The Runaways: The Mercury Albums Anthology

March 21st, 2010

Terrific collection of Runaways four Mercury albums

With the Runaways biopic getting a major market push, it was a no-brainer for their oft-ignored catalog to get another round of reissues. Contained in this set are the three studio albums the group recorded for Mercury (The Runaways, Queens of Noise and Waitin’ For the Night), and a live album originally released as an import (Live in Japan). This is the heart of he Runaways’ catalog, and though a post-Mercury album (And Now… The Runaways), an odds ‘n’ sods collection (Flaming Schoolgirls) and prehistoric demos (Born to Be Bad) can be found, they’re really the province of completists. For those new to the group’s repertoire, this four-LP-on-two-CDs set will tell you everything you need to know – if not a bit more – about the group’s recorded legacy.

The Runaways’ self-titled 1976 debut tells the group’s story: five girls who are at once a legitimate rock ‘n’ roll group and puppets of their svengali/producer Kim Fowley. The tensions between hormones, rock spirit and jailbait marketing give the album both muscle and sizzle. Joan Jett proved herself a songwriter with an uncommon touch for evoking mid-70s Los Angeles teenagedom, and she and Cherie Currie sang with a level of teenage conviction that couldn’t be faked; the band, though clumsy in spots, was still quite powerful. Their 1977 follow-up, Queens of Noise, followed the same template, though you could hear that the group was a year wiser to the perils of rock ‘n’ roll, abused by their managers, worn down into the road and staring at the downward spiral that would cause the band to implode.

Their live album, recorded before an enthusiastic audience in Japan, shows how well the act translated to the stage. As on their debut, the playing isn’t particularly refined, but Currie shows herself to be a commanding front-woman, and Sandy West holds down the beat with powerful authority. Their final studio release for Mercury, Waitin’ For the Night, found the band reconfigured: Cherie Currie and Jackie Fox were gone, with the former’s vocal spotlight added to Joan Jett’s, and the latter’s bass playing taken on by Vicky Blue. Jett rose to the challenge and asserted herself as group leader, paving the way for her upcoming solo career. Whatever innocence the girls had brought with them was long gone by the time of this swan song.

If you’re new to the group, perhaps having found them through the movie, and not ready to invest in the anthology, the group’s self-titled debut is the place to start. If you want to get a feel for their career arc, the short collection 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Runaways or the out of print The Best of the Runaways effectively sample their catalog. But if you’re all-in, there are winners to be found on all three of their studio albums, and the live release fleshes out the picture of rock ‘n’ roll life on the road circa 1977. The Runaways weren’t the greatest rock band of their time, but they were trailblazers whose albums captured a time and a place from a young, female perspective that remains unique to this day. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The Runaways’ Home Page

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Easton Corbin: Easton Corbin

March 14th, 2010

Country newcomer recalls Kenny Chesney and Alan Jackson

The cover of newcomer Easton Corbin’s self-titled debut depicts a homespun image of the singer-songwriter strumming an acoustic while relaxing on a porch in a wicker rocking chair. It’s an apt picture. The album strips away much of Nashville’s contemporary bombast in favor of the relaxed country vibe of Kenny Chesney and Alan Jackson. The comparison is particularly close in the sunny satisfaction and road trip escape of “Roll With it,” the forthright statement of home-spun roots “A Little More Country Than That,” and multiple mentions of good times and simple pleasures. Corbin and his co-writers have pulled together a collection of love songs, both warm and broken-hearted, and link Chesney with Tom T. Hall by drawing a blue line from Memphis to Key West in “This Far From Memphis.” There’s a moving lyric of imagined nostalgia in “Someday When I’m Old” and the second-chance glimpsed in “Let Alone You” is illustrated with sharply observed everyday details.

A few of the songs are a bit close to their inspirations for comfort. “Don’t Ask Me ‘Bout a Woman” rewrites the sentiment and mood of Brad Paisley’s “Waitin’ on a Woman,” and the sandy vacation of “A Lot to Learn About Livin’” is third-generation Jimmy Buffett by way of Kenny Chesney. Corbin’s vocals are lightly drawled and producer Carson Chamblerlain counts out a variety of tempos that allow is singer to show off his emotional prowess as both a balladeer and mid-tempo honky-tonker. The album closes with the thoughtful “Leavin’ a Lonely Town,” echoing the escapes and traps of Steve Earle’s “Guitar Town” and Chris Knight’s “Oil Patch Town.” The sound is Nashville clean, but it’s not slickly artificial; it’s sophisticated in the manner of George Strait and others able to hang on to their country roots even as they embrace modern studio production. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Easton Corbin’s Home Page
Easton Corbin’s MySpace Page

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Hacienda: Big Red & Barbacoa PREVIEW

March 12th, 2010

Austin’s Hacienda drops their second album Big Red & Barbacoa (produced once again by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach) on April 6th. As a teaser they’ve released this superb mid-period Beach Boys styled original. A full album review is coming in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, enjoy this great track!

