive efforts, due in part to Bill Nelson's faux-Deluxe backing band. Most memorable parts, in fact, seem to be Bowied-out glam moves, most obviously in "Night Creatures," about lads who wear Max Factor and high heels and paint their faces white. Which, judging from the cover pictures, isn't far from what the band was doing at the time (= 1974).

Yeah, never cared for it much. The cover and image had potential but ...

Have never heard or seen the other record you mention.

High point guitar wrangling and hard rock wise re BeBop were Sunburst Finish, Live in the Air Age and Futurama. I always go with SF. Which really looks 'Ziggy and the Spiders' on its cover, too. "Crying to the Sky" has Bill Nelson's greatest guitar solo ever. Totally
lyric Hendrix inspiration.

Speaking of Ziggy, was listening to Bauhaus' cops on "Ziggy Stardust", "Telegram Sam," and Doctor & the Medics' cover of "Spirit In the Sky" today. A plus on the first, C minus on the second, go for the original on the third although it's not really bad at all.

i could never get into axe victim. great cover though. i think me and be bop deluxe have agreed to disagree. i've tried, really i've tried.

Foghat 2.0 is not Foghat. Lots of people on the fair circuit in the US still don't get this.

It's understandable. Foghat was not a band with an identifiable face. The identifiable voice, Lonesome Dave, has been long replaced by brand -- and the endless boogie.

Comedy results, like this bit of a weekend review from a Sacramento web pub:

Coincidently, or maybe not, it was at this point in the show that I got my first big whiff of bammer weed.

I had already come to the conclusion that the lead singer was clearly not an original member of the band. Foghat formed in London in 1971. It took about 15 seconds to ascertain that the lead singer was not British.

After "Stone Blue," Huhn introduced the band. It turns out their original drummer, Roger Earle, was recovering from minor back surgery, and the skins were being played by Mitch Ryder's drummer.

He then introduced the bassist, Craig MacGregor. He was decidedly not English.

Lastly, he introduced the guitarist, Bryan Bassett, formerly of Wild Cherry and Molly Hatchett.

On this night, at least, the British blues rock band from England consisted of two guys from Detroit, and two guys from Pennsylvania.

America, f*%k yeah.

http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/33974/Slow_Ride_Take_it_Easy

i was excited to find the reddy teddy album from 1976 two days ago -its been on my want list- even though the copy wasn't that great. but for 2 bucks i couldn't complain. so today my friend bugsy came by to sell me stuff and he had a perfectly perfect copy. what great timing! love this album. boston's answer to the new york dolls. some hard rock, some punkiness, some glam stomping and it also sounds like they were listening to the kings in aerosmith a little too. plus, lots of humor. and willie alexander's help. "a child of the nuclear age" kills me! love "moron rock" too. which seems to be an anti-glam, anti-alice cooper, anti-punk song all in one. "but its all gonna stop, have to chuck it all up/it's just lollipops that you suck/the truth of the matter is your eardrums are shattered playing the moron rock!"

http://fredpopdom.free.fr/images/Reddy-Teddy/Reddy-Teddy-Front.jpg

CNN's Rick Sanchez -- a big time buffoon -- makes Ted Nugent his person of the day at the noon hour.

Why?

Here's Rick's words on his blog:

Rock and roll legend. Check. Gun lover. Big game hunter. Unapologetic ultra-conservative. Check, check and check.

He used a whole page of angry ink in a major Washington D.C. newspaper today to go off on the president, a nation of people he calls "sheep" and a country he calls a "shameless mess."

This is from his Washington Post op-ed:

"Welcome to the new fat, soft, cowardly nation of wimps with the perfectly corrupt president and pack of soulless hounds in government that they deserve."

Hey Ted...relax, baby! "Motor City Madman" is just a nickname!

Ted Nugent. He's never minced words, and he's damn sure not mincing them today. He's ticked off. He's opinionated. He's loud!

Hey, aren't those all symptoms of "Cat Scratch Fever"?

