Reviews from one of the Red-Headed Stepchildren

Mike Ness – Submitted this because it’s great summer music. Requires no thought, shallow, fun, sounds good blasting out the car windows. Ness makes tasty choices in the songs he’s covering. Good band, but any difference between this and a Social Distortion disc are negligible. Great guitar work throughout, and while Ness’ gravelly voice is an acquired taste, it suits the songs perfectly. The highlights for me are the twang infested “Let the Jukebox Keep On Playing” and “Ball and Chain”. 4 stars

Gang of Four – Clearly an influential disc. That herky-jerky rhythm & white boy funk sound shows up in many bands, from The Talking Heads to Radiohead. Lyrics are a little preachy, but sincere. “Damaged Goods” and the feedback fest “Anthrax” are the highlights for me. The tinny sound due to the lousy production does wear thin after a while. I respect the importance and influence of the disc, put it is probably not one that will get a whole lot of wear. 3 stars

Tully and the Wall – The most interesting selection of the month. Parts of it are really good, the first 3 songs in particular. Parts of it are like 2nd rate Corrs (“Love Song” and “Lost Girls”). “Sing Along Songs” does the unique trick of combining the two, a great song until the awful hokey call and response ending. I enjoyed the Celtic influence that is throughout the disc but never overwhelms the arrangements. Good Irish-y pop. 3 stars

Hellacopters – I’m a sucker for the Stones-y guitar work on this one. I love it when the rhythm player out-shines the lead guitarist and they get that Taylor/Richards back and forth thing going. “Leave it Alone” is a great one, sounds like an “Exile on Main Street” leftover. Some of the songs are a little weak, particularly towards the end of the disc. Well produced, very good guitar work and vocals (singer sounds a lot like Todd Rundgren). A very pleasant surprise, given the goofy title and band name spelling. 3 ½ stars

Ultravox – While synth-pop is not my bag, there are some really good tracks on here, most notably “Reap the Wild Wind” and “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes”. The latter brought back fond memories, which need not be mentioned, except to note they involved locking Ken out of the room. Of course, the disc does sound rather date…, um, exclusively representative of the time in which it was recorded. Bono’s line in “Do They Know Its Christmas” still sends shivers up my spine.

Discussion

Much to my astonishment, Byron’s assignment led me to a plethora of very good music. I am not a my space user , and was impressed with what I found. I started my search with Two Cow Garage, the greatest little band in the world at times (by the way Neil, Ken & Jay, there are two new songs on their site). Two Cow led me to….

1) I Can Lick Anysonfabitch in the House – Chose this one on the name alone, but the band is very good. They are from Portland, OR and play very much in the Two Cow balls-out pedal to the metal style with a hint of twang. This band led me to

2) Drag the River – Boulder, CO band. Excellent songs on their new CD which are of the alt.country variety. Very Steve Earle – Uncle Tupelo-ish. Naturally, I bought the disc. I linked from them to…

3) Dropkick Murphy – An Irish punk/garage band. Very energetic, book marked that one to explore further, but I liked the energy. From there it was

4) The Dents – Another high-energy straightforward rock band from Baaah-ston. Liked this one a lot, lead singer is also pretty hot, which never hurts. Finally, it was

5) The Konks – Law of averaged dictated I would hit one bad one, and I did. Low-fi Iggy Pop wannabees that just didn’t connect with me at all.