MP3 | I Keep Waiting

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George Jones: The Great Lost Hits

March 12th, 2010

Terrific cherry-picked set of Jones’ 1965-71 Musicor sides

George Jones’ recordings for the Musicor label weren’t so much lost as hung up in legal limbo. When Jones left Musicor for Epic in a rancorous split with label owner and manager Pappy Daily, seven years (1965-71) of prime recordings were left to haphazard reissue and illegitimate copying, and worse yet, inferior contemporary re-recordings. This is a textbook example of the cultural blockades created by the multiparty complexity of music licensing, restrictive copyright laws and the lawyer tax that attaches to just about everything. Jones waxed over 250 master recordings for Musicor during the early prime of his recording life, so the riches that have been locked in the vault are substantial.

True, the Musicor sessions didn’t always live up the standard of “Walk Through This World With Me,” “Where Grass Won’t Grow” or “A Good Year for the Roses,” but these simpler productions provide key contrast to the more complex arrangements Billy Sherrill would employ at Epic. Among the thirty-four tracks are twenty-three charting hits (missing only “No Blues is Good News” and the Melba Montgomery duet “(Close Together) As You and Me”), and eleven album sides. Lesser known singles like “Small Time Laboring Man” are complemented by excellent obscurities later resurrected by Keith Whitley, Elvis Costello, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Emmylou Harris and others. Listening to the high quality of these performances it seems criminal for seven prime years of Jones’ career to have been available only to collectors who’d maintained a turntable.

Bear Family produced the full Musicor output on a pair of 2009 box sets (Walk Through This World With Me and A Good Year for the Roses), but the price tag of these imports is out of reach for many. Time Life’s two-CD set gets to the core of Jones’ greatness in the latter half of the 1960s, and though a couple dozen more sides could have fit on these discs (their absence no doubt a by-product of the U.S. per-track royalty structure), what’s here is true country gold. A few tracks seem to have been re-mastered from vinyl as there are a few minor pops and ticks, but the fidelity is excellent and the performances uniformly superb. The sixteen page booklet includes terrific photos and informative liner notes by Colin Escott. If you can’t afford the box sets, this is a must-have. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

George Jones’ Home Page
Time Life’s Home Page

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Gary Allan: Get Off on the Pain

March 12th, 2010

Superb country originals and passable Nashville stock

Allan hit his stride with 1999’s Smoke Rings in the Dark, and recorded a series of albums that retained his California twang even as Nashville dug in its fingers. His eighth album still offers some edgy and forceful vocals, but starts out with several tunes whose arrangements of piano, organ, strings and studio drums resound with Nashville’s overbearing contemporary country-rock sound. Allan’s relegated his superior original material to the album’s second-half, opening the album with songs from Music City pros whose work leaves a more calculated impression. The productions on the first few cuts overwhelms Allan’s earthiness, and even the sprightly “That Ain’t Gonna Fly” sounds more like a studio band attempting to rock than a country band actually rocking.

But the mainstream sound fades away when the album reaches Allan’s original material at track six. The intimate details of “We Fly by Night,” co-written with Jamie O’Hara and Odie Blackmon, are given a stately tempo that allows Allan to consider the lyrics and add an echo of Roy Orbison’s drama. Or maybe it’s an echo of Raul Malo, as Dan Dugmore’s steel and gentle notes of vibraphone give this track a compelling sophistication. Allan writes poetically of opening up to opportunities, begging for forgiveness and finding oneself, and the emotion with which he sings his own words is a world away from what he’s able to muster for the album’s stock Nashville compositions. Perhaps his label didn’t trust that Allan’s originals were radio-ready, but his songs are deeper and feel as if they’re born of personal experience rather than someone else’s songwriting appointment.

