Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

oh and yeah i love that ohio express album too. have always thought it was overlooked or dismissed by a lot of rock fans. a lot of people probably just think that its silly kid stuff or whatever. their loss.

How you're allowed to make money for others. The internet music economy, in under 500 words

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/11/17/advertising-funnies/

So while you don't have the grease to bribe into iJobs or Rhapsody, you're good enough to finance others through click micropayments.

So you can flog for BP, the asshole football player known as Chad Ochocinco and Susan Boyle. Among many others.

Explain to me how pro music journalism isn't interested in this.

Lemon Pipers were a big Cincinnati area psych band in the late 60s (formerly Ivan & the Sabres) - those filler trax like "Dead End Street" were what they "really" sounded like. as you all know guitarist Bill Bartlett went on to RamJam of "black betty" fame. actually RamJam was the name K&K assigned to Bartlett's glam band Starstruck. history repeats...

Was just listening to the Lemon Pipers. And RamJam's "Right On the Money". Coincidences.

I have only ever owned one-half of a Lemon Pipers album -- a split record with the 1910 Fruitgum Company called Checkmate on Buddah, presumably from the late '60s. It's been in my nebulous "sell pile"; seemed ignorable or redundant to me before (i.e. the 1910 cuts I liked overlapped ones on Rhino's Best Of Bubblegum LPs I guess), but yesterday I pulled it out to re-check it. Guessing, though, that it's mostly singles from both bands, which would probably mean minimal psychedelia. Wonder if it's worth anything.

The youtube scenario George has been talking about on his blog sounds vaguely familiar to me, from my time at Billboard -- Was it part of some deal the company cut not only to potentially monetize user videos, but to keep label copyright lawyers off their backs? I might be wrong about that. But if so, I don't think I ever had a good grasp back then about how it would actually work on the ground, I'm not finding much about it on line, and I don't remember anybody bringing up the issue of fair use. Sucks, either way.

Old song that surprised me this morning, and that I probably never even noticed before: "Benny And The Bouncer," the two-minute Cockney greaser bar-brawl on ELP's Brain Salad Surgery; lands somewhere on the evolutionary line between music hall and oi!

i still need a copy of this album. their latter-day super-k effort.

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20100619/170502511317.jpg

got a sweet copy of syndicate of sound's little girl album and i always think i'll keep a copy when i find one, but then i play it and i'm reminded of how wimpy it is. obviously little girl is genius and their cover of witch is okay, but the rest ain't so hot. i'm probably good with just a 45 of little girl.

was playing back door men the other night (great sundazed reissue that i've had for years - the sound is extra punchy and punky) and i almost shed a tear. so glorious. so heavenly. this is just great 20th century art. period.

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20100126/300390959167.jpg

Was it part of some deal the company cut not only to potentially monetize user videos, but to keep label copyright lawyers off their backs?

If it wasn't an actual come right out and say it deal, it certainly looks that way in practice. It gives them the opportunity to say to the copyright nazis (where fair use means no use) -- here's some money and how you can profit off this. It also gives them a hook into attaching advertising to a much wider base among their users.

The regular presence of ads on "Act Naturally" for the corporate pariah, BP, is an example of one obvious money maker. BP must pay YouTube/Google to try and direct viewers to their commercials which are obviously held in the same regard as rat poison. No one would do such a thing without seeing a check. Corporate nuisances probably jump at paying YouTube to do this -- credit card companies, anything associated with Steve Jobs/Apple/iStuff, etc.

Comically and pathetically, I always see BP commercials on Sunday mornings, interrupting the politics shows like This Week and Meet The Press (or Face The Nation, or whatever it is), usually right after a story putting BP on the hotseat.

Scott, I've got Back Door Men (always a big Metal Mike/Gregg Turner fave iirc) as a (1998 I think) Sundazed reissue too, albeit on CD. (I gathered yours was vinyl from the picture you posted, might be wrong.) Definitely a big-deal proto-hard-rock album.

And I was right the first time about the Lemon Pipers half-album I have -- "Green Tambourine" is nice, but the rest of their side is just way too cups-and-cakes twee for my ears; no psych at all on this one. 1920 Fruitgum's funky "Soul Struttin'" kinda rules, tho.

Played Grand Funk Railroad's Closer To Home this morning, too, and liked it more than I'd remembered. Must be in good mood.

Or maybe not, because Alice's West Side Story rewrite "Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets" from School's Out is on now, and it's kind of making me wince. Dude was already letting his thespian side win the battle over hard rock, wasn't he?

Also, I meant 1910 Fruitgum, obviously.

