'I've Got the Rock 'n' Rolls Again'
It’s been a couple of years ago that
I posted about the Joe Perry Project, Joe’s ill-fated band during his early 80’s hiatus from Aerosmith. Despite releasing three albums that, in my opinion can stand against most Aerosmith releases, the JPP never got beyond cult status. By the mid-80’s, as we know, Joe was back in the Aerosmith fold.
Not long ago, I found a JPP live recording, taken from a show in Joe’s hometown of Boston. Although the date on the file puts this show in April 1982, based on the band line-up and the set list, it was likely a late 1983 show. In an interview before the show, Joe says the band members are singer Cowboy Mach Bell, bassist Danny Hargrove and drummer Joe Pet. Brad Whitford, who didn’t start appearing with the them until 1983, also joins the Project onstage.
In a 2000 interview with the
Website d-filed.com, Mach Bell looked back on his tenure with “one of the most famous guitar players in the business.” “Joe took us on the road – and I mean road – no more Lear jets and pampering lackeys,” Bell said. “Our crew hoisted the Jolly Roger and crisscrossed the continent in rental cars and vans. We ate together at Denny’s and slept in the Motel 6 ... and had more fun than I thought was humanly possible.”
This show was probably one of the Joe Perry Project’s last, and they sound musically tight, despite the wear and tear. But there’s also the feeling that, despite it being a Boston show, the band is simply going through the motions. I’ve heard recordings of Aerosmith in Boston and the band always seemed a lot more up for the home crowd. I think that by this point in the JPP story, things were close to an end and maybe Joe felt that, despite his talk of a fourth album and further tours.
Interview, pt. 1.mp3 Intro / Toys in the Attic.mp3 No Substitute (for Arrogance).mp3 Heartbreak Hotel.mp3 Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker.mp3 Going Down.mp3 Buzz Buzz.mp3 Black Velvet Pants.mp3 I’ve Got the Rock ‘n’ Rolls Again.mp3 East Coast, West Coast.mp3 Let the Music Do the Talking.mp3 Interview, pt. 2.mp3 Labels: Aerosmith, classic rock, covers, guitar heroes, live music
Some Grubby Things from Germany
Looking around
Mohawk Radio the other day, I found Berlin punk band Grubby Things. Not a whole lot of bio info is available, but basically, this quartet has been together almost a decade. They’ve been kicking around the German and European circuit for a while, doing shows with such luminaries as Radio Birdman, the Murder Junkies, and the Rubber City Rebels. Over the years Grubby Things have put out a handful of EPs and split seven-inchers. In 2003, they released their debut full-length,
Step Out.
After a few personnel changes (the current line-up is Elvan Decay, vocals; Bruno, guitar; Tom, bass; and Tommie, drums and vocals) Grubby Things seem to have settled in and have just released their self-titled second album.
It would be easy to compare Grubby Things to the Distillers because Elvan Decay has that raspy, Brody Dalle-type voice. The band also plays a similar hard rock / punk rock type music. To really get a sense of Elvan’s voice, though, think what Brody would sound like if she constantly smoked unfiltered Camels and drank rotgut whiskey. Yeah, Elvan has got a bit of a rough voice, perfect for the rough music the band brings. And I mean that in a good way.
Cold Heart.mp3 Struggle.mp3 For more information, and to get
Grubby Things, check out the band’s
MySpace.
Labels: new stuff, punk
A Tasty Slice of Government Cheese
Welcome back from the long weekend. I hope everyone had a good time. Not to make you feel bad or anything, but while most of you were enjoying time with friends and family, I was working. I did get time-and-a-half, though, so at the end of the day it’ll be an extra $20 or so in my pocket. Seems like a fair trade off.
I found today’s music while searching Google Images for something. One of the hits I got was a picture of
It’s a Rock ‘n’ Roll Party with Government Cheese (and, no, you don’t want to know what I was searching for). The album cover is classic.
The name Government Cheese kind of struck a memory chord with me, but I couldn’t recall anything about the band, so maybe, I decided, the name just reminded me of meals past.