Thos who liked See If I Care might skip lightly through the first five tracks, as the album’s second half is a twangy and soulful gem worth the wait. The deluxe CD edition adds four bonus cuts: the newly recorded “Long Summer Days,” and live versions of “Right Where I Need to Be,” “Best I Ever Had,” and “Watching Airplanes” that were recorded in front of an enthusiastic audience. The disc (which also unlocks on-line video content) is delivered in a digipack with a 16-panel booklet that includes lyrics to the album’s core ten tracks. Allan is effective in playing both the country mainstream and its rootsier edges, which may leave some fans enjoying one half of this disc more than the other. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Gary Allan’s Home Page
Gary Allan’s MySpace Page

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Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez: The Deep End

March 10th, 2010

SNL singer serves up rock ‘n’ roll with a side of Stax

Rock ‘n’ roll women have always been a sparser commodity than their male counterparts. Even the adjective that describes a forceful rock ‘n’ roll performance discriminates with its anatomical reference. Rock’s had a few chart-topping female stars, including Wanda Jackson, Janis Joplin, Ann Wilson, Joan Jett and Pat Benatar, but the bulk of female rockers labor in day jobs that overshadow their solo output, or work in local obscurity. Patty Scialfa’s better known for her marriage and membership in the E Street Band than for her three releases, Karla DeVito is remembered more for the video she made with Meat Loaf (on which she lip-synched Ellen Foley’s vocal) than her solo album or subsequent song writing, and Ronnie Spector took decades to emerge from the shadow of her former husband and producer.

Christine Ohlman, whose twenty-year gig with the Saturday Night Live Band has put her voice in the ears of millions of listeners, has released six albums and contributed vocals to dozens of projects, yet remains more of a cult favorite than a name star. She sings in a gutsy rock ‘n’ roll voice edged in soul and blues, part Bonnie Raitt and part Genya Raven, with an element of Van Morrison’s early wildness. Her throwback sound combines the romanticism of Brill Building pop and horn-fed Stax muscle (courtesy of the Asbury Jukes’ Chris Anderson and Neal Pawley) into a potent rock ‘n’ roll stew. Her music reaches back to a time when guitars were front and center and bass lines propelled dancers to the floor.

The album opens with Ohlman growling her lovesickness against a twangy variation of the riff from Barrett Strong’s “Money.” She’s drawn to the wrong man, but loyal to a fault, recounting the reasons to break away but lamenting what she’s missing, proclaiming everlasting love and, in the tradition of the Crystals, opening her arms without worry of what others will think. She slings it out with the ease and familiarity of a club singer, working the crowd and drawing listeners close. Ohlman’s band is similarly road-tested (Michael Colbath’s bass playing is particularly notable), and her guests include Ian Hunter, Al Anderson, Eric Ambel, Levon Helm, Dion, and Marshall Crenshaw. Her dozen originals are complemented by covers of Van & Titus’ deep soul “Cry Baby Cry,” Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells’ “What the Matter With You Baby,” and Link Wray’s “Walkin’ Down the Street Called Love.”

Once upon a time, when rock ‘n’ roll thrived on the radio, this album would have spun off several hit singles. But in today’s fragmented music market, and with little room for raw, gutsy guitar-based music, you’ll more likely hear this in the background of a Fox TV show whose music coordinator is tasked with setting a rebellious mood, or perhaps on a celebrity musician’s weekly satellite radio program. Of course, you can also hear Ohlman in her weekly gig on SNL, and perhaps the show’s producers will be so kind as to offer her a spotlight to sing her original songs – songs that stand tall alongside the covers she curates for the band. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | The Deep End
Christine Ohlman’s Home Page
Christine Ohlman’s MySpace Page

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Great American Taxi: Reckless Habits

March 8th, 2010

Loosely polished album of country, blues, bluegrass, boogie and rock ‘n’ roll

The second album from this funky jam-band exhibits the same sort of artistic serendipity with which the group was born. In the wake of Leftover Salmon’s demise, front-man Vince Herman hooked up with Chad Staehly and a hand-picked group of local musicians for a charity performance that spawned Great American Taxi. The polished looseness of Leftover Salmon’s jam-band legacy informs the new group’s music, as do the New Orleans influences found on songs like “Baby Hold On” and “Mountain Top,” but there’s a heavier dose of blues and southern rock boogie here. Think of the Grateful Dead at their most driving, Little Feat traipsing through their trademark rhythm ‘n’ roll or The Band playing reflective and bittersweet.