Only one thing wrong. Ted's column didn't appear in the Washington Post. It ran in the WaTimes, as usual, like it does twice weekly, over the weekend with a cartoon of Obama as Mao ZeDong, which Nugent mentions in every column. Along with three graf long run-on sentences in this one. Ted goes off on the President every week, along with everyone else in the country he despises. He repeats himself a lot, always uses the same insults and cut-and-paste Ted-o-isms.

Now for our friends across the pond, this is a really big "Oof!" The Washington Post is the newspaper of Woodward & Bernstein and lots of other famous journalists. The WaTimes is the newspaper of the Moonie guy and lots of right wing crazy people.

Now, if it had been in the WaPost, it would have been remarkable. And there's always the possibility the newspaper will do something completely irrational -- like support the Iraq War and torture.

But for now -- Ted's still stuck at the fringe place.

Here's an interview I did with former Nugent drummer Tommy Clufetos, who's also played with Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie and now Ozzy Osbourne. Thought it might be of interest to thread denizens.

moderators, we need a thread title change: The All Nuge Expiry 2010

re xhuxk's Sammy Hagar "red" observation, these made me laugh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIV9iUwwhqo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2LVPwvxVaU&feature=related

Doesn't dress in red so much anymore. Although for the 2010 arena gig looks like he had the cheering
section behind him all kitted out in red. Does jumping jacks onstage, plays the I've Done Everything for You" Springfield joke for obvious laughs with a decent punchline. Wait for the older mom-type signing the lyrics for the deaf at the side of the stage, after he gets into the song.

Amiable.

I actually liked his single "Mas Tequila" when it came out in 1999. Wish I had an actual 45 of it (assuming one exists.) Reviewed it in the Voice, along with Metallica's "Whiskey In The Jar":

http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-05-11/music/double-shot/

Elsewise, here's what's black-sharpied on the front cover of Fiona's 1989 Heart Like A Gun album, an apparent booby prize included in the box o' vinyl Metal Mike sent me (all caps, of course, but I'll make this easier on the eyes): "I suck ass but my BF produced Ratt and mis-produced Warrant and Ratt and and my BF didn't want to let Warrant record 'Heaven'! I'm glad he had a giant dick, because he's a fuckin' idiot." Tattooed on Fiona's arm: "Beau Hill is a fag." Back cover: "Susie Hatton (sic) w/ Bret Michaels made (marginally) better albums than this GF/BF Fiona/Beau Hill crap!"

Album's indeed pretty awful. Sort of like bad '80s Heart, but more fake-metal souped-up and bloated, and without the hooks. Metal Mike has marked "Bringing In The Beast" (which has soul horns, fwiw) on the cover with a red X, and "Look At Me Now" with a red XX, but I don't know if that means he thinks they were better or worse than the other songs. I'd pick the opener, "Little Jeanie (Got The Look Of Love)" (apparently an emphasis track since it's named on the cover sticker) as the most bearable song, powerless ballad "Victoria Cross" as the most horrible probably. Kip Winger duet "Everything You Do (You're Sexing Me)" got to #52 on the pop chart, apparently; sounds vaguely familiar, I guess. "Where The Cowboys Go" is neglible, but still gets added to the long list of hair-metal cowboy songs that, two decades early, anticipated how hair metal would evolve into contemporary country, or vice versa.

Hah, having been raised in Phillipsburg, NJ, Fiona had a connection to the Lehigh Valley so the features section had to do charity case publicity on her by default. She played the serial killer in the "Little Miss Dangerous" episode of Miami Vice.

The weekend's dose of Nugent. Scroll past the entry to see the stuff about him popping one off in Dubuque.

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/category/ted-nugent/

What the hell could Nugent possibly be thinking.

Just got a reissue of a barely-issued album from 1973 or so, Let Me In by a Youngstown, OH-based power trio, Poobah. It's good stuff, musically anyway; the guitarist is excellent, and the rhythm section is solid. The lyrics (which are unfortunately reprinted in the booklet) are brain-crushingly awful, though - they make Mark Farner sound like Bob Dylan. Still, very good stuff. The original six-track album is padded out with twelve demos, recorded in various living rooms on two-track.

