Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

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/

"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."

so OTM

Chops isn't really enough. You also have to have a handle on how to play together. The bass & drums have to be locked in, like a machine. Keys too, & rhythm guitar. No one takes the time to do that anymore. Everyone's into self expression. Once you have that rhythm going, you can put anything on top.

Also tempo. Re. Chili Peppers funk, like Chuck Berry says, they try to play it too darn fast.

jesus, gary richrath on the live "157 riverside avenue". never fails to get me. the whole band! reo friggin' speedwagon! sorry, can't stop playing this cd.

modern rock? sad, sad, sad.... 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?

The bass & drums have to be locked in, like a machine. Keys too, & rhythm guitar. No one takes the time to do that anymore. Everyone's into self expression.

So how, why, and when did this happen? What caused it? Eddie Van Halen, punk and metal's rejection of blues grooves, fear of being tagged a disco sellout, guitar and drum magazines, guitar and drum manufacturers, robotic '80s production, grunge? I basically feel like hard rock has been a lost cause for at least two decades now (since the early '90s), but really it's been longer than that. I remember the rhythm section on Appetite For Destruction feeling like a surprising anomaly -- a throwback to the funky '70s -- in 1987.And even Guns N Roses only really managed to pull that trick off for one album, while Adler was drumming. But I'm curious what other people's theories are. How did the culture of being a rock musician change that caused bands to not make great hard rock records anymore, when it seems like in the '70s anybody and his brother could get a band together and do it? (Which probably isn't true, but as time and dollar bins go on, it's clear that there were great hard rock bands coming out the woodwork, more than the charts or labels or radio could accomodate.) Sometimes I think the style just had a certain number of good years in it, and they ran out. But that doesn't make sense, especially since the sound of the '70s weren't so much codified as outright rejected over time. And even the stoner rockers, who suppposedly worship that stuff, never managed many memorable records.

i liked the wildhearts. they aren't really around now though, right?

They might be. But the last couple albums I heard weren't near the level of their best work (= Earth Vs. from 1993), and honestly I probably cut even that one some slack in the first place.

I do think I slightly overestimaed GnR's anomaly status at the time. There were other hair-metal bands that made great hard rock albums, obviously -- Cinderella, Faster Pussycat their second time out, Kix, etc. Warrant even managed a couple into the '90s. But my point is that, if hard rock wasn't already slipping away, Appetite wouldn't have come as such a shock in 1987. (And I say that as somebody who actually likes one Black Crowes track -- their Otis Redding cover, but still -- quite a bit.)

What caused it? Eddie Van Halen, punk and metal's rejection of blues grooves

The absorption of EVH's guitar style, the superficial parts, to a certain extent. The drummer in the Highway Kings came from a pop metal background, lowest common denominator, huge Stryper fan. He didn't know any basic rock 'n' roll when he started. Not EVH's fault but ...

However, it's my take that a lot of the early punk rock bands often did come from an area in the vague vicinity of classic rock. Certainly, when I was listening to the first records by DOA and the Subhumans, you could hear it. And all those submediocre SST bands had it.

But you'll recall I wrote that thing about guitar rock and young Werther for the Voice. There you had a selection of bands in which any sense of groove and rhythm had been steadfastly squeezed out for
the sake of a certain flavor of kitsch. All those emo punk records I reviewed came from exactly the same place.

The guitar's talent for expression was entirely left on the floor for the standard heavy chugga-chugga mid-scooped riffing, which turns the instrument into a bad but loud and heavy washboard, mediocrely played.

As for guitar mags, if you see them now, you know they always have to put a dead or old classic
rock guitarist on their cover, almost every month. The new guitarists with "hard rock" releases get half pages in the front of the book. Current metal stars sometimes get features, not often. They tend to focus on roots music, jazz and blues players more now. And some of them are young but a lot aren't.

A lot of it has to do with the aging of the population.

Do I want to play with younger guys in now that I'm rehearsing Dick Destiny again? No, I don't. Do I even want to play for the young? Nope. Plus, it works the other way.

And I'm not alone. People gravitate to their own tribes, and the tribes are also dictated by age.

This is unfortunate but it is the way of things, made more so by fracturing of any sense of social bonds or community.

But you are leaving out the discussion going on over in Rolling Country. Certainly, the hacks on Trace's new album can play good hard rock. So could the people on the Martina McBride album. And so does Sugarland's backing band, else they wouldn't be so able to effortlessly pull off "Footstompin' Music." Jason Aldean, crappy as he is, too. He's young.