Eh, "Public Animal #9" still fun high-school glam I guess. (Popoff picks that one and "Gutter Cat" as the two non-hit highlights.)

Now back to Nantucket Long Way To The Top -- AC/DC cover (best one ever?) into excellent hard powerpop ("Living With You") into new wave Nazareth partially about law school (??? that's what it sounds like anyway, a few times) with a proto-Kix explosion at the end ("Time Bomb") into high-harmony stretched-out multi-part road-life hard rock with saxomaphones and squealing synths ("50 More") into a speedy stuttering number about rock celebrities in Rolling Stone that again partially reminds me of Nazareth and has more sax honk ("Media Darlin'") into another bubbly-and-efervescent-as-Kix AC/DC rip w/ boogie-woogie piano ("Rugburn").

Then Side Two. More new-wave-leaning powerpop AOR ("Too Much Wrong In The Past") into chunky catchy rock with Who's Next guitar/keyb loopage and singing that could again pass for Dan McCafferty ("Over And Over Again") into a happy finger-snappy one about rock radio that I'm guessing was probably the AOR airplay track (might even remember hearing it on the air -- "Turn The Radio On") into a funky hey-hey-hey frat-party soul-rocker seemingly based either on "Good Lovin'" or "Do You Love Me" or both ("Tell Me [The Rhythm Method]") into some hard-guy macho Bad Co./Foreigner gutbust with lonely pretty lovelorn yacht-pop harmonies and melodic sections and eventually smooth-jazz sax interspersed ("Rescue") into an endearingly dorky kiss-ass early Loverboy-style powerchord-and-Cars-keyboard semi-ballad just in time to ring in the decade ("Rock Of The '80s," where they plead "let's have some fun"!) Cool!

i was listening to that nantucket album last week. was digging it.

Played Grand Funk Railroad's Closer To Home this morning, too, and liked it more than I'd remembered. Must be in good mood.

― xhuxk, Thursday, November 18, 2010 2:19 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That's a killer album, good mood or not.

xp Oh, and after "Rock Of The '80s" Nantucket stick in a free half-minute barbershop-harmonied singalong maybe called "Stella" (but not named on the cover or label) where they rhyme "rock'n'roll" with "doggie bowl." Also, on the back cover, the bassist ("Pee Wee Watson") is crouched down with a silver jacket and a hat with Highway To Hell horns (I guess) on it; lead guitarist has a real bushy '70s-disc-jockey mustache and chest hair to match and is wearing what looks like a kimono; sax/keyb guy is wearing a Hawaiian shirt; another guy (second guitarist I think) has a button on his shirt that says "FUCK RUSSIA"; and a skinny scraggly longhaired guy (drummer I think) with a comb (??) sticking out of his back pocket seems to making a mincing stance with his butt sticking out. You can tell which guy is the singer (Larry 'L. Factor' Uzzel) just from his pretty boy hair, Jagger lips, arrogant expression, and the apparent cucumber in his pants. (And oh yeah, almost all their clothes are really bright and colorful, to boot.)

they had to be colorful to match those album covers.

*love*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4MJXw3oKEo

I want to like Wishbone Ash, but I can't get past that vocalist. He over-enunciates and it bugs me. Musically, the band is great, though.

the vocals are a means to an end. bands like wishbone just wanted to jam.

Scott, what albums by Wishbone do you recommend, other than Argus (which I think is great)? I've heard some later ones (late '70s/early '80s), which were passable, but nothing on those ever stuck with me, and I never feel any need to put them on.

Btw, played Nantucket's one-album-earlier ('79) Your Face Or Mine after Long Way To The Top, and it seemed solid, just not nearly as much fun. More workaday, I guess (Jasper/Oliver call it a temporary AOR sellout), though one song (didn't note which) seemed like they were shooting for Aerosmith. Checked their Wiki bio, and turns out that they started out as a "beach music" band called Stax of Gold (!) in North Carolina. So the soul influence I've been hearing definitely was not my ears playing tricks on me.

first two albums before argus are really good. s/t and pilgrimage. demo version of the first album that came out on cd a couple of years back is REALLY good, but probably not easy to find. maybe find There's The Rub in the dollar bins too. I dunno, I have a pretty high tolerance for the later stuff, but i might have a hard time justifying that tolerance. i mean, i'm someone who owns (and likes), at last count, like, 9 or 10 Barclay James Harvest albums, so i might not be the most reliable narrator.