Haven't heard that one, but Steamroller, the Poobah album (from 1979 apparently) reissued on great but short-lived Monster Records a few years back, was awesome. Who's reviving the '73 one??

Liner notes say they had six albums! Monster also reissued one from 1976, called U.S. Rock, according to the inner sleeve booklet.

Courtesy of the collectors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bje4ErgDKnc&feature=related

They have a song called "Highway Gestapo"!

The debut is being released by Ripple Music - www.ripple-music.com.

Howler of the day, from Ted Nugent, naturally:

from my impulse to create/unleash the songs to my incredible band and the entire production team – is all about our united celebration of raw, instinctual primal-scream all-American R&B&R&R soul music ...

Soul music.

It's called overcompensating.

poobah were cool. they've been on the thud headz hall of fame for years. records are hard to find. to say the least.

bar bands of the 1970s: a picture thread

xhuxk wanted to know what DEK looked like in Allentown in the late Seventies. Major props to the bar band promo photo thread.

Without them, no Poison, no Cinderella, no Britny Fox, no anyone quite the same from the tri-state area. Kix included.

A reader left this on my blog, from an Alice Cooper performance on French TV in '81. It's from the Special Forces LP and Mike Pinera from Iron Butterfly was his guitarist.

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

I had to laugh.

Two passable, intermittently hard-rock-leaning major label '80s LPs I never heard of before, from Metal Mike's charity box:

Echo Park soundtrack, A&M 1986 -- Good hard-rock/bar-band/garage cuts by Jimmie Woods & the Immortals (a cover of Doug Sahm's Ray Charles "What'd I Say" update "She's About A Mover" and a sort of rock rap frat party banger called "The Immortal Strut"), Dean Chamberlain ("The Need"), and the Sights (kind of Clashy "Twice As Hard" -- not the same wimpy Sights who arose out of Detroit's White Stripes garage scene a couple decades later I gather.) None of which acts I know anything about; maybe they were just created for the movie for all I know. Only act on the whole album I've ever heard of before is David Baerwald, of David & David kinda fame. Tracks by Johnette and Mike Sherwood/Julie Christenson are fair-to-middling Ellen Foley/Shipley/Concrete Blonde-style big voiced gurl power ballads. Future Lillith type Toni Childs gets a "special thanks," but doesn't appear to be on the record. Never heard of the movie before either; Wiki calls it "a 1986 comedy-drama film, set in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The plot follows several aspiring actors, musicians and models." Apparently Cheech Marin, Susan Dey, and Elvira (playing a secretary) were in it.

Straight Lines, self-titled, Epic 1980: Vancover band, apparently, judging from where they recorded and where their management was based, which would mean they could be from the same scene as Streetheart, Loverboy, Sweeney Todd, etc., assuming such a "scene" actually existed. Good catchy keyboard-based AOR, turning toward Foreigner/late '70s Bad Co hard rock in the side openers "Heads Are Gonna Roll" and "Roanne" and especially Side One closing prostitute ode "Midnight Woman," which opens with a real brutal metal riff which comes back intermittently amidst R.E.O.-type harmony. Closer "The Things You Do" is nice Shooting Star pomp with a good guitar climax; "Sweet Water" goes into a cool Dixieland jazz part (keyboard guy doubles on sax); "She's A Rounder" and "Everybody Wants To Be Star" are tasty midtempo medium-rock semi-ballad whatevers. Can't say any of it's super memorable, but good pop sense, overall. Which seems to have been running in Vancouver's water supply in the early '80s.

god this album is just bonkers. my kinda bonkers too. in the same bonkers vein as santana/mclaughlin or lenny white solo astral fusion.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0bPcJ1PGbmE/S1D-1iUAMFI/AAAAAAAAAUg/fw8rH34lEQs/s320/Colosseum+-+Electric+Savage001.jpg

chuck, i know you like 10 inch records, well, you need this one if you don't have it. lotsa fun. on edsel/demon from 1980.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-9MKvIbR8E8/Sw58o7ZeroI/AAAAAAAAAqE/3c7XGWs4l6c/s1600/The+Pirates+-+A+fistful+of+dubloons+1980.jpg

Echo Park soundtrack, A&M 1986 -- / Tracks by Johnette and Mike Sherwood/Julie Christenson are fair-to-middling Ellen Foley/Shipley/Concrete Blonde-style big voiced gurl power ballads.

