Poobah Apologizes for His Delay

Heartless Bastards- Arrow

If Marc Boylan was alive and enlisted The Snake The Cross The Crown and drifted into making Americana music it would have become the Heartless Bastards. There is a trippy-ness to “Arrow”. It could fit nicely in the late 60’s early 70’s pre-disco rock era- kind of in my sweet spot. “Arrow” is not perfect but when that trippy groove connects (“Skin and Bones”) it’s addictive. The rocked up songs trump the slower songs which straddle interesting and dirge. Overall pretty good. (3.0)

Hives-Les Hives

The Hives are at their best when they just play punked up, fuck you rock. God knows there is a load of it on “Les Hives”. What makes their last two releases so interesting is that they have slowed down some songs making them poppier, which is almost against what the Hives stand for- except in this case poppier is equated to sounding like the Ramones. They also throw in complete oddball songs (for the Hives) like “Without the Money” or “I Want More”. In any case, The Hives=Fun and “Les Hives” is fun. (4.0)

Public Limited LTD- Album

It’s been eons since I have listened to this and personally I think it holds up quite well. There is the expected Johnny Lydon sneer and hard driving punk-pop noise. My only complaint is that the songs do drag on a little beyond their usefulness. Example is the single “Rise” which could have been shaved to a 3:30 great song instead of 6+.  (3.5)

Supertramp-Crime of the Century

This was a bit of a surprise. This held up better than I thought it would. For me Supertramp provided pluckable songs but generally didn’t keep my interest for entire albums. Crime of the Century did keep my interest and was much more jazzy prog-art-rock than I remember. Will I pull it out to listen more often-nah- but it was more enjoyable than I planned it to be. (2.5)

Uncle Tupelo

No questioning the importance of this band and the new genre they helped blossom (with earlier help from Neil Young and Graham Parsons). I have always preferred their twangy rockers and pure country tunes over their nuanced songs which drag to me. The groups they spawned are also pretty nifty. Nice mix.

Topic

Very hard. I had to throw away personal preferences in doing the first list…….

In no specific order.

5 greatest American Bands all time

·         REM- brought back artsy, college jangly music and influenced the 80s indie scene

·         Kiss- though not most talented band they set bar for Arena shows and influenced countless bands

·         Allman Brothers- begat southern and jam rock

·         Velvet Underground- indie band of all indie bands

·         Uncle Tupelo- see above

5 greatest American Band now.

·         Black Keys

·         The Decemberists

·         Green Day

·         Wilco

·         Drive By Truckers