I'm feeling lonely

Music Group July 2015

The Struts – Everybody Wants – 4.5

This guy could fill in with Queen any day.  Lots of Train, Fratellis and Keene influence.  My Machine gets my vote for album best.  Put Your Money on me was a little on the Train side, but they can write a catchy hit.  Not even in the same ballpark as the other issues this month.  I thoroughly enjoyed this band and couldn’t find much wrong, they do a great job touching on the familiarity of the bands they emulate while maintaining their originality. 

Frank Black – Bluefinger – 1

I ended up quitting Rhapsody after only listening to this twice, or maybe I quit Rhapsody because I hated this cd so much I can’t remember.  One way or another, I dreaded going back for a third listen.

The Staple Singers – Greatest Hits

Very bluesy and easy to listen to in the background as I work.  I felt more connected to my work, like I was part of a chain gang.  Never been a fan of Everyday people though, so I’m glad we’re not rating this album.  That song is kind of like Young Girl and that stupid Huga Chaga song and Buttercup, they just really never should have been written.  Otherwise, it was a solid mix of good solid songs.   

Richard Thompson – Still – 2.5

I was really hoping to like this a lot more than I did.  A bit too folkie for my taste.  You can only get away with repeating the title of the song as the chorus for so long before it gets old.  The biggest plus for me is that he really sounded like Bob Mould.  I found a ray of hope with “No Peace No End”  and Wounding Myself even though it violated my repeat chorus rule, even the guitar was worth the listen.  Ultimately, the second half of the cd saved the album for me. 

And We Are Back On the Wagon

May 2015

 

Cheap Trick – Good, solid straight ahead rock with a heavy nod to the Beatles. No qualms there. My only gripe are the fade outs. As talented songwriters they are they could at least write endings. 3.5 stars

Gerry Rafferty – No.  1 stars

Houndmouth – Doesn’t engross me like they probably should since I like the Felice Brothers and He’s My Brother She’s My Sister which I hear a lot of throughout the album. Would work better as an EP to me. 2.5 stars

Benjamin Booker – Like the raw and ragged sound but it seemed to all blend together sounding like one continuous song. Ben’s voice gets a little wearisome as well. I think he’ll put out  something big some day but this isn’t it.  2.0 stars

AC/DC – Disc didn’t play but it wouldn’t have mattered. The songs selected were spot on.

Bi-Annual Meeting Post

Cheap Trick – Wow, first meeting in years and Jay goes all Mongillo on us.  A solid sophomore effort, they played to their strengths.  Production holds up really well almost 40 years later.  This album was released in punk’s heyday, and while its not punk per se, it accomplishes everything the punks were trying to do.  No fancy arrangements, straight forward garage band with just a little pop flourish.  4 stars

Gerry Rafferty – One of the pseudo-Dylan’s of the 70’s unworthy of the crown.  The two singles are the best tracks on the album, and they aren’t very good.  Nothing I’d ever revisit under any circumstances.  2 stars

Houndmouth – An entirely predictable submission, but damn I love this album.  The four part harmonies, the way they blow out the choruses, the imitation Robbie Robertson guitar licks all combine for an Americana classic. Love the small touches, like the Dylan-esque characters like “Jenny Gasoline” or the whistling winds that open “Sedona”.  Is it sustainable?  History says no (see Band of Horses, Felice Brothers), but this is a great one. 4.5 stars

Benjamin Booker – Played it a couple times when it came out last year and it never clicked.  Did a little better this time, definitely a Black Keys White Stripe-ish vibe to it.  Dig the lo-fi, love the guitar work.  Not all the songs are great, but there’s enough here to make me think this guy is someone to watch for.  3.5 stars

AC/DC – My disc didn’t play, but what’s there to say about an AC/DC greatest hits?  Pre or post Bon, their best material is fantastic with an energy and sense of humor typically lacking in the genre.  The heavy mix of the rhythm section definitely renders this as “metal”, but they have a much defter touch than the typical head-banging band, which I find endearing.  I don’t need to hear It very often,  but I don’t turn it off when it comes on.