She was Chris D.'s wife and co-singer in Divine Horsemen, and then toured and recorded with Leonard Cohen. It was strange when I realized it was the same singer on some very different albums.

the fight at fenway! j.geils -vs- aerosmith! go!

Last: 8/14/2010 Aerosmith and the J. Geils Band rocked Fenway on Saturday, Aug. 14. Were you there? Was it all you expected it to be? Share your review here.

http://www.boston.com/community/forums.html?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3aArts+and+EntertainmentForum%3a9500Discussion%3a3830570d-99c4-4574-96fc-a837906d4bdd&plckCurrentPage=0

J geils was great! They came prepared. Played two hours, non-stop and everything their fans wanted to hear. They could and SHOULD go out on tour tomorrow. Friends on the west coast are dying to see them out there. Its been decades!

Aerosmith started out great with Train Kept a Rollin and then it was all down hill from there.

They could have made it special with some older or rare songs for their home town fans, but they didn't. They stuck to their regular tour set list and it was a disappointment to a lot of people and long time fans. Did they really have to do PINK when they could have done something more classic like Seasons of Wither? really guys? Come ON! Throw us a dinosaur bone! It was a perfect night to stroll down memory lane with the fans that known you better and longer than anywhere else in the world.

We all could have been in Peoria watching this show with this set list and no one would have been the wiser. This was THE Boston show of their career and a special night for their long time, devoted fans ( that paid out the @@@ for these tickets!) and it could have been so much more and special. But in the end, it looked just like another day at the office for them.

Fenway concert Setlist

01. Train Kept A Rollin'
02. Love In An Elevator
03. Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)
04. Livin' On The Edge
05. What It Takes (Zzzzzz)
06. Pink ( REALLY?)
07. Last Child
08. Cryin'
--Drum Solo--
09. Rag Doll
--Guitar Hero Joe-- (DUMB)
10. Stop Messin' Around (w/Tony & Adrian Perry)
11. I Don't Want To Miss A Thing
12. Come Together
13. Sweet Emotion
14. Baby Please Don't Go (usually great, but tonight it came off as a self indulgent mess)
15. Draw The Line

Encore:
16. Dream On
17. Walk This Way

Notes: Steven played Dream On at a white baby grand piano, atop the Green Monster! Must have been nice for him.

Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents - really fun; they play around the Boston area all the time - check them out.

J. Geils - Fantastic, playing all the songs you wanted to hear with a lot of energy; Wolf sounded great, and J. Geils/Magic Dick/Seth Justman were their ever-solid selves.

Aerosmith - SUCKED. Started off with Train Kept a Rollin', and then proceeded to play all their cheesiest ballads & 80's crapola...Just when it couldn't get any worse, Joe Perry starts playing against Guitar Hero on stage, then Joey Kramer plays a 30-second drum solo, followed by another 30-second drum solo only using his hands. Very, very frustrating - waiting for them to just start ripping out more of their classic 70's hits, but that just didn't happen...Aerosmith had ZERO energy, which is really disappointing seeing how they were in Boston, and at Fenway no less...The show ended with -what looked like, at least - Perry sniping at Tyler over Tyler's remark that he's going to be pregnant with Joe Tyler's baby put the rotten cherry on the top of this mess. Very disappointing, Aerosmith-wise,

I was happy he didn't fall off the Green Monster but he did F up the beging of WHAT SONG? DREAM ON DUH!!!! The one he's been playing the longest. I spent over $300 per ticket to see them. My friend never saw Aerosmith. He thought they were good but I love my music and my ear caught everything. It's almost as if he didn't want to be there.

I never thought I'd admit this but "time to put the scarves to bed"!

I think the image that summed up the night for me the best was watching the heavily branded "Joe Perry: Guitar Hero" bus roll through the crowded streets -- Joe sitting right up front with the interior lights on so everyone could see him in his purple Disco-Dracula outfit.