Hard rock -- serious use of it as a way to pop music -- you know as well as I, was banished into country music. The stuff that doesn't go there, just does nothing for me. Like everything having to do with Josh Homme or the Mr. Foo-Fighter.

The guitar instrument and electronic manufacturers have to split to cover the bases. All the stuff you can get now is computer-driven recreations of tones and textures, modelled from popular fashion. And in every thing you get which has one or two or three hundred preset sounds, about half are devoted vintage classic rock, the rest to what's popular now. I have this pocket device from Line6, and it's sold on being able to make you sound like you have the amp structure from a bunch of bands I've never heard of. And you haven't either. The rest is all classic rock.

And what's been most popular in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games. Lots of new stuff. But an amazing amount of legacy classic rock.

Another thing left out is that, outside a few big metromegacities, there's no good dispensation to play hard rock and get good at it in front of an audience. This was already happening in the late-Seventies and early-Eighties. Unless you're going to have your own private parties -- which bands have always done, and which was something we did -- you just can't get good at it in the clubs or venues available to you.

Perhaps this explains Black Stone Cherry. They looked like they had had plenty of oppo playing too backwoods parties. But went the rubber met the road, it sure didn't sound that way. So they probably hadn't.

You have to be able to turn it up in front of a forgiving audience that's prepared to be on your side.
Not some awful six band split bill which has been cobbled together with the understanding that
everyone will bring a couple handfuls of acquaintance.

God, I saw this in soCal at a bunch of Angry Samoan gigs. Six or seven bad punk rock bands, each with own team of fans. Separate micro-styles, all intolerant of each other. The only band getting the dispensation, the Angry Samoans, now an oldies act with an entirely young audience. Ironically, the music written and played by people all young when almost the entire audience wasn't even around.

Mike likens this to a modern version of the audience for Berry or the old crabby African-American bluesmen but I always felt that was inexact and too glib.

And then there's always Green Day, who many like across age groups. Even though I don't. Technically, they're a lot hard rock with a pop sense, sneaking in through punk rock.

And then sometimes lotsa people are just bad at things they think they're good, or at least average, at. Hard rock being one these types of things.

As for the Black Crowes, they were really disjointed at the very beginning. It took them awhile to get enough so Jimmy Page would be having them as a backing band playing Zeppelin. When I saw them after the release of the first album, one show opening for Aerosmith -- who were by then well into their "Dude Looks Like a Lady" creampuff stage, the Crowes just fell apart.

I explained part of it over a decade ago on my domain biographical page. Excerpted, describing the mid-Eighties gigging climate:

The first and second Dick Destiny records found their way to college radio for reasons which mostly elude me. As a result, we got the "opportunity" to play some venues that catered to the college radio altie-rock underground in the northeast. Big mistake. Byron Goozeman, Bud, Carson and I toured it a couple times and playing for students enamored of college radio and the concurrent 'zine scene was always a disaster.

Since when did college students become such pansies, we wanted to know? When we had been in school, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were hip.

But it was a different decade and we got to play on stages with watered-down rock combos and clownish pop acts ... They Might be Giants and Ween.

Ween, for example, had not yet been "discovered" by rock critics and college radio when they went on before us on a triple-bill in Trenton, New Jersey. Imagine two jittery little nerds doing jumping jacks and other calisthenics backstage to warm-up before going out to mime over pre-recorded tapes of miscellaneous rubbish. At the time, they were part of an emerging and growing number of alternative acts that turned being calculatingly wretched into a fringe music entertainment that could be sold to people in their twenties.

Audiences that went out for this type of thing were a few years younger than us -- and they had no taste for heavy rock-and-roll unless a special dispensation had been made for it that week by an altie newspaper or radio station.

Very few of these gigs were productive.

Maybe that's a bit harsh. But -- already different tribes. Really, playing live with little
cassette tapes as backing.

Audacious. But still crap. Has an audience, too, I've found.

plus, nowadays anyone with chops who isn't into alt/punk/diy/indie just joins a metal band. cuz at least they can - hopefully - play live and see a little money (very little probably, but a little). if they are lucky. and then maybe down the line release a side-project hard rock/stoner album that nobody buys. except stoners. some of those records can be okay. metal dudes pulling out their 70's bong riffs. (blues and jazz being the only other chops-driven genres still around. but jazz and blues also genres where you will make even less money than a starving metal band.)