Government Cheese was actually a “post-punk” band led by Tommy Womack. Womack, a self-described “songwriter, author, [and] creator of taut sensual tension,” formed Government Cheese in Kentucky, in 1985. “It is/was beautiful,” said guitarist Skot Willis. “We all had a blast touring the country in our yellow Cheese Ford Econoline. ‘You going to see the Cheese tonight?’ was a great thing.”
Although Government Cheese officially split in 1992, the band members remain friends and still play together once in awhile, most recently – I think – at a benefit show last September. Womack has written about his years as front man in a book called “Cheese Chronicles - The true story of a rock & roll band you've never heard of.” The book is available through his
Website.
Tonight’s first track is from a compilation album called
Return to Elliston Square, 1979-1989. Elliston Square was a nightclub in Nashville, Tenn., which was second home to the Cheese. The disk celebrated late 70’s to late 80’s rock bands from the Nashville area. The other songs are live Government Cheese tracks from Tommy Womack’s site. Along with these, he’s got several others posted, both solo and with the Cheese.
The Shrubbery’s Dead.mp3 Kentucky Home (live).mp3 People Who Died (live-Jim Carroll cover).mp3Labels: covers, garage rock, punk
Music from My Mailbox
Hey – this is my second mailbox dump this month, not including the things I’ve posted individually. You can’t say I’m not right on top of things!
Alongside the something-for-every-taste-bud tracks, there are a few goodies here: Telling on Trixie and Ash are both solid “indie” bands; the songs here are catchy and stuck in my head even after the first listen.
The Rest is soothingly creepy. They kind of remind me of a lo-fi Jesus and Mary Chain. My pick of the litter is Radical Sons, out of St. Louis. They sound a little like the Strokes’ first album and I like the subject matter of this track (“I’m feeling nostalgic for things I’ve never known).
In any case, there is plenty of variety – give this stuff a listen and, as always, follow the links for more info.
Cas OneHip Hop / Soul / Rap
From: Evansville, Ind.
Band
MySpace Masked Moniker.mp3 
Radical SonsIndie / Rock
From: St. Louis, Mo.
Band
MySpace I’m So Sick of The 21st Century.mp3 them:youthIndie / Electronic
From: London and the Southeast United Kingdom
Band
MySpaceF.R.A.N.C.E..mp3
Will DaileyRock / Acoustic / Roots Music
From: Boston, Mass.
Band
MySpaceHow Can I Make You Happy.mp3 
The RestPop / Soul / Tropical
From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Band
MySpaceDrinking Again.mp3 Solid GoldTropical / Black Metal / Chinese pop
From: Minneapolis, Minn.
Band
MySpaceBible Thumper.mp3 AshIndie / Rock / Alternative
From: Downpatrick, Ireland
Band
MySpaceReturn of White Rabbit.mp3 
Lori LiebermanFolk / Indie
From: Santa Monica, Calif.
Band
MySpaceNew York Mining Disaster (Bee Gees cover).mp3 All SmilesMinimalist / Other / Rock
From: Portland, Ore.
Band
MySpaceThe Ones I Want to Live.mp3 Telling on TrixieRock
From: New York, N.Y.
Band
MySpaceCrash Me Up.mp3~~~~~
(
pictures, top-to-bottom: Radical Son, The Rest, Lori Lieberman)
Labels: "alternative", electronic, folk, hip-hop, indie, new stuff
Iggy - Gimme Danger (and Sparkle)
The other day someone sent me a track from this mysterious new disk,
Dark Night of the Soul. In case you haven’t heard (and again, if
I know, there’s no reason you shouldn’t), this is a collaboration between Mark Linkous, the main Sparklehorse, and Danger Mouse, most generally know as half of Gnarls Barkley.
The “mysterious” thing about this disk is that it may never see the light of day. Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse recruited a vast array of singers for this album: Julian Casablancas, Frank Black, Suzanne Vega, and Iggy Pop to name just a few. Director David Lynch was also supposed to have contributed a “visual narrative” for the music in the form of a 100-page booklet. Just the concept gave the album incredible potential.
Then came the inevitable trouble with the record label: Last week, in a post on its
Web site, NPR reported that only the booklet may be officially released: “‘Due to an ongoing dispute with EMI’ the book of photographs will ‘now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: ‘For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.’’”
Apparently, EMI has inexplicably put the kibosh on releasing this disk anytime in the foreseeable future.