He might as well have been counting out stacks of hundreds, stopping occasionally to give the crowd the finger and laugh.

The guys have completely sold out. I guess we shouldn't be surprised. I mean, they haven't been the same band since they started working with people like Diane Warren. It's just so obvious they made a deal with the corporate Devil a long time ago and now we're seeing the sad, inevitable end game.

Geils blew them out of the water, as far as a genuine performance was concerned.

It's been a long time coming, but I'm off the Aerosmith wagon. They've just made it too impossible to respect them anymore.

I spent $35 to see Slayer/Megadeth the other night and it was pure, blissful savagery. Sorry you had a lousy time, that Aerosmith playlist you posted above just looks horrendous.

i didn't go! sorry, should have put quotes around all that. i was just reposting stuff from the boston.com site. no way in hell i would pay a hundred bucks to see that. would love to see j.geils in a smaller place though.

Those were funny. The night sounded horrendous.

I raised the curious issue of Wild Cherry on this thread a few weeks back (and George has pointed out the Foghat II connection), so naturally when I saw a copy of the self-titled '76 LP with "Play That Funky Music" on it for $1, I picked it up. And while I wouldn't call it a hard rock record per se', there are definitely hints. I.e., you frequently get the idea of, say, a third-level Aerosmith-style rock band making a finanically beneficial move toward being a third-level Ohio Players-style funk band instead -- most notably in "The Lady Wants Your Money" (where guitar/vocal/songwriter Robert Parissi tries some Tyler-type tounge-twisted fast talk) and "Don't Go Near The Water" (best rock-funk on the album; I'd DJ it if I still DJ'd, I think, but there's still something awkward about their funk, sort of presaging what post-hair-metal bands like White Trash and Extreme -- who were known to cover "Play That Funky Music" -- would do with it 15 years later. Maybe even the Chili Peppers, though I'm trying not to think of that.) There's also definitely some remnants of boogie rock in the instrumental break toward the end of the big hit, and both that song and the closer "What In The Funk Do You See" explicitly address the move in lyrics (in the latter: "Forget Woodstock, I'm going on Soul Train!," after some possible Hendrix "Manic Depression" references.) Two soul covers: Wilson Pickett's "99 1/2" and Martha & the Vandellas' "Nowhere To Run," the latter slightly more rock and with some neat synth sounds (like a late '70s rock band, not a disco band, would do them) for seasoning. "Hold On" is their blue eyed soul ballad move, "Get It Up" mostly instrumental disco with a little rock guitar. Probably no surprise, as Northern Ohio boys, that they'd take the Players as their model, obviously. Goofy quote from one Bruno Bornino at The Cleveland Press on the back cover: "I've never heard a more danceable record. It's going to do for the wallflowers what man did to the dodo birds -- make them extinct!" Pretty sure actual disco critics hated them, or at least the hit, though; at least I can remember Michael Freedberg from the Boston Phoenix scoffing about it once. Which might make sense, since these white boys were clearly carpetbaggers. But "Play That Funky Music" went both #1 pop (three weeks) and #1 R&B anyway. They charted four more singles in the Top 100 after that, all from later albums, but none even got to the Top 40. And this album reached #5, but their two subsequent ones just hit #51 and #84. Still real curious about their earlier, allegedly more rock stuff, though.

I have a review of White Trash's debut sitting around in my newspaper files somewhere. It was a one or two sentence shred. Awful. Same with Extreme, known only for their disco angle, the
cover -- which I saw them perform at the Cat Club, a soppy ballad which was an MTV hit and Nuno Bettencourt who was a darling of guitar mags. What faddy gobblers.

Also probably worth mentioning though that of course lots of funk bands -- the Ohio Players included -- were known to work in hard rock/metal guitars now and then around that time, so it's not like what Wild Cherry doing it was really any kind of innovation; they were apparently just coming at it from the opposite direction. (For instance, I was listening to Millie Jackson's hilariously dirty-mouthed 1979 double LP Live And Uncensored over the weekend -- on which she covers Rod Stewart and Toto, not to mention Kenny Rogers and Boney M, not to mention whatever classical composer "Phuck U Symphony" is based on -- and I was surprised how so many of the guitars and heavy grooves on it came close to the loud Jimmy Castor Bunch or even Funkadelic albums that I put in Stairway To Hell.)

did the average white band ever do anything really heavy? can't think of anything. they were some of the funkiest white people on earth in the 70's and they helped to invent hip-hop and they ruled on soul train, but i honestly can't remember any hard rock jams. but maybe i'm forgetting something.

