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.

Marching Forward

Go-Go’s – As good as I remembered it.  The one-two punch of “Head Over Heels” and “Turn to You” is the band’s finest work.  A little hit and miss after that, but “Yes or No” and “Im the Only One” are where girly pop meets punk. Love the crunchy guitars throughout and the dated sound is somehow endearing.  A good open-the-windows spring-y disc.  4 stars

Tar Babies – Senility must be creeping in, I could have sworn Mongillo was our resident jazz hater.  Pull out the Chili Peppers rhythm section that dominates most of these tracks, and what you got is jazz/funk hybrid.  There are a couple moments that have a nice James Brown band feel to it, but too often I felt like I was listening to “Cosby Show” bumper music.  2 stars

Hey Hello -  Nothing here that hasn’t been done 100 times before, but so what? The songs are good, the playing is good, production has that nice little sheen to it.  Big choruses, goofy play-on words, drums mixed high enough to bury the vocals, in and out in 40 minutes, sure what the hell, I’ll buy in.  Sometimes its best not to over-think this crap 3.5 stars

Megadeth – How to make a metal album:

1)       Come up with a cool band name, preferably violently offensive. “The Grandmother Anal Assaulters” for example.

2)       Using only the colors black, white and red, create an overly dramatic band logo.  In our pretend example, throw some red horns and a tail on grandma.

3)       Find a drummer capable of playing only 1 tempo

4)       Find the fastest guitar player available.  Ask him to define the word “subtle”.  If he can do so, dismiss him and move on to next candidate until you fine one who has no clue about being subtle..

5)       Buy a thesaurus.  List all the synonyms  for these words: dark, death, destruction.

6)       Create lyrics around those words.  Subjects must be either darkness, death, or destruction.  Forests are ok too, but only if they are dark.  Ok, damn it, you can have one about vikings, but only one.

7)       Have 10 songs on the disc.  9 must be 2 and a half minutes long, but the last one should be 20.

That’s it, you’ve made a metal album.  Congrats, and we’ll see you on the cover of Kerrang!!  .5 stars

Toilet Boys – With a precious few exceptions this is dang near indistinguishable from  Motley Crue, which in my book aint a compliment.  All that was missing to complete the disc was a power ballad bemoaning how tough life on the road is.  As this kind of stuff goes, its adequate, but not my cup o joe

Topic

1)       Warren Zevon – He was still cranking out good albums and was one of my all time favorites

2)       Joey Ramone – One of the most important artists of my life.  Was starting to find his solo legs.

3)       Joe Strummer – Same as Joey

4)       Roy Orbison – Was smack in the middle of a career revival, another cruelty of a tragic life

5)       Clarence Clemons – I can hear the groans from here, but  Clarence was a big part of some of the greatest shows Ive ever seen

Good Riddance:

1)       Tupac, Notorious BIG or any other dead rapper.   Buy the ticket, take the ride….

2)       Kurt Cobain – Made a great album and a half.  Not glad he’s gone, but no other artist’s reputation has gained more from being dead than his.