Tag Archives: Alive

Nathaniel Mayer: Why Won’t You Let Me Be Black?

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NathanielMayer_WhyWontYouLetMeBeBlackLatter-day recordings from early ‘60s soul legend

Nathaniel Mayer is best known among early soul fanatics for his 1962 hit “Village of Love,” a few other early ‘60s sides and the cult status he developed during a nearly forty-year absence from the music scene. He resurfaced briefly in 1980 with the single “Raise the Curtain High,” but it wasn’t until Norton Records issued the vault side “I Don’t Want No Bald-Headed Woman Telling Me What to Do” in 2002 that he was prompted to return in full for 2004’s I Just Want to Be Held. With the soaring soul voice of his early records reduced to a bluesy rasp, Mayer’s showmanship and feel for music remained fully intact. Whether his latter-day voice is burnished or shot is in the ear of the listener, but the way he strutted through up-tempo numbers and drew out ballads recalled the artistry of his younger years.

In 2007 Mayer released Why Don’t You Give It To Me?, backed by a collection of players from the Black Keys, Outrageous Cherry, SSM, and Dirtbombs. The heavy blues arrangements paired nicely with the edginess of Mayer’s voice, providing bottom end and pushing him to sing hard. This posthumous release (Mayer passed away in 2008) adds eight more tracks from those same sessions, expanding upon the weathered crooning, pained blues, and neo-psychedelic soul. The album also includes two acoustic performances from a 2007 radio interview on which Mayer’s vocals are completely revealed; the simple guitar backings leave the wear and tear to speak volumes. It’s hard to draw a line between the voice on “Village of Love” and these latter day recordings, but the artistry and soul are easily identifiable. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Dreams Come True
Nathaniel Mayer’s MySpace Page

Brian Olive: Brian Olive

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BrianOlive_BrianOliveTuneful mix of rock, glam, psych, soul, jazz and exotica

Brian Olive (as Oliver Henry) explored British Invasion and American garage rock as a member of the Cincinnati-based Greenhornes and Detroit-based Soledad Brothers, playing sax, flute, guitar, piano and organ, as well as singing and writing songs. On his solo debut he expands beyond the gritty hard-rock and reworked blues of Blind Faith and mid-period Stones to include healthy doses of psych, glam, and most surprisingly, soul and exotica. Influences of the New York Dolls, T. Rex and Meddle-era Pink Floyd are easy to spot, but they’re mixed with touches of Stax-style punch, South American rhythms, breezy jet-set vocals and jazz saxophones. It’s intoxicating to hear droning saxophones transform from big band to glammy psychedelia on “High Low,” and the acoustic guitar and drowsy vocals of “Echoing Light” bring to mind the continental air of Pink Floyd’s “St. Tropez.”

This is a rock album steeped in the heavy sounds of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, mixed with the sort of experimental pairings Bill Graham pioneered on bills at the Fillmore. But rather than segueing the jazz, blues, soul and international influences across an evening, Olive invents ways to weave them together within a song, repurposing non-rock sounds in support of guitar, bass and drums. Olive’s voice stretches over his words, ranging from introspective and spent to emotionally propulsive, but the lyrics are difficult to understand, so it’s anyone’s guess what he’s actually singing about. Still, even without a simple storyline or easy sing-a-long, this is musically rich. Perhaps a lyric sheet could accompany the next album? [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | There is Love
Brian Olive’s MySpace Page

Trainwreck Riders: The Perch

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trainwreckriders_theperchCowpunk revival: punk rock meets country waltz

This San Francisco trio travels the same circles as lo-fi minimalists Two Gallants, but the Riders country leanings take them closer to 1980s bands like Blood on the Saddle, Rank and File, the Meat Puppets, and Replacements. The album opens with thrashing rhythm guitar and drums, but by track two the throbbing bass is accompanied by melodically picked hooks. By track three the vocals take on a country twang, and on track four there’s lap steel. The band-written songs are filled with heartbreaks that won’t let go, frustrated misunderstandings, and late-night drunks, and the music is rendered as strung-out ballads, cowpunk waltzes and amped-up two-steps. Most of the songs stare into unfading memories of past emotional train wrecks, and even when there’s an inkling of change, such as the wished-for dissolution of “Livin’ Daylight,” it’s viewed with trepidation. The band retains their guitar, bass and drums punk-rock urgency even as guests add dobro, fiddle and accordion, and the high edginess of Pete Frauenfelder’s vocals makes the lamentation all the more powerful. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Safety of a Back
Trainwreck Riders’ MySpace Page

Radio Moscow: Brain Cycles

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radiomoscow_braincyclesBrain melting heavy blues-psych guitar rock

Iowan Parker Griggs returns with Radio Moscow’s second album of power-trio electric blues. The trio here is one of instruments rather than players, since Griggs accompanies his bluesy psychedelic guitar leads by pounding out flamboyant, full-kit drumming. He’s surprisingly accomplished at both, and with bassist Zach Anderson (replacing the debut album’s Luke Duff) and the magic of overdubbing, the duo brings to mind the heavy sounds of Hendrix, Cream, Blue Cheer, Jeff Beck, Montrose and other pre-metal hard rockers. If anything, Radio Moscow’s gotten heavier, riffier in its tuneage and flashier with its rhythms. Though he was no slouch on the group’s previous album, Griggs’ sounds like he’s been practicing his drumming.