Ted on his most recent screw up:

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/08/18/ted-cops/

Never heard of Endless Boogie until Pitchfork reviewed Full House Head the other day. Listening to it now, and they are officially the first good band I've ever learned about from that site. The riff to "Empty Eye" is pure Junior Kimbrough awesomeness. What I like about these dudes is that unlike a lot of other contemporary heavy blooze-rawk boogie outfits (Amplified Heat, for example), they don't tip too far in the direction of stoner metal. They're definitely in the spirit of early '70s stuff, but unique. Like this a lot.

Robotic 80s production was part of it, anyway. That cannon-shot snare on the two and four. In the 70s, with the drummer back in the mix, he could do much more. The 80s turned even great drummers into timekeepers. If you played more than just a basic backbeat, you'd clutter up the mix.

I think in the 70s there was a synchronicity between what recording technology could reproduce and what rock bands really sounded like. In the 80s the recording tech left the musicians in the dust.

Years of ilm have trained me not to attach a value judgment to any of that, though. Can't stop progress...

Years of ilm have trained me not to attach a value judgment to any of that, though. Can't stop progress...

Mutt Lange is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

Feelgood story about a 14 year-old fan meeting Mike Campbell at a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers show. No, seriously. It's good.

Touching story on legacy rock and the young, if you haven't seen it, from another ILM thread.

Yeah, that thread has already turned into some tedious "anti-rockist" bullshit.

So what do people here (assuming anybody's still here) think of Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers (from 1984)? Popoff gives it a 10, but it's been hitting me more like, oh, a low 8 or high 7, maybe. All sounds fine, but none of it blows me away. My wife, on the other hand, thinks it has two great songs -- "Knocking At Your Back Door" and the title track (which partly reminds me of "Kashmir"), both side openers, and both of which she says she remembers from '80s rock radio in Houston, but thinks the rest sounds meh to her -- too simple, not prog-dynamic enough. I like those two cuts (neither of which I've ever heard on the radio or anywhere else myself, I don't think, though "Knocking" was apparently a #61 single and album went #17) fine (also like "A Gypsy's Kiss," which is fast, like they're trying to keep up with NWOBHM -- as if Purp wasn't just as fast long before NWOBHM to begin with -- but my wife calls it "too hair metal," because of the vocals I think.) Overall sounds like Gillan's singing is more operatic, sometimes almost like he's chasing Halford or Dickinson, and why the heck would he want to do that? Nice tasty organ from Lord all over, but when Blackmore's not finding a good riff he's doodling too much. I dunno, the record's fine, I'll keep it, but I have no idea why people would call it a classic. Actually, even Popoff doesn't seem to like the last two cuts on Side Two (25% of the album) much. (He makes the "Kashmir" comparison with the title song too, though, I just noticed.) Wouldn't swear this is a better album than Abandon or Bananas, the two Purps I liked from 1998 and 2003. And it's definitely not in the neighborhood of their best ones from the early '70s, not even close.

By the way, never answered him, but I obviously agree with George about Nashville picking up the hard rock mantle, inasmuch as anybody has (since I've been saying that myself for the past several years.) Also don't disagree that "a lot of the early punk rock bands often did come from an area in the vague vicinity of classic rock"; what I said above about punk's rejection of blues forms mainly refers to punk starting in the '80s, I think, especially with hardcore (though there were of course some exceptions there, too, at least early on. And of course alternative rock still has bands like Black Keys and White Stripes and Drive By Truckers who like the blues and classic rock as much as anybody in Nashville does; I'm just usually not as excited about what they do with it, I guess.)

Re Perfect Strangers, I don't even remember that about it. The momentary enthusiasm, at the time, was tied to the fact that it was a reunion of the classic line-up.

And it wasn't just that Nashville picked up the hard rockers. Went the other way, too, I think. If you wanted to rock and weren't for the children set (and/or wanted a more classic white man's cartoon image) you had to go country. You didn't have to throw out all your clothes. Well, maybe you did if you were in Dangerous Toys.

xp Speaking of current bands said not to hate classic rock, anybody heard this new Sword album? Should I bother with it, or skip it?