The group’s country tunes, such as the pedal steel-lined “New Madrid,” have more in common with cosmic American music than Leftover Salmon’s string-band influences, and the album’s title track pays twangy tribute to Gram Parsons. “Unpromised Land” suggests what Lynyrd Skynyrd might’ve sounded like as a progressive-bluegrass band, and at six minutes you get a taste of the band’s instrumental jamming. The original “American Beauty” (with its tip of the hat to the Dead) rolls along on an Allman-styled groove. There’s funk, boogie and humor that variously brings to mind the Neville Brothers, Commander Cody and the Morrells, but more than anything there’s an enormous feeling of satisfaction that comes from making music.

The album opens on an optimistic note with the fanciful dreaming of “One of These Days,” and the road warrior of “Unpromised Land” is pained by his longing for someone back home. But really, how bad can you feel when you’re packing a banjo player and a fiddler to cut a jig for you? Even the list of modern-ills that fuel the fast-paced “New Millennium Blues” are rolled out with the matter-of-factness of fatalistic observation rather than the ire of complaint, and the daily grind of a working musician has more fringe benefits than the title “Tough Job” might at first suggest. The group’s guitar, bass and drums are augmented by a four-piece horn section that adds New Orleans-styled brass (leading the march on the bonus instrumental “Parade”), and a trio of backing singers that adds gospel flavor.

This is a seamless hour of confident and self-assured roots music that effortlessly combines country, rock, blues, bluegrass and second-line funk. The instrumental jamming is fluid but focused, limiting the album’s three longest tracks to six minutes and the two instrumentals to fewer than three apiece. The top-line string band sound of Leftover Salmon has given way to sublime country-rock and the flavors of New Orleans. Herman seems tremendously energized by this music, his band is sharp and the guest playing of Barry Sless (pedal steel), Matt Flinner (banjo), the Peak to Freak Horns, and Black Swan Singers provide icing on a sweet cake. Fans of the Dead, Band, Burritos, Byrds and Little Feat, as well as recent acts like the Band of Heathens will love this one. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | One of These Days
Great American Taxi’s Home Page
Great American Taxi’s MySpace Page

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Derek Hoke: Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll

February 26th, 2010

Sweet, optimistic country with pop, folk and blues shades

Georgia-born Derek Hoke opens his debut with the album’s bold title declaration: Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s an immensely catchy song whose pedal steel and thumping honky-tonk beat underline the bittersweet lament of a man who must bid adieu to his first love. Hoke declares his never-ending affection for rock ‘n’ roll even as he falls further into the embrace of country music. He’s confused and heartsick, but like the fatalism of film noir, he can’t fight the impulse to turn down the amps and turn up the twang. He walks away from the big guitars and screaming audiences with sweet sorrow in his heart.

Hoke styles himself a country artist, but there are rich threads of pop, folk and blues to be found in his music. The vibraphone chime of “Hot on the Heels of Love” lay behind a melody that’s equal parts Buddy Holly and early Beatles, and the whistled solo adds to a satisfied, easy-going early-60s mood. Hoke is a pop omnivore who smoothly combines Lyle Lovett’s ambling swing, Marshall Crenshaw’s earnest pop, Dr. John’s rolling funk and Hank Williams’ twang. Mike Daly’s steel nods to Williams’ legendary sideman Don Helms, and Chris Donohue’s double bass add supper-club bottom end to several songs.

At first these seem to be songs of romantic distress, but Hoke’s an optimist who dispels dark clouds with a never-ending view towards the sunny side. The frazzled morning-after of “Rain Rain Rain,” delayed infatuation of “I Think I Really Love You” and unrequited longing of “Still Waiting” are voiced as hope and opportunity rather than defeat, and even the straying lover of “Not Too Late” is given one more chance. Hoke sings of small pleasures (“The Finer Things”) and traipses through a litany of Southern terms of affection (“Sweat Pea,” with Jen Duke singing Loretta Lynn to Hoke’s George Jones) as his songs swing through buoyant rockabilly, acoustic blues and twangy country.