That's about my opinion, too. First album has a couple crushing pieces on it, the hardest. The reissue of Argus is excellent because it contains the a promotional live ep they did in the US around the same time. Also sounds very hard and rocking. The live album, Dates, which was big here is not critical. It's not as good as the first studio records. The fourth album begins the slump -- becoming a bit like the Dead. Everything else is pretty negligible.

http://www.crawdaddy.com/index.php/2010/11/18/johnny-winter-return-of-the-screamin-demon/

Excellent piece on Johnny Winter. Second page has a great low key version of Hootchie Koo from what likes the early Seventies, in a tv studio.

i agree about the live album. was excited to hear it when i got a copy, but its not very exciting.

my deep , abiding and enduring love for Wishbone Ash is well-documented. So I will just say that *Argus* is all time top-10 lp, without even thinking about it. That and Pink Fairies 'Kings of Oblivion' are my two go-to smashed-out-of-mind albums to jam at 3 AM. If you like the sound of the electric guitar, you should love Wishbone Ash. because they were all about the sound of the electric guitar. just listen to that "Jailbait" clip that Skot posted. and yeah, first two albums rule! "Vas Dis"! Brother Jack McDuff cover! they ruled so hard. Hipgnosis cover art, sweet Martin Birch production, what's not to love?

*Argus*, *Kings of Oblivion*, and *Happy Trails*. bury me with those three

did you guys ever talk about HOUNDS on these threads? hard-rock looking band, from Chicago apparently, album on Columbia ( or Epic or whatever) saw the album in the used bin last night, never heard of them before, mildly curious

Yeah, we definitely have. Both albums are great, in my book -- second one is probably one of my favorite hard rock albums ever, by now. There's also this thread, fwiw:

Where is the love for HOUNDS and STREETHEART and SHOOTING STAR and PRISM?

And ha, I never even noticed this one that George started once:

Christgau on The Hounds

nice! i may just head back there and pick it up there. first album, i gather (cuz had no title), woman on the cover. $2.99

First album from '78 (Unleashed, but looks self-titled if you only glance quickly at it) had a woman with a dog collar around her neck. Second album from '79 (Puttin' On The Dog) had a woman in black underwear talking on her phone, in an expensive hotel room surrounded by shaggy dogs (afghans and salukis, or some breed along those lines). Guessing you saw the first one.

Okay, my turn. Anybody here have strong opinions about any albums by Back Street Crawler, D.B. Cooper, Trapeze (feat. Glen Hughes), Tycooon, or Private Lines? Possible a couple of them have been discussed here before, when I wasn't paying close attention. Anyway, I saw LPs by all of them in a dollar bin the other day that looked vaguely interesting, but not interesting enough for me to buy them. If somebody really thinks any of them were great, though, maybe I'll go back.

the back street albums with kossoff are good. when they shortened their name to crawler they started to suck.

well they didn't START to suck, the crawler albums just kinds suck. i like trapeze. i have had one or two tycoon albums but can't remember much. don't know private lines.

okay i checked i have the first tycoon album but yeah can't remember...must not have impressed me much.

I *love* the self-titled Trapeze album. From like, '77, i think? anyway, it was a later album not the first (which you might assume a S/T alb would be) real good Zep-derived rock

Okay, my turn. Anybody here have strong opinions about any albums by

>>Back Street Crawler

Free-lite. Kossoff was diminished when he started this band. After he died, no point to them. Shortened name to Crawler.

>>D.B. Cooper

Definitely up your alley. Two albums, both pretty good. Fast and catchy bar band hard rock with loud crunching guitars, very tuneful, some nods to new wave but not so much it waters down.

>>Trapeze

First album was soft rock like Moody Blues. Then they kicked some guys out and went power trio with Glenn Hughes and Mel Galley. s/t, You're the Audience, We're Just the Band. a couple after. Often funky but had no really distinguishing tunes. Lots of live stuff floating around, most of it good. Had a huge following in Austin -- they might have actually moved there at one point -- so should be easy to find their stuff. Austin had a fetish for B, C and D level hard rock bands from the Seventies and early Eighties, probably because of a radio station that catered to them.

Trapeze-Medusa is really good.

My latest on Ted Nugent's holiday season spirit, or lack of it:

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/11/29/ted-nugent-not-big-on-holiday-spirit/

I actually agree with his point about the church - religious institutions (all of 'em) should be forced to sell off their possessions and donate the proceeds to charity, or use the money to help the poor. It's 100% in line with Jesus's teachings.

Could be coincidental since Ted's not motivated by Jesus who had something to say about generosity and the sick and disadvantaged. There wasn't any charity I could perceive in that quote other than enmity aimed at Medicare, as well as the church. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

I know a WaTimes reporter, who is not part of the opinion page staff where Nugent's stuff runs, who laughs at Ted's association with family values.

