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.