Category Archives: steve

Smithereens Comment

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For a long time, when I include a youtube link in my comments, it doesn’t flesh out, leaving a plain, unappealing link to click. Earlier today, the whole thing went kaput as when I typed all this in as a comment, it gave me some security error and nothing stuck at all.

So I’m doing this as a new post, lest I waste my time trying to comment again. Here we go:

I’ve always thought of Smithereens as a second-generation Hoodoo Gurus, a band I liked a lot way back when, but whose music doesn’t hold up for me anymore.

Early on in the Smither’s career, I read something that their goal was to combine The Beatles and AC/DC. A noble pursuit for sure, not that they ever achieved it. (If you want John Lennon and Black Sabbath – for real – it’s Uncle Acid.)

Got excited when I saw Tom’s title, anticipating a Smithereens cover of the original Behind The Wall Of Sleep. Oh well.

More Kevin Bacon

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Good Old Boys made me think of Waylon Jennings and Waylon Jennings made me think of my favorite Waylon song, Honky Tonk Heroes written by Billy Joe Shaver.

If there’s a morality tale in this song I don’t know what it is and I don’t much care. I particularly like when it kicks in at about 1:30 and I like even better when it kicks out with the riff at 3:20.

It’s a testament to the musical world we live in that everybody has a Johnny Cash shirt, no one has a Waylon Jennings shirt and no one even knows who Billy Joe Shaver is. (No offense to Johnny Cash – it’s not his fault.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

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It was my civic duty to make this post. I was rearranging my CDs over the Thanksgiving days and I ran into Primal Scream’s Riot City Blues, which made me realize how good it is. This is perhaps the best song on the album.

Things:

1) Three chords. All the guitar solos are rock ‘n’ roll cliches. Beautiful.

2) Notice how many posing/cliche rock star moves the players do. When a song causes a musician to launch uncontrollably into a rock star move, that’s a good thing.

3) “Don’t need a knife, don’t need a gun, I got a crown made of human skull.”

4) The chick (I didn’t know who she was either) is the singer from The Dead Weather, among other bands.

5) Jools Holland!

Time To Go Back In The Kadavar Water

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I bought an album by German band Kadavar a couple years ago and liked it OK, but I found it a little too straight Sabbath rippy to hold my interest for more than a couple listens.

Classic Rock magazine told me tonight that their new album, Rough Times, is uncharted territory for them. This song has perhaps just enough pop sensibility to make the whole thing work better. I’m gonna give Rough Times a try.

The drummer’s eyes, the singer’s teeth, the hairbrush at the end. Intriguing!!!

Remakes, Remodels

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A few weeks ago I heard the current Dead Boys (Cheetah Chrome, Johnny Blitz and some other guys) totally remade the first album Young, Loud and Snotty. The reviews on Amazon are pretty horrible, so I stayed away.

Once down this remakes rabbit hole I found out there’s a band who did a somewhat well-known remake of Rocket To Russia. The Amazon reviews for that aren’t quite as bad but the gist is mostly, “just listen to the real Rocket To Russia instead.”

The best of this ilk from a critical perspective is a band called The Vindictives’ remake of Leave Home. It receives Amazon kudos for not simply trying to re-do The Ramones and rearranging the songs, etc.

So my CD arrived yesterday – more expensive than the usual as it came all the way from Japan. Popped it in today and it’s disappointing. Valiant effort, I guess, but the singer is damn annoying. A combination of the male Rezillos singer, who sounds good in The Rezillos, and Darby Crash, who rarely sounds good ever, but that was kinda his schtick.

Oh well. Another experiment bites the dust. If you need anything it’s this album-opening version of Pinhead. Cute idea to intersperse Freaks audio clips. I made it about halfway through the album as I increasingly thought, “I really should be listening to the real Leave Home.”

Funny, if I’d heard this version out at a bar somewhere, I’d have gone crazy chasing down the source of this “cool” other version. As they say, often the chase is better than the catch.

If nothing else, it beats The National doing The Ramones.