Good question. And I have no idea the answer.

Fwiw, I wouldn't be surprised if Wild Cherry actually sounded funkier by accident (as lots of hard rock did, just letting the funk emerge naturally from the boogie that was already there) when they were still playing hard rock, before they switched over and started making such of point of being funky, trying too hard. Which of course was probably part of what made Extreme (way overrated in Stairway btw, who knows what the heck I was thinking there) and White Trash and the Chili Peppers' supposed funk came off so stiff and dumbed-down later. They act like funk is simple music to play, when it's clearly not, and they wind up looking like inept nincompoops in the process. (Weird, because Extreme and the Chili Peppers at least theoretcally have "chops." Guess that's not enough.)

you need a very good drummer. very good drummers were plentiful in the 70's. never really listened to the peppers long enough to take notes on chad whatshisface's drumming. i did kinda like the crazy druggy pepper's guitar playing, but, again, in the 70's he would have been a dime a dozen. in the 90's he ends up being some hendrix-like god. or at least peppers fans think so.

who do we blame for the modern state of affairs? the velvet underground? wire? steve albini? i sound like a broken record and i swear that i like A LOT of modern music. i love modern experimental/drone/psych/whatever music. i love modern rap and r&b and metal. but modern rock? sad, sad, sad. all that small stone and tee pee stuff that i SHOULD love is mostly forgettable. one really good five horse johnson album in, like, ten years of listening to that stuff. and the cd i find myself playing the most lately is reo speedwagon's live you get what you play for album? that's where i go when i want solid rock in 2010? there is something wrong there. no offense to reo. its a great album. i don't count the new swans album. they are in their own universe. and, you know, even though swans "rock" me, its a different kind of thing. can't blame the stooges. people still love the stooges, right? so where are all the great stooges-esque bands then? i guess i gotta dig around on that rolling punk thread or something. (although to be honest ilm faves like jay reatard don't do much for me either. i swear i'm not that hard to please! i bought all the new siltbreeze records when they started coming out again. i liked the nu-buckeye state lo-fi charm of psychedelic horseshit and times new viking. even though it mostly reminded me of third generation ohio-noise from the early 90's. i embraced it at least.)

its a given that i miss stuff too. never really listened to turbonegro much. probably good rock fun there. i liked the wildhearts. they aren't really around now though, right? i definitely latched on to bands like the dragons and amplified heat when i first heard them. and earthless! some people probably would be bored stiff by 20 minute earthless jams but i saw them as a step in the right direction. gorge kinda made fun of me for liking that howlin' rain album, but at least they ATTEMPTED some sort of fun 70's/modern fusion. they were just a bit clunky at it and not entirely convincing. i guess i'm always looking for excuses to not listen to the black crowes. i don't know why.

Just got a Cactus live DVD in the mail, recorded in 2006/7 with Jimmy Kunes, formerly of one Savoy Brown lineup or another, on vocals. There are four songs I don't know, so I guess those are from the studio album they did with this guy in 2005, which I haven't heard.

As far as modern stuff, I don't know what's wrong either. I like Earthless, and I agree with you about the suckiness of the Black Crowes - I must have given them a half dozen chances and I've just never heard a single good song from them. Other good things I've heard this year: La Otracina's Reality Has Got To Die (excellent psych/space rock even though it's from Brooklyn) and Valient Thorr's new one, Stranger. But neither of those is as good as the new Tom Petty album.

(turbonegro) probably good rock fun there

Eh, not so much.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-09-09/music/come-back-to-the-norway-bath-haus-udo-dirkschneider/

http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-11-08/music/perverted-norwegian-sailors-penetrate-the-shitty-of-satan/