Hoke has steeped in the music of his youth, but also that of his parents’ and grandparents’. His period influences are worn cleverly in guitar strums, bass thumps, vocal harmonies and steel bends, interweaving periods and styles rather than blocking out pieces from whole cloth. His farewell to rock ‘n’ roll takes him back to a time when American music’s roots were still tangled in the same plot of mountain soil. This is a charming record that plays like a vintage radio station hopping from one thing you love to another, alighting long enough to set your toe tapping. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll
Buy Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll on Bandcamp
Derek Hoke’s MySpace Page

Here’s the video for “Where’d You Sleep Last Night?”

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The Rubinoos: Hodge Podge

February 23rd, 2010

Souvenir compilation from Rubinoos’ 2009 tour of Spain

This collection was issued for the Rubinoos 2009 tour of Spain and pulls tracks of recent vintage, including selections from 2006’s Twist Pop Sin and 2007’s Japan-only One Two That’s It. A trio of cover outtakes from 2003’s Crimes Against Music (Bacharach & David’s “Little Red Book,” Tommy Roe’s “Dizzy” and The Monkees’ “Valleri”) make their domestic debut, and a quartet of outtakes from 1998’s Kevin Gilbert-produced Paleophonic are issued for the first time. These latter four are real treats, highlighted by the broken hearted “Everybody’s Got Somebody But Me” and the Everly’s-styled ballad “Home to You” (which was previously recorded by the Rubin-less Vox Pop in 1998). Additional gems include a cover of the Hollies’ “Bus Stop” that opens with Jon Rubin accompanied nearly a cappella by lush harmonies, hand drums and a triangle, and a gutsy production of the Raspberries’ “Cruisin’ Music” that one-ups the original’s thin sound. The 1984 basement production of “Two of Us” has a fetching DIY quality that captures the Rubinoos channeling the Paley Brothers. If you missed the group’s recent records, this is a good sampler, and if you’re a Rubinoos fanatic, the outtakes are must-haves. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The Rubinoos’ Home Page
Rubinoos CDs at Pop Plus One

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The Plimsouls: Live! Beg, Borrow & Steal

February 23rd, 2010

L.A. rock ‘n’ roll at the height of its 1981 power

Alive Records seems to be on a mission to get all of Peter Case’s early material into circulation. They issued the first official CD of the Nerves EP (with bonus tracks!), a live Nerves LP, Case’s post-Nerves hook-up with Paul Collins in the Breakaways, and now this supercharged live show by the Plimsouls. Already one of L.A.’s most potent rock ‘n’ roll bands, the Plimsouls hit a sixth gear when they played live. Fans have previously enjoyed another live set on One Night in America, and though the audio seems slightly more compressed on this October 1981 recording, the performance is a few degrees hotter. Peter Case sings with a ragged, full-throated soulfulness that’s urged along by Dave Pahoa and Lou Ramierez’s rhythms and goosed by Eddie Munoz’s electric guitar riffs.

The Plimsouls were a non-stop live act. They launch from the gates at full-speed with “Hush Hush” and never let the pedal up from the floor. “Lost Time” assembles itself from stabbing rhythm guitar riffs, rumbling bass and propulsive drums, and “Women” teases with a moment of confidentiality before roaring down the strip with all cylinders firing. Plimsouls originals “A Million Miles Away” and “Everyday Things” get an extra measure of passion on stage, and when the band kicks into their encore covers of the Kinks’ “Come on Now” and Gary “U.S.” Bonds’ “New Orleans” (with the Fleshtones sitting in on the latter) it’s as if they’re offering their souls on the altar rock ‘n’ roll. Their cover of Thee Midniters’ “Jump, Jive & Harmonize” is missing the signature organ whine, but Case sounds absolutely possessed throughout this and the rest of the set.

Power pop fans treasure the Plimsouls’ studio recordings, but their live set proves them one of the era’s top rock ‘n’ roll bands. When they get deep into the groove it feels as if Peter Case is doing all he can to stay on top of this hard-charging band. Nearly thirty years later this set still commands you get up and move around – the Plimsouls’ powers transcend time and space. Less than half the titles here, recorded at the Whisky A Go Go, overlap with One Night in America, and the inclusion of “Lost Time,” “Women,” “Zero Hour,” “I Want You Back,” and “Everyday Things” makes this disc an essential for fans. Alive’s packaging includes a six-panel insert with terrific period photos (including the stellar color cover shot). Now if only they could get 1981’s The Plimsouls back in print! [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Zero Hour
The Plimsouls’ MySpace Page
Hidden Love Medical Relief Fund for Peter Case (backstory here)

Here they are two years earlier:

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