And speaking of punk and blues, George, have you ever heard this 1993 LP by Suplex Slam, The New Heavyweight Champions Of The World? Features Jonathon Hall (of Backbiter non-fame) and Samoans alumnus Billy Vockeroth. Very wrestling-oriented, as the band name and title suggest, and hence sharing some reference points with Rancid Vat (in "Politics Of Wrestling") and maybe even, uh, Dick Destiny and the Highway Kings. Covers: Richard Hell "Love Comes In Spurts", Peter Green/Fleetwood Mac "Looking For Somebody," Howlin' Wolf "Down in The Bottom," Robert Johnson "Phonograph Blues," plus two Shernoff-credited titles ("Fireman's Friend," almost six minutes long here, and "Backseat Boogie") that I take it come from those early Dictators demos that George always talks about but I've shamefully never heard. Anyway, a pretty decent (if sometimes kinda clutzily sung) hard rock album, as ones from the dire '90s go.

Also been playing Ducks Deluxe's Don't Mind Rockin' Tonite (released in '78 on U.S. RCA, but apparently culled from a couple '74/'75 U.K. LPs I've never seen), and it's clear from "Two Time Twister," "Paris 9," and especially the awesome "Fireball" that Sean Tyla was clearly the classic rocker in the band (at least if the Stones and early '70s Lou Reed count as classic rock.) The two Motors guys are more powerpoppers; Nick Garvey's "Please, Please, Please" is the most Beatley thing on the record, and the Searchers wound up covering Andy McMasters' Mersey-jangle "Love's Melody" a few years later. "Saratoga Susie" and "My Master" are good Chuck Berry ripoffs, and I like the pub-band covers ("It's All Over Now," "I Fought The Law," Them's "Here Comes The Night"), but it's really those three Tyla cuts that come closest to knocking this out of the box.

(Uh, "My My Music," that one song's called, not "My Master.")

(And "very wrestling-oriented" might be an exagerration in re: Suplex Slam, given that there's only one song that definitely seems to be about wrestling. I can't say for sure what "Fistful of Moolah" is about, except moolah; that one and "Saturday's Drunks" and "Worn Sneakers" pretty obviously come from a Dictators-like sensibility, though. Just lots of Handsome Dick Manitoba in the overall feel of the thing, so the record sounds wrestling-oriented even if the words are usually about other stuff.)

i used to have that ducks deluxe collection and i loved it. man, i've been listening to so much that fits this thread i wouldn't even know where to begin.

George on Sean Tyla/Tyla Gang upthread, btw:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Those two singles from Perfect Strangers got shitloads of radio airplay on the NYC rock stations. I remember them quite well from my childhood.

Well, there was the Fabulous Moolah. Who I used to see on Saturday mornings with the rest of the bottom-out-of-sighters in Schuylkill County.

Re Suplex Slam, you got yourself something rare. Only ever saw one copy of it. At a latter issue Samonas gig in Hollywood, when Backbiter was the Samoan backline ('cept for the drummer), someone brought in a copy and gave or showed it to either Hall or Saunders.

Have never heard the Ducks Deluxe band, although have always thought they might be up my alley.

ian gillan band's child in time album was sounding really good to me last night. perfect strangers is one of those cases where the first track is my fave by a mile and then things never reach those heights again for me. but i like the record. they know what they are doing, obviously. lyrics to my fave track, however, just beg a LOT of questions:

Sweet Lucy was a dancer
But none of us would chance her
Because she was a Samurai (well, which is it? is she a dancer or a samurai?)
She made electric shadows
Beyond our fingertips (?????)
And none of us could reach that high
She came on like a teaser
I had to touch and please her (wait, you just said that you guys wouldn't chance her!)
Enjoy a little paradise
The log was in my pocket
When Lucy met the Rockett (she met the rocket when it was in your pocket? plus, what is it doing in your pocket? kinda weird.)
And she never knew the reason why (????)

listening to *get the knack* for the 5th time in two days and it really is kinda perfect, isn't it? not a bad song on the album. feel dumb that i don't own copies of the next two albums. i don't think i've even heard their third album, round trip.

Got most of the way through that new Sword album in the background; decided I can live without hearing the rest, or trying again. Don't plan to waste time expending the energy figuring out why, either, though there's definitely something muffled about the vocal sound that bores and/or bugs me. Liking the new Hawkwind album Blood Of The Earth (which, uh, sounds like Hawkwind) more. Not sure how much I really need another Hawkwind album. But it's kind of heart-warming that they're still at it, after all these eons.