Rolling Stone speculated the dispute may stem back to Danger Mouse’s
Grey Album, the 2004 Jay-Z / Beatles mash-up. The magazine said EMI, which controls the rights to the Beatles’ recordings, was extremely unhappy about that unauthorized disk.
NPR has streamed the album in its entirety since last week. You can also go to the official
Dark Night of the Soul Web site to order the limited edition book. In the meantime, here’s Iggy’s contribution.
Pain.mp3Labels: electronic, new stuff, punk
Steve Earle pays tribute to Townes Van Zandt
I just got the new Steve Earle album,
Townes, which is a tribute to Earle’s friend and mentor, Townes Van Zandt. Admittedly, this disk is a little outside my usual tastes, but then again, I’ve long been a fan of “outlaw” country.
What fascinates me as much as his music is Earle’s story. His return from addiction is nothing short of inspirational. Once you've picked it up, it’s hard to put down the crack pipe and return to real life. Mix heroin into that party, as Earle did, and you’ve got a real recipe for disaster.
The latest issue of
Rolling Stone has a feature article on Earle, wherein he talks about meeting Van Zandt and the influence Van Zandt had on his life and his music. In recording this disk, Earle told
Rolling Stone he “wanted to capture the Van Zandt he recalled from his memory, when his friend was at his peak.”
The songs Earle selected, he says, are the ones that he feels personally connected to and mean the most to him. The music ranges from “(Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria,” which was on Townes’ 1968 debut LP,
For the Sake of the Song to “Marie,” from his 1994 album
No Deeper Blue.
Earle laid down the basic tracks in his New York apartment before taking the recordings to Nashville to finish the album. His wife and his son both contribute individual guest vocals on the album. Also of note is the appearance of former Rage and current Street Sweeper guitarist Tom Morello on “Lungs,” which is often considered one of Van Zandt’s masterpieces.
I’m woefully unschooled in Van Zandt’s music. Before picking up this disk, the only thing I can say for sure I’ve heard is the Merle Haggard / Willie Nelson cover of “Pancho & Lefty” (which Earle covers here).
Townes, to the best of my limited knowledge about the man and his music, pays formidable tribute in a way no one but Steve Earle could have done.
Lungs.mp3 Labels: alt.country, new stuff
Green Day - Live at Maida Vale, 2004
You get a chance to see Green Day last night on SNL? Damnit, these guys are good. It's hard to believe this is the same band whose first major hit was about masturbation and smoking weed.
The new album,
21st Century Breakdown, is officially out now and should firmly establish Green Day as grown-ups. The disk has pretty much been universally heralded as an instant classic.
The London Times called
21st Century Breakdown a “masterpiece,” and said, “musically, it may honour and channel the spirits of the Who, Bowie, Queen, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, to breathtaking, to thrilling effect.”
As for my opinion, I can say I like the album and like it more each time I listen to it. Green Day without a doubt aimed high on this release and pretty much scored.
But the new disk isn’t really the reason we’re here today. Instead, as a sort of nod to
21st Century Breakdown and the upcoming Green Day tour, I’ve got a few live songs. These were recorded Oct. 6, 2004, at the BBC’s Maida Vale studios in London.
With the exception of the last track, “Minority,” which abruptly cuts off, the sound quality is excellent. When I got the files, the track names were screwed up and out of order, so I’ve corrected those and, hopefully, they’ll be correct for you. What’s listed below is the right order and the right song names. So, listen to these and
buy 21st Century Breakdown and
see the band live. Also – although not posted yet – I have the feeling that Chris over at
The Culture Bully will soon up Green Day’s SNL appearance, so check back.
American Idiot.mp3 Jesus of Suburbia pts.1-3.mp3 Jesus of Suburbia pts. 4-5.mp3 St. Jimmy.mp3 Longview.mp3 She.mp3 Brain Stew / Jaded.mp3 Who Wrote Holden Caulfield / I Fought the Law.mp3 Minority (fade out).mp3 Labels: live music, pop-punk, punk
Joe Pug's 'Nation of Heat'
Let me blaspheme right now and get it out of the way. I only recently became a fan of Joe Pug, but upon my first several listenings to his
Nation of Heat EP I had one thought in mind: Dylan-esque. High praise maybe, and it’s yet to be seen if his career can span 40-some-odd years, but I like the way he has started.