Something I wrote about Appetite For Destruction, Aerosmith's Get Your Wings, and albums by Axe, Christ Child, Hanoi Rocks, and Michael Jackson:

http://www.emusic.com/features/hub/six_degrees_guns_and_roses/index.html

Today on BurningAmbulance.com, I reviewed the new(est) Endless Boogie album, which came out back in July.

found a nice clean copy of too wild to tame by the boyzz today! excited about that.

http://www.thefinalvinyl.com/images/lgboyzz.jpg

http://www.waykoolrecords.com/pics/Hard/boyzz2.jpg

i'm sure they've been talked about here. i've never had a copy though. also got really nice copies of tooth, fang, & claw + call of the wild + survival of the fittest by the nuge. very happy about that too.

i'm sure they've been talked about here

Yep, plenty. From last year (and George has writ about them elswhere, too):

Nothin' on the Boyzz album reaches the mania of these local TV clips from a show at the Agora in Cleveland. If they record company had been able to capture --this-- on vinyl, they might have actually made it to a second and third record.
"Two kick-ass rockers, "Destined to Die" and "Wake It Up, Shake It Up", fly solo among a bunch of overblown boogie-rockers and half-baked Southern biker rock. At times sounds kinda like the so-so first side of OTT bikers The Godz's debut album, but lacks any of that record's ferocious second side bite. The real deal-breaker here though is the production, featuring horns and back-up chorus girls on all but the best songs ..." --sayeth someone on Rate Your Music, pretty accurately. I don't remember who the producer was but the approach was moronic in the context of what the band was like live.
"Too Wild to Tame" -- their best song

http://www.youtube.com/v/L_MwihQSO50&fs=1&hl=en

Hang around for Dirty Dan Buck pulling the Hammond on top of himself, and the keyboard player trying to yank it off him with band in ful cry. Nice recovery. And what's that -- a short guy playing harmonica, blown out by the rest of the band?!

http://www.youtube.com/v/fioT7ws-AKU&fs=1&hl=en

CD reissue of the album, now out of print, going for 80+ dollars on Amazon, stupid money.
― Gorge, Sunday, August 2, 2009 2:42 PM

The Boyzz' Too Wild To Tame, too, is pretty much as George described it -- Lots of brawny biker boogie fun, peaking with the title track, but they didn't exactly have much a knack for writing catchy choruses beyond the title track. Actually, I hear as much Black Oak Arkansas as Godz in their grease chain somehow. And I do like when they finish one song by quoting "Chantilly Lace." And the LP cover (and inner sleeve, depicting a biker war) kicks ass.
Popoff is iffy about the album, yet a fan (likes the six-minute "Destined To Die" and compares "Lean N' Mean" to fast Purple), and says their spirit lived on with Four Horsemen, Raging Slab, and Brother Cane.
Also, I think it's funny that some members of the band went on to form a band called B'zz (who I've never heard) -- so, what, Boyzz with oi! taken out?
― xhuxk, Monday, August 10, 2009 5:02 PM

"Produced by Ron Albert and Howard Albert for Fat Albert Productions." "Executive Producer: Steve Popovich." And yeah, the four-man brass section on a few songs definitely precludes their sound from attaining the ferociousness of those live clips.
― xhuxk, Monday, August 10, 2009 5:32 PM

Actually, the front cover of Too Wild To Tame seems to be a faily blatant Marlon Brando in The Wild One homage, if that wasn't already obvious. Pretty neat for 1977, I guess. (Publicity bio still inside my copy claims they were the biggest regional band in Chicago at the time besides Cheap Trick, and praises "the astounding lead vocal pyrotechnics of Mr. Buck, whose style borrows from Bob Seger, Robert Plant, and an electric chainsaw in overdrive.")
― xhuxk, Monday, August 10, 2009 5:17 PM

on to form a band called B'zz (who I've never heard) -- so, what, Boyzz with oi! taken out?
More or less. No Dirty Dan, more to the light pop metal side of things. Still no knack for song-writing, despite the more pop direction. Maybe one good cut, which was actually featured on Dave Clark's American Bandstand once. Had the album, don't miss its absence. Worth 25 to 50 cents if you ever see it.
― Gorge, Monday, August 10, 2009 6:13 PM