As is so often the case, you're my mirror image; I think the new Sword is their best one, in large part because the frontman started singing instead of just yelling, and I think the new Hawkwind is awful, and doesn't even sound like them most of the time (of course, I stopped listening after Warrior on the Edge of Time, so maybe this one sounds like their '90s output).

Well, I'm not saying Hawkwind are anywhere near as good as they used to be -- and I haven't kept up with them for the past few decades either, tbh -- but I sure can't think of anybody else their new one sounds like. (Also, I've only played it in the background too, and just once, so I'm not endorsing it. Just saying it sounded pleasant, more or less.) As for the Sword, I'm also not denying it's possible they've improved; had no use for their earlier stuff, either, though I'm not sure how much of a chance I gave it. Very possible the vocals were even worse on those. But calling the vocals "singing" on the new record still seems like stretching things.

You should listen to Warp Riders again. And I don't mean in the background while vacuuming or whatever. Give it a real chance. The drummer's terrific, there's some great organ stuff going on that adds a psychedelic/space-rock element to what they're doing, and they've moved beyond the Sabbathy stuff they made their name with - there are a couple of songs on the new one that remind me of Thin Lizzy and ZZ Top circa Degüello.

Really? Wow...Which songs? I'll start with those (and yeah, try not to vacuum while they're on. Might sort laundry, though.)

Here's my Cleveland Scene review:

Austin metal band the Sword has always had great riffs, but the execution was usually more about passion, not precision — until now. On their third album, the Sword tighten their game. The most immediate change involves frontman J.D. Cronise, who's learned how to sing. Warp Riders is a sci-fi concept record — at least that's what the group is claiming — so the music is more technically adept (guitar solos, ahoy!) and more progressive, with organ filling out several tracks. There's more boogie in the Sword's metal too: "Lawless Lands" sounds like a heavy ZZ Top, and "Night City" is a radio-friendly hard-rock anthem. Drummer Trivett Wingo remains the Sword's secret weapon, thumping out minimalist grooves that combine Thin Lizzy and Motörhead, while the guitarists play sludgy, head-banging riffs and screaming leads. But Warp Riders isn't retro — it's an instant classic.

"Night City" is the one that reminded me of Thin Lizzy - mostly in the guitars.

trivett wingo! for real?

Hard rock as combination pathetic freak show and guitar calisthenics exhibition:

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/stopthepresses/263871/10-year-old-shredder-takes-the-stage-with-ozzy/

Win one for the Geezer.

I've met that kid and his parents - interviewed him for Metal Edge. He can't write his own songs; he's basically a jukebox with about a six- or seven-song repertoire ("Paranoid," "Crossroads" a la Cream, "Mr. Crowley," a few others). Nice kid, though.

A few years ago there was another kid like this one, only he was an American. It was in the doc on
Paul Green's Scool of Rock in Philly. The kid's guitar was almost as big as he was and his parents were trying to figure out how to appropriately market his calisthenic ability. I think Green had him play one of the solos in the band's version of Zappa's "Inca Roads." Which is pretty hard.

The Sword definitely growing on me (thanks for pushing me on it, Phil -- excellent riffs all over, "Night City" could even make for a really catchy hard rock single, and the distanced vocals -- which strike me more as a stoner-rock thing than convincingly '70s -- are bugging me less the more I listen, especially in that song); new Hawkwind shrinking on me (sometimes I get the idea they're trying to do some kind of industrial electrodance thing, or maybe even quasi-Chrome -- though I suppose Hawkwind beat Chrome to a lot of what Chrome used to do), and here and there I almost convince myself the hushed decadent nasal-whined robotitude of some of the vocals is just goofy and Tuetonic enough. But actually I think both the guitars and singing are too subdued and shoegazey in the long run, and none of the songs have really begun to sink in as songs, and I'm running out of patience. So, spoke too soon above, about both records.

And like Phil suggested, by this point the Sword are beating Hawkwind at Hawkwind's very own soaring space-psych game too (not that they ever sound like Hawkwind per se', least not as I've noticed yet.) Not sure how much of Warp Riders I actually love -- still only picking up on a couple concrete songs -- but I am noticing more meaty details each time I play it. Can't think of many other albums this good this year by young bands I'd classify as hard-rock/metal -- White Wizzard, maybe, though they don't often seem to match the Sword's best melodies, and they're less varied. Though again, that probably says more about the genre's shitty state than anything else. Real slim pickings, so nice to hear one that's more than just tolerable. I should catch them live, if they ever wind up back in Austin. (There was an interview in a local paper a couple weeks ago: Guess they're touring Australia with Metallica now?)