Weeeee're Baaaack

October 2014
Music Club

Lloyd Cole & Commotion

Lloyd Cole writes good songs, performs them well but in the end does nothing for me. This is not a negative review because there is nothing bad to say, except maybe his vocal intonations are sketchy.  (2.5)

Moody Blues- Long Distance Voyager

In high school I was totally into the Blues. Had all the albums, got into the philosophical ponderings, thought the classical-rock fusion was cool and then poof; I lost all interest. I saw the LDV tour and it was a decent show and I have to admit it was a nice little nostalgic walk to revisit this album again. There a few songs that held up for me (“The Voice”, “22,000 Days”) and a few I still like though a little corny (“Veteran Cosmic Rocker”) but the rest were, let’s say, schmaltzy.  (2.0)

Hold Steady- Teeth Dreams

Since Boys and Girls In America I have been losing interest in Hold Steady. They’ve gotten glossier and less edgy and more and more like the E-Street band. That isn’t necessarily bad but we have enough bands trying to clone the Springsteen sound. Many bands get more polished as they mature. Some are successful (Against Me) and others not so much (Black Keys). Hold Steady are in the middle and I’m waiting for them to get back to spitting borderline punk. (1.5)

Kinks- GH

Nice collection of pseudo hits.

Wait, D'Arcy Posted before I did?

Hold Steady – It has its moments, notably “Spinners” which may be my favorite song of the year.  That said, the band may have peaked on “Stay Positive” (yes Ken, its better than “Boys and Girls in America”).  I don’t know that I can put a finger on it, but the songs on the last two albums just aren’t as good as the two that preceeded them.  Nonetheless, plenty of crunchy guitars, some great lines from Finn and 3-4 songs that I’d put on a Best of Hold Steady playlist.  3.5 stars

U2 – They’re 34 years in now.  When the Stones were at that point they released “Bridges to Babylon”.  Can anyone name a track off of that one?  Didn’t think so. Like almost all the musical heroes of our youth they are irrelevant from a new release standpoint.  Aside from “Vertigo”, I couldn’t hum another song they’ve done since “All That You Cant Leave Behind” which was 15 years ago. Not horrible, just…..there. 2 stars

Lloyd Cole – I always confuse him with Nick Cave, for reasons I can’t explain.  This was a very nice little slice of 80’s Britpop that went down easy and was just as easily forgotten.  A little too ornamental for me at times, he’s better when the band is stripped down to the basics.  Parts of it reminded me of Simple Minds.  Lyrically, slightly pretentious, but weren’t we all in the 80’s??  3 stars

Moody Blues – I associate the Moody Blues with their pompous, heavily orchestrated b.s. like “Nights in White Satin” and “Tuesday Afternoon”, so I was taken aback that this album was pretty good.  I now realize its because this sounds just like an ELO record from the 80’s.  Replace their lead singer’s voice with Jeff Lynne’s and this is vintage ELO.  In fact, I’m not sure “Talkin’ Out of Turn” isn’t ELO.  Didn’t wanna like it, but I did.  3.5 stars

Kinks – One of those bands that you cant do justice to in 20 songs.  “Rock and Roll Fantasy”, “Waterloo Sunset” and “Misfits” are certainly necessities for any Kinks collection.  Conversely, “Black Messiah” and “Im On an Island” wouldn’t make the list of my top 100 Kinks songs.  I’d be curious to hear the rationale behind the selections.  Nonetheless, a grossly underrated band whom I love.  God save the Kinks.

Is there anybody out there?

The Hold Steady – Teeth Dreams - 5

Bob Mould”ish”, and even a little Airbourne Toxic Event.  The catchiness was infectious.  I couldn’t get enough of this cd.  Excellent with headphones, the mixing was awesome, but it’s even better cranked in the car, no driving the speed limit when this is on.  I’m not sure why I didn’t get it when they were on one of our old lists.  Only the 10^th time in group history that I’ve issued a 5. I know that someone might hate this, Mong, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this was a top 10.  You nailed this one Jay

The Moody Blues – Long Distance Voyager - 4

In my opinion, the catchiest and best flowing Moody Blues album.  Not a bad song on this disk.  I know that the keyboard sounds cheesy by today’s standards, but it is what it is and I can’t say I’d change it. By far one of the best vocal harmonies.  I think that only Journey with Greg Rollie did a better job of harmonizing.

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Rattlesnakes - 2

This is what Billy Idol would sound like if he wasn’t a punk with a bad attitude or if he had Nick Lowe as his producer.  Go back and listen to it again and tell me I’m wrong.  This was an easy cd to listen to, but not my thing.  Too vanilla for my taste, I can see why they’d have a place in the books in the 80’s but I also see how they’d struggle to stand the test of time.     

U2 – Songs of Innocence – 2.5

 I like U2 a lot and love how they try to never do the same thing twice.  I felt that on this cd they kept some sounds from their past albums, but kept this one fresh too.  I heard a little more Cold Play and Jack White in this album than I would have expected from a band that should be setting the standard.  I wish that Bono would stay away from his falsetto voice.  If it wasn’t for “California’s” silly beginning and the fake rain sounds I felt it was one of the stranger potential hits.      