Radio Moscow is a heavy-jam powerhouse, with many of the tracks clocking in at 4- and 5-minutes, and the studio-effect heavy “No Good Woman” stretching to over eight, including a (flashback alert!) minute-thirty drum solo. Griggs serves as the band’s vocalist, singing through processing that sounds like a Mellotron, but the lyrics mostly serve to keep the guitar solos from running over one another. It’s best to approach the band as an instrumental combo, with the scattered vocals as texture. The singer who could actually front this torrent of sound (rather than stand by and occasionally lob lyrics into the quieter parts) would just end up distracting from the group’s tight, gutsy interplay of guitar, bass and drums.

The tight, heavy riffs bring to mind early UK prog-rock and metal bands like King Crimson, Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come and Black Sabbath, but generally without the lengthy excursions into jazz-styled jamming. Available on both CD and vinyl (but sadly not reel-to-reel tape), this should really be heard at maximum volume through classic 1970s speakers such as Altec Voice of the Theater A7s and a suitable cloud of smoke. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Broke Down
Radio Moscow’s Home Page
Radio Moscow’s MySpace Page

Henry’s Funeral Shoe: Everything’s For Sale

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henrysfuneralshoe_everythingsforsaleHeavy two-man guitar-and-drums blues-rock

The minimalist blues formula brought back to popular prominence by the White Stripes, has been equally effective for guitar-and-drums duos like the Black Keys, Two Gallants and Soledad Brothers, and bass-free groups like Black Diamond Heavies and Radio Moscow. The Welsh duo Henry’s Funeral Shoe, featuring Aled Clifford on electric guitar and vocals and his younger brother Brennig on drums, debut with heavy blues-rock originals that drift briefly into psychedelic jamming. Aled’s twanging low strings and Brennig’s heavy kick drum and tom-toms fill up the rhythmic and tonal space made by the lack of a bass player. There are shades of Peter Green in the guitar playing, and the sparse vocals have the rough-and-ready force of guttural blues shouters such as the proto-rock ‘n’ roller Big Joe Turner, the edgy electric bluesmen Johnny Winter, early metal howlers like Paranoid-era Ozzy Osbourne, and growling alley dwellers like Tom Waits. The elder Clifford writes lyrics populated with phrases rather than stories or characters, matching the duo’s instrumental style by adding verbal catch-lines to the riff-heavy music. These tunes are sure to be even more arresting when assaulting sweaty bodies on a darkened, beer-soaked dance floor. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Henry’s Funeral Shoe
Henry’s Funeral Shoe’s MySpace Page

The Nerves: One Way Ticket

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thenerves_onewayticketThe headwaters of mid-70s power pop

The Nerves – Peter Case, Paul Collins and Jack Lee – issued only one 4-song EP during their three year tenure, but that 1976 7” flew brilliantly in the face of then-dominant arena rock as well as the back-to-basics punk paradigm trailing in the Ramones’ wake. The Nerves mixed the pop melodics of the Beatles, Big Star, Raspberries and Rubinoos with the emerging DIY aesthetic to create music that had garage-rock intensity layered with the craft of AM-radio hooks. The EP served as a template for all three members’ subsequent solo careers, and drew a rock ‘n’ roll path that paralleled New Wave pop without surrendering to its badly aging musical affectations.

The EP was self-financed and thinly distributed, making it a collector’s item even at the time of its mid-70s issue. Two of its tracks, Lee’s “Hanging on the Telephone” and Case’s “When You Find Out” turned up on Rhino’s D.I.Y: Come Out and Play – American Power Pop I (1975-1978), and the previously unreleased “One Way Ticket” was included in the box set Children of Nuggets in 2005. The entire 4-song EP, along with the Plimsoul’s Zero Hour, and Jack Lee’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 turned up on the 1992 grey-market French CD That’s Totally Pop, but as Peter Case explains in this set’s liner notes, this is the Nerve’s first official full-length release. Included are the original four songs, two by Jack Lee, one by Case and one by Collins, augmented by a pair of tracks (Peter Case’s “One Way Ticket” and Jack Lee’s “Paper Dolls”) that were meant to be the EP’s follow-up on Greg Shaw’s Bomp label.

Paul Collins’ “Walking Out on Love,” which he later re-recorded with The Beat, is heard here in a frantic post-Nerves/pre-Beat version by Collins, Case and a pick-up guitarist. Case’s “Thing of the Past,” written for the Nerves, is performed live by an early version of the Plimsouls, and Jack Lee’s immediate post-Nerves sound is documented with the rockabilly-punk “It’s Hot Outside.” A rough demo of the Case-Collins “Many Roads to Follow” is sung to strummed acoustic guitars, combining the power of the British Invasion and Everly-styled harmonies. Demos of the group’s live staples “Are You Famous?” and “Letter to G.” show Jack Lee also had no shortage of fine material.

Also included are eight tracks recorded live on the group’s 1977 cross-country tour. The sound is listenable bootleg quality, which is better for getting a sense of the Nerves’ energy than a truly satisfying listening experience. No matter, the original EP is worth the CD’s full price, and the post-EP and post-Nerves tracks are great bonuses. Case moved on to form the Plimsouls, recording the brilliant debut Zero Hour and two immediate follow-up LPs; Collins formed The Beat, carrying on the Nerves pop-rock sound with the group’s eponymous debut; Lee unexpectedly found commercial success when Blondie covered the Nerves’ “Hanging on the Telephone,” and subsequently released a pair of albums in the 1980s. But it all started here – and all lovers of power pop should snap this up while it’s available! [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Listen to “When You Find Out”
The Nerves’ MySpace Page