Actually, "Too Wild To Tame" on the Boyzz LP is the song that ends with the Big Bopper quote; also has Dirty Dan doing sort of Steve Tyler shrieks to a certain extent. It may well be the band's best actual song per se' as George says, but on record at least, I think I might like the heavier and less horn-drooped "Destined To Die" and "Lean N Mean" more -- former is an extended organ-driven wailer. Don't mind the band's chooglier and more good-timey songs (in fact I swear "Hoochie Koochie" and the under-two-minute "Good Life Shuffle" sound almost like distant Charleston-contest cousins of Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes), but if the heavy tracks were more typical of their live sound, it's pretty clear why fans heard the LP as a big letdown.
― xhuxk, Wednesday, August 12, 2009 3:54 PM

yah, i remember that now. i dig the album.

oh but this is what i got at the record show yesterday (i sold and bought there) that is appropriate for this thread:

artful dodger - honor among thieves (perfect promo copy)

strongbow - s/t (excited to get this)

gary moore band - grinding stone (minty u.k. copy)

ross - the pit & the pendulum (when your want list includes this album you are on to something. or you are me.)

dmz - s/t

flamin groovies - flaming

machiavel - mechanical moonbeams

fastbuck - s/t

little village - s/t (this was a serious find for me. and i'm probably the only person who would have bought it, so, its a good thing i found it. 70's bar band that played around connecticut. the album has some amazing stuff on it.)

doctors of madness 2 album set (had one album, now i have two)

marseille - s/t (can still remember when my brother brought this home with the def leppard debut. i know george is a fan.)

kannibal komix - s/t

bullangus - s/t (clean promo copy! )

the winkies - s/t (pub rock band that backed up brian eno at one point.)

hanson - now hear this (fierce p-funk-esque guitar action on this. never heard it before! junior hanson is the star. ten minute closing track "smokin' the big "m"" is a serious acid jam.)

nova - blink

katahdin - hardcore rock n' rolla (great hard rock bar band action. privately pressed. title track is a barnburner)

bang - s/t ( i think this was the most i paid for a record at the show. probably ended up costing me 35 bucks. but its a decent copy and i need a decent copy. sadly, its STILL not the copy i want to be buried with. but i'm always looking.)

and i'm a little disappointed in you guys for not telling me to buy the hanson album sooner.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/Hansen_Now_Hear_This_album_cover.jpg

and now i need the 2nd album

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/Hansen_Magic_Dragon_album_cover.jpg

so glad i own this now.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4IO4mEmRGoA/Sfce7paq2BI/AAAAAAAAF_s/EBZInzlQqm8/s320/The+Gary+Moore+Band-Grinding+Stone-front.jpg

artful dodger - honor among thieves (perfect promo copy)

Have the CD reissue of this (have the debut on vinyl); what I wrote for Blurt a couple years back:
ARTFUL DODGER Honor Among Thieves (American Beat)
Along with their bicentennial debut, this newly reissued ’76 sophomore slab is one of history’s great lost hard-pop albums, from Virginia’s answer to the Raspberries or maybe Slade, back when labels like Columbia would stick with East Coast rock bands who looked like baseball infields even if their LPs never hit the Billboard 200. Like Richard Bush of the A’s, Billy Paliselli has a classic adenoidal high register. But the title opener has him yelping Steve Tyler-style, “Scream” could be where Bryan Adams learned his best early ‘80s ideas, "Hey Boys" is archetypal bazooka bubblegum, and there’s a backwards-guitared Little Richard cover. Some say that, on stage, they had as much balls as the Dolls.

dmz - s/t

Bizarrely, have never heard this. Guess I was unimpressed enough by the Lyres (rightly or wrongly) in the '80s that I never bothered to check their predecessors out.

doctors of madness 2 album set

Like the album I bought by them last year: Sons Of Survival, from 1978.

marseille - s/t (can still remember when my brother brought this home with the def leppard debut. i know george is a fan.)

Me too! Was aware of them at the time, and remember considering buying albums by both them and Girl circa 1980 or so (maybe one song by each got played once or twice on a Detroit rock station, or maybe I just read about them somehwere?), but didn't actually own anything by either band until Castle Music put out great 2-CD anthologies for both back in the early '00s. George wrote about one or maybe both for me at the VV. I still pull them out and play them, and they hold up great.

hanson - now hear this (fierce p-funk-esque guitar action on this. never heard it before! junior hanson is the star. ten minute closing track "smokin' the big "m"" is a serious acid jam.)

Don't even think I ever heard of these guys before, though that LP cover looks vaguely familiar. They don't seem to be in either the Popoff or Jasper/Oliver '70s books. (By p-funk-esque, do you might like "Maggot Brain"??)

bang - s/t

Got rid of the copy of this I reviewed in Stairway for some reason, but sometime in the '80s I got sent a reissued vinyl picture sleeve version, and I still have that. Essential sludge doom, obviously.

Got rid of Bull Angus after the book came out, too; probably shouldn't have.