It’s only been a couple of years since Pug decided to be a musician, throwing in the towel on college and moving to Chicago from North Carolina. He played his first headlining show last May, at Chicago's legendary Schuba’s Tavern. Two weeks later he released
Nation of Heat.
Barely a year later, Pug is scheduled to play several summer festivals, including Bonnaroo next month and Lollapalooza in August. He’s also touring with Steve Earle for several dates this summer, including a June 18 show at the Crighton Theatre in Conroe, Texas, which will be the only time you’re going to hear me say I wish I still lived in Conroe.
An October appearance on NPR brought high praise for the 23-year-old singer/songwriter: “Not only does [the] Chicago-based singer have a beautifully mature voice, but the lyrics...possess wisdom seemingly beyond his age.”
Absolutely. When I first discovered Pug, and started looking for more information and music, I was surprised to learn he was so young. Pug is working on his debut full-length, which will be a sort of litmus test as to whether he can sustain the buzz from his EP. Comparisons to Bob Dylan and Josh Ritter tend to put a lot of pressure on a person, but I like this guy’s music and hope he can pull it off.
Hymn #101.mp3 Nation of Heat.mp3 Click over to Joe Pug’s
MySpace for his summer tour dates and other things you need to know.
Labels: alt.country, folk
'Oh No! Not You Again!'
Trying a new tack with my constantly overflowing mailbox, I thought I’d see if maybe I could separate out the good stuff in a timelier manner. It was that approach that found me tonight’s music.
The Heavy is a UK quartet whose music sounds at once familiar, while also sounding miles apart from so much else clogging the airwaves and Internet tubes lately. The Heavy has managed to fuse garage rock and funk into something that could have you playing air guitar to one song and lookin’ for someone to grind with to another. All the while, the music is raw; never that slick, Auto-Tune shite. As the band themselves describe it: “So dirty. So much weight. So much energy and laced with a soul that you just don't hear anymore.”
In a sort of unique promotional campaign, The Heavy are planning on issuing three singles leading up to the October release of their Jim Abbiss-produced sophomore disk,
The House That Dirt Built. The first single, “Oh No! Not You Again!” – which features guest vocals from Shingai Shoniwa of The Noisettes – officially hit stores today.
Check this song out and see if you don’t agree it’s one of the coolest things you’ve heard in a while.
Oh No! Not You Again!.mp3 Labels: funk, garage rock, new stuff, singles
What's a Civet?
I found today’s music in a sort of unusual way. A few days ago, while skulking around the back corners of the Internet, I saw a link to “hot” female rockers. Of course I had to check it out.
I’m browsing the list and see a band called Civet, whose four members are all gorgeous. I’m like, wow! What’s this all about? A quick Google lead me to Civet’s
MySpace, where I checked out the songs they have posted. One thing I can say – these ladies may be pretty, but they are also for real when it comes to their music.
They call themselves Femme Fatale Punk Rock and Civet descends from hard rockers such as L7, Girlschool, and the Distillers, with singer Liza Graves sounding, to my ears, a lot like Brody Dalle. As a matter of fact, Brody’s ex, Tim Armstrong, co-wrote “All I Want,” one of the tracks from Civet’s latest,
Hell Hath No Fury.
Civet has been together a few years, coming out of the Long Beach and Orange County areas of Southern California. Along with Graves, the other ladies in the band are guitarist Suzi Homewrecker, bassist Jacqui Valentine, and drummer Roxie Darling.
Hell Hath No Fury came out last September on Hellcat Records; it’s Civet’s first on that label and their third over-all, with their first two being issued on small labels.
Civet will be on the Warped Tour until July, when they head to Europe. If you get a chance to see them play live, do it. Until then, check out these songs – the title track from “Hell” and a couple of older things – and definitely get their album.
Hell Hath No Fury.mp3 Cherie.mp3 I’m Gunna Gunna.mp3
Just in time for summer: The Dogs of Winter
I know that in the blogosphere, timeliness is next to godliness and the more you post, the more you’re read and the more you’re read, the better chance you have of becoming the next Perez Hilton.