(Actually, I should say "young bands that most other people would classify as "hard rock/metal" -- I'd have no problem classifying Flynnville Train, whose new album I'd take way over the Sword's or White Wizzard's, as both, though they're generally considered country, and come to think of it they're probably not exactly young. I'd classify Mother Truckers -- who I saw and liked live here Saturday night -- as hard rock, but not metal; This Moment In Black History, Wounded Lion, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and Home Blitz probably more as punk, or even college rock in a couple cases though too good to deserve that insult. Though most of them are probably more metal than some LPs in Stairway To Hell, I admit. And I still wish they were all better than they are.)

(And right, again, then there's hard-rocking Nashville stuff, which I'll just shut up about.)

Speaking (sorry) of college guitar rock, I found another copy (first one since I got rid of my old one, early '90s or so) of Aussies the Celibate Rifles' 1985 Quintessentially Yours (#309 in Stairway) for a buck a few weeks back, and I still like it, especially the two long guitar jams at the end of each side, suburbia screed "This Week" and wah-wah-pedaled (and supposedly Moral Majority baiting) "God Squad"; otherwise, definitely think the faster, sillier more Vibrators-like songs on Side One don't hold up as well as the slower, more serious, Wipers-like stuff on Side Two (for instance, "Killing Time," which mentions the New Order {could be a reference to the Ron Asheton/Dennis Thompson post-Stooge/MC5 band that later merged with a couple Radio Birdman guys into New Race} and "inferior races," but the vocals are mixed down and I don't know much about Aussie nationalism or, uh, subjugation of aborigonal races there, or whatever.) Don't really hear the Mott or early Seger influences I claim in the book, much less the Detroit influence often otherwise claimed for Aussie bands in general at the time, which they just don't have enough hard r&b groove in the rhythm section for; also, calling "God Squad" "Sabbathoid" overstated the case, but it's still definitely the heaviest thing on the album -- which fwiw was supposedly a comp of earlier Oz stuff, thus the '82/'83 copywrites on the label. Never got into the band otherwise, though, except for their "Sometimes (I Wouldn't Live Her If You Payed Me)" 7-inch 45 from 1984, which I amazingly never got rid of.

Also, definitely liked the Rifles LP more than Husker Du's New Day Rising (Stairway #237), which I always considered their most consistent record back then but was actually pretty disappointed by when I pulled it out for the first time in forever a month or so ago; only four or five tunes had stuck with me, and even those don't strike me as particularly great now -- really, the production is so thin and cloudy that it's hard to even get into anything on the record anymore; they've got pretty melodies here and there, but they're very intermittent, so it's hard to hear why I liked it so much at the time. Die Kreuzen's October File was less great than I remembered it, too -- singular, but kinda shapeless. Thought Death Of Samantha held up better than the Huskers or Kreuzen, too.

Related, from the 1986 thread, a few days ago, about relistenting to these Clevelanders earlier this year:

re Death Of Samantha, I liked Strungout On Jargon less than their '87 Laughing In The Face Of A Dead Man EP (the one where they cover "Werewolves Of London"), which surprised me. And have always thought '88's Where The Women Wear The Glory And The Men Wear The Pants was their best album -- they definitely improved, got better as players and songwriters, as they went on, up to that point anyway. (Haven't heard their later stuff in years; thought at the time it wasn't so good.)

Unhinged as usual, this Nugent column obliquely defending odious Roger Clemens -- which manages to work in a non-sequitur calling Nancy Pelosi a witch:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/30/charging-the-mound-over-clemens/

There are many measures of failure of intellected in 2010 USA. That their is an audience for someone who writes this badly even with editors propping him up, no matter what the politics, is one of them.

Considering Nugent's standard stand on people who use drugs, which is to mercilessly throw the book at them, it's not even internally consistant.

Here's something local:

Rock n’ Roll Salvation Festival - Homage To Jimi Hendrix
Saturday, September 18th, 2010
5PM Door | Blue Star 2200 East 15th St. Downtown LA 90021 | 18+ | $10

Featuring:
Fireball Ministry
Sasquatch
Hallowed Engine
Sylvia Juncosa
Trash Titan
Zinngeschrei
=================

Didn't know Fireball Ministry was still around. Even more so, Sylvia Juncosa. This is just the type of small venue where I used to see FM do great sets. Musta been at least five-six years ago.