Kinks – GH

Once I knew a girl who’s favorite band was the Kinks.  She’s the only person in the world, and she died.  I love the Kinks and think that Ray Davies was probably the Dave Grohl of his day.   I got a kick out of the stereo effects they used.  Good headphone music.  It’s impressive how they either influences the Who, Beach Boys and Stones or vice versa.  And only one from Come Dancing??  

Given enough time even I can post a review.

Moody Blues

It was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school when this album came out.  I had heard of the moody blues and knew a couple of songs, but Long Distance Voyager was the first time I stopped and listened.  Let’s face it the Voice was being played everywhere and all the time.  Well I remember this being a great album and listening to quite a lot that summer, and opening me up to their catalog as whole which was great.  Now thirty plus years later I can’t tell you the last time I played anything by the moody blues.  The voice is still a great song.  So is Gemini Dream and 22000 days.  In fact nothing is bad here.  But like their catalog it’s nice to visit but nothing I would go out of my way to play.  The songs quickly disappear to an easy listening safe background that you may hum along or tap your feet to but also may not pay any attention to at all.  3

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions

The only two albums that are better jingle jangle pop cd than this one are the first two REM albums.  This impressive debut has all the tools that made it great, should have made it huge and caused it to become a cult classic.  Great lyrics that make you think about the references dropped and places in life and space being described.  Great fluid guitar that create songs such as  Are you ready to be heartbroken, four fights up,  perfect ski n, forest fire and 6 other  near classics.  All the things that will get you played on small college radio stations and ignored everywhere else.  Also within forest fire the album contains one of the smoothest, guitar solos this side of comfortably numb.  This is Lloyd Coles best cd amongst a catalog of many a great pop tune, especially the period when after he dismantled the commotions in favor of a band that contained a pre girlfriend Mathew Sweet on bass.  An impressive debut that stands the test of time as all well-crafted pop tunes usually do 4.5

Hold Steady

Great another down your nose favorite that I know is just not my cup of tea.  Yes I have heard of and heard them, and no I have found no reason ever to play them.  That is until now.  Not sure why but this cd hit a chord with me.  Just some great rock songs sung/spoke in that tried but never true weary rock star voice that when called for can still rock.  The guitar work and the band as a whole seems to have really stepped up on this cd.  I read there was some new blood to the band but not being familiar with their catalog couldn’t tell you if it was the difference.  What I can say is this is a cd I enjoyed from the crashing guitar beginning to the drawn out solo at the end.

The Kinks

As with the moody blues there is one song that opened the Kinks to my musical library.  It was Rock and Roll Fantasy.  I was still listening to top 40 stations and just thought this song was incredible.  Then a few years later Low budget was released and I was hooked.  That is what I like about this collection.  It shows their early brit pop beginnings to where they became arena rock gods with Dave truly plugging in and showed off his chops. Its schoolboys in disgrace and after.  Yes I think the early stuff is great but if it was me take a couple of songs out before Disgrace add a couple from low budget and add Do It Again and State Of Confusion.  Still it’s the kinks and a couple of hours of that is never a bad thing.

My bills aren't the only things that are 30 days late...

Big Head Todd and the Monsters – Black Beehive

I’m not sure why they named the album “Black Beehive”, but it would have been more accurate to call it “Black Keys, Kinda” since it has that minimalist, low tech guitar-centric thing that the Black Keys perfected with their last album. There’s a lot of throwback rhythm guitar in here…using a pinky to play rock and roll rhythm…it makes parts of “Josephina” sound like the Kinks’ “Victoria”…anyway, the upshot is the songs are good, uncluttered and uncomplicated, the vocals are interesting sounding and it is a good listen through and through, though nothing stands out as great or awful 3

Collective Soul – Collective Soul

One of the better albums of ‘90s…it’s interesting how after nearly 20 years it holds up so well. Songs like, The World I Know, Gel, December, Where The River Flows, and Smashing Young Man are all top shelf, and were big radio records in over the past 20 years. Great guitar work, solid vocals, great production and the overall quality of the songs make this a “classic” album even though it’s too new to be considered “Classic Rock”. 4 ½.

Drive By Truckers – English Oceans

In the early ‘70’s, The Raspberries put out an album called “Starting Over”. The first track, “Play On”, was a Beatle/John Lennon influenced rocker. Another track, “Cruisin’ Music” was an homage to the Beach Boys…”Shit Shots Count” sounds like an Exile on Main Street influenced rocker and “When He’s Gone” had Patterson Hood channeling his inner Neil Young. After those two tracks, it sounds as if DBT is letting Mike Cooley carry the ball a little more. His songs (or at least the ones he sings) are more interesting to me than the Patterson Hood tracks. In any event, this is good, not great, but at least it means they’ll be touring and that’s worth enduring a B+ album rather than an A… 3.5


Sandinista and Human Switchboard…The dog ate my homework, but I loved the Clash so what could be bad about that GH. Anyway…see you all this month, maybe???