That said, I try to post at least three or four times a week, but there are days when I’m just not inspired. Maybe I haven’t heard anything worth sharing, or maybe I can’t find a particular song I wanted to post. I’m sure no one’s noticed but there has been the occasional post I’ve just “phoned in” – you know, the ones with a song or two and a bunch of copy-pasta from Wikipedia. I try to keep those to a minimum, but it happens.
The last few days have been low-inspiration days. I looked and looked again through my hard drive and couldn’t find anything I felt like posting. I could have taken the easy route and posted a live show and some pictures and been done with it, but where’s the challenge in that?
As luck would have it, when I checked my mail today, I found an album from the Brooklyn-based trio Dogs of Winter. Heavy in the classic power-trio mode, Dogs of Winter remind me musically of late 70s-era metal; the British metal band Tank comes to mind. The vocals, though, take it to a different level. The Dogs use a tandem vocal style, with singers Brian Grosz and Ryan Dowd trading verses over the driving beat.
Dogs of Winter have been together a few years, releasing a couple of EPs along the way. Their new disk,
From Soil to Shale, is their first full-length release. The ultra-cool thing: Starting May 12, they’re
giving it away.
The title of the first single, “Player Piano,” comes from Kurt Vonnegut’s debut novel about a dystopian society: “It’s more what we intend / Than what we act or say or do / Ignorant and out of touch.” Certainly not every day you hear a song with lyrics inspired by a 50-something-year-old novel. But that’s what’s cool about Dogs of Winter. Check ‘em out.
Player Piano.mp3 Wicked Game (Chris Isaak cover).mp3 Labels: covers, metal, new stuff, rock
On a 'Mission of Mercy'
I don’t know why, but I thought you good people maybe needed to hear some Motels today. No bonus points if you’re thinking, “Yeah, I don’t know why, either.”
The first time I heard the Motels was on a TV show that used to air late night – either Friday or Saturday, I forget – on one of the non-major networks in Los Angeles. This show, which was only on for maybe a season, ran pre-MTV videos from new wave and punk bands. I remember seeing things from bands like the Buzzcocks and wondering why the radio wasn’t playing this stuff.
Anyway, that show was my introduction to the Motels. I think the song was probably “Whose Problem,” from the band’s 1980 debut disk,
Careful. I can tell you for sure I was fascinated with Martha Davis, the Motels’ singer. She seemed to put out a femme fatale image that, at the time, totally captivated me.
As the 80s rolled on, the Motels became more new wavy and less edgy. By the time of their last album, 1985's
Shock, the band had become almost an electronic pop-dance band (Richie Zito, of Giorgio Moroder fame, produced it). I bought that album and ended up promptly giving it away.
The Motels’ biggest selling album was
All Four One, released in 1982. The story behind
All Four One is that this was actually a re-recorded version of an earlier album –
Apocalypso – the band’s label wouldn’t release. Wanting to stretch the limits as to what they could do artistically and musically, the Motels recorded darker and heavier music than what was on their debut. The results were mixed: While arrangements on some tracks were outstanding, others were too experimental and not as well produced (guitarist Tim McGovern was also handling some of the production chores). When they turned the tapes over to Capitol, the label rejected the album, saying it was “not commercial.”
McGovern left the band shortly after, and the Motels returned to the studio with Val Garay. He was able to reform the material into something more viable to Capitol, and on April 5, 1982,
All Four One was finally released.
Mission of Mercy.mp3 Labels: new wave, rock
It’s been a couple of years ago that I posted about the Joe Perry Project, Joe’s ill-fated band during his early 80’s hiatus from Aerosmith. Despite releasing three albums that, in my opinion can stand against most Aerosmith releases, the JPP never got beyond cult status. By the mid-80’s, as we know, Joe was back in the Aerosmith fold. 
This show was probably one of the Joe Perry Project’s last, and they sound musically tight, despite the wear and tear. But there’s also the feeling that, despite it being a Boston show, the band is simply going through the motions. I’ve heard recordings of Aerosmith in Boston and the band always seemed a lot more up for the home crowd. I think that by this point in the JPP story, things were close to an end and maybe Joe felt that, despite his talk of a fourth album and further tours. 