Somebody's got to mop up the A-1...

Collective Soul – Surprise, it didn’t suck!   To my great relief this isn’t the one with “Shine” on it, although I despise “December” almost as much. “The World I Know” is one of the best Goo Goo Dolls songs ever and “Gel” is a good little number with a wicked hook.  The rest of it is spotty.  I hereby change my opinion of Collective Soul from “They blow” to “They’re marginally competent.”  2.5 stars

Human Switchboard – Any album that features this much Farfisa organ starts with a base of 2 stars, even if the rest of it is absolute crap.  Fortunately, not the case here.  Good collection of what we old-timers called “new wave” back in the day.  I hear shades of Talking Heads, Blondie, Violent Femmes, etc.  I liked almost all of it, although some careful editing and the elimination of “Refrigerator Door” would have bumped it ½ star. 3.5 stars

Big Head Todd – It has a couple of nice moments, notably “Josephina” and “Hey Delila” where things are simple and kept brief.  There’s just not enough of that on the disc.  The last 4 songs seem to take forever and “Fear, Greed and Ignorance” is painfully bad. Too much of the white-boy neo soul and not enough flat-out rocking.  2.5 stars

DBT –The simple fact is that Mike Cooley is the best songwriter of the last 20 years. “Shit Shots Count” and “Primer Coat” are two of his best, and the others are no slouches either.  The Hood songs are without exception better than anything he put on the last 2 albums.  Jay Gonzalez’s contribution on keys and as an extra guitarist are a crucial addition, and the lack of a 3^rd songwiter gives this album a focus that DBT has been lacking for some time. When this band is on their game, there are few, if any, better.  “English Oceans” is a band on its game.    4.5 stars

Sandanista – In 1979 the Clash released “London Calling” a double album that deftly moved between genres and was, by the way, the greatest album ever made. Less than a year later they followed up with Sandanista!, a 3 album set that was just an absolute sprawling mess,  heavy on the dub and reggae and light on finished songs.  The tragedy is that there is some incredible music on that album that time has forgotten, hence my best-of. Had the Clash released MY version of Sandanista as a single or double album, they’d have had an epic record that almost stands up to “London Calling”.  

Best meeting EVER!!!! April 2014

April 2014

Music Club

Big Head Todd & Monsters- Black Bee Hive

Best effort in years that shows off their big plains cowboy groove and soul. The song writing is concise and economical and Mohr’s voice has a spiritual ring to it. Sadly there are not guitar histrionics, though you can catch snippets of what Mohr  is capable of and the disc marginally loses steam as it progresses. All in all this was a welcome surprise. (3.5)

Drive By Truckers- English Oceans

Deja Vu. Best complete release in years with Hood and Cooley writing songs of inspired grit and channeling their inner Willie (Cooley) and Neil (Hood). English Oceans doesn’t sound forced and feels as if the songs rolled easily out of the boys. They rock, brook, honky-tonk and twang. Only two songs didn’t resonate with me; “Hangin’ On” and “First Air of Autumn” but the rest catapults this into my top 10 most likely.   (4.0)

Collective Soul- S/T

I always liked the song “December”, and still feel it is the best song on this album, but I was never a real fan of the rest of their singles let alone albums. Being prepared to pretty much trash this I found myself not hating it and taking it for what is was: white man soul that when they rock the riff they aren’t half bad. But when they get a little less rock driven they slip into MOR rock for the masses. Won’t land on my regular play list but wasn’t the tripe I was expecting.   (2.5)

Human Switchboard- Who’s Landing in My Hangar

I had to look this up because I couldn’t tell if it was a current band being retro or a band from that retro time. Being the latter I have to look at this differently than if it was the former. What I  get from Human Switchboard is that they are non-glossed, sloppy garage band that had  some interesting ideas but unfortunately not the chops to see to fruition. They needed a producer, singing coach, metronome and instrument tuner. Lots of the Velvets present as well as Elvis Costello and Patty Smith. (2.0)

Clash Sandista- GH

Call it blasphemy, but the more ska, reggae influenced the Clash song, the less I tend to give a crap. It also seemed that those are the songs they wished to extend and groove on. When they straight ahead rock and spew their political attitudes I’m all in. So this mix for me is a 50/50 crapshoot.