Music Madness

Underrated Album v. 8-How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Truck Stop Love

Good Friday, 1995.  17 years ago, I attended the album release party of a Manhattan, Kansas band called Truck Stop Love.  They were releasing their first (and sadly only) full-length on Backyard Records.  How I Spent My Summer Vacation is that album.

TSL was, arguably, the most successful band to come out of Manhattan, not just in the 90's, but ever.  The 90's were the peak of Manhattan's local music scene.  Labels were scouring the states for the next this or that, bars in town were actually supporting live music, people actually showed up and creativity seemed to be at an apex.  There was a great confluence of bands in Manhattan at that time.  Between Puke Weasel/Spine, Roach Factory, Sufferbus, TSL, Ten Thumb and countless others, the "scene" kinda meant something.  Truck Stop Love got picked up by Scotti Brothers records, recorded an EP and then started in on the full-length that's the subject of this post.

With a Midwestern bar band sound that perfectly mixed influences of The Replacements, Urge Overkill, TSL running buddies God's Favorite Band, Big Star (this album was co-produced by Big Star drummer Jody Stephens) and many others, Truck Stop Love managed to coalesce all of that into an album that shines as the pinnacle representation of what it meant to be in this area, in the local music scene at the time. 

The album's cover art, a basic turntable book-ended with two well worn speakers, visually represented what awaited on the disc.  The lead track 'You Owe' is exactly what the title implies (if you read between the lines of the title).  It's an Urge Overkill-inspired blast that's over almost as soon as it starts.  The next song, 'Other Stars', shows how perfectly balanced this band was, in terms of utilizing their twin singer/guitarist threats, Matt Mozier (vocals on 'You Owe') and Rich Yarges (vocals 'Other Stars').  Mozier's voice was the gruff, Paul Westerberg-esque sound, capable of conveying both pleasure and pain, whereas Yarges owned the cleaner, more plaintive voice that reflected sorrowful heartache. 

I'm probably a bit biased but, all these years later, I still don't hear a clunker on the album.  'Walton's Mountain' adds a touch of banjo to the garage punk proceedings, the title track is one of the fastest, hardest rock songs you'll ever hear in the genre and 'Benny' is a quick strike tribute to the band's pals in God's Favorite Band.  'Bitter Boy' is the standout track, in my opinion.  I'll spare my words and just let you listen for yourself.

 

Also, listen to the slow build of 'Carolina's Eyes', to hear the best song Husker Du never wrote.

 

The band didn't hold together much longer after the release of this album, but the magic and inspiration they committed to this release stands as a document of a time when anything was possible.

Underrated Album v. 7-Electric Mud by Muddy Waters

So, let me get this straight.  There's an album out there by a blues legend featuring songs that Zeppelin credits as inspiring the riff for 'Black Dog', an album that Hendrix would listen to for inspiration and this same album has a gospel/soul cover of a Rolling Stones song ('Let's Spend The Night Together') and people flat out hate it?  Wow, I'm confused.

This album that I'm surprised about is Electric Mud by McKinley Morganfield, better known to the world as Muddy Waters (if I have to give you ANY background on Muddy, why are you reading a music blog?).  On paper, the pitch of this album makes total sense.  A generation extolling the virtues of blues music, the rise of psychedelic music and the fairly new melding of the two in the form of electric blues (Cream, Zeppelin, Mountain etc.).  However, this album has been heralded and panned, critically loved and crucified.  I happen to be in the camp that finds it misunderstood and innovative.  You take a master of the guitar and blues reasoning, stick him with a group of top flight Chicago Chess Records musicians, add a fuzz box and wah pedal and you have an entirely new form of interpreted blues.

Granted, in its context of the time, this album was received by a less sophisticated audience, not burdened by years of hindsight-this the same generation that booed Dylan for going electric, despite the fact that he already had at least one album out with electricity on it.  I get that it's more than all that but I don't care. 

Electric Mud has two Waters classics ('Mannish Boy' and 'She's Alright'), three from the legendary Willie Dixon, the aforementioned Stones tune, topped off with 'Tom Cat' and 'Herbert Harper's Free Press News', a song Jimi would listen to in order to draw motivation to continue his explorations.  Not much else needs to be said about this album, just listen.

 

As a post-script I will add that there is no truth to the rumor that Debbie Gibson's Electric Youth was a direct sequel to this album...simply an homage.

 

Underrated Album v. 6-Welcome to Sky Valley by Kyuss

As promised in a previous post, 1994's Welcome to Sky Valley is making its entry to the Underrated Album pantheon.  I post this album as a form of confession.  This record pulls a nice joke on the listener and my love of disrupting things gets fed by what Kyuss does here.  (As an aside, there is never any need to utter the phrase "spoiler alert" in my presence, I love spoilers and don't believe in protecting them)  What the band has done on this record is take 10 tracks and sequence them into 3 Movements, insuring that it's impossible to skip around to random tracks on your cd player/ipod.  Records like this are meant to be heard as a document and Kyuss presents it as such.

Movement I ends its 17 plus minute trek with 'Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop' and its false ending that would drive any dj crazy...oh wait, there aren't dj's anymore.  Movement II kicks off with the wah-wah intro to '100 (degrees)' and quickly gets down to business with a monster riff that eventually wraps up the cycle with the mellower 'Demon Cleaner', a song that pointed directly to Josh Homme's future in Queens of the Stone Age.  Movement III runs between the desert distortion the band practically invented, mellow tones found throughout the album and ending with the slightly proggy 'Whitewater'.  The last song, a stand-alone track called 'Lick Doo', is stupid but that's the point.  It ends the album on a refreshing note telling the listener not to take it so seriously, giving us all a moment to come down from the barrage of riffs, distortion and general haziness we've gone through.

Josh Homme, Brant Bjork, Scott Reeder and John Garcia had this one last go round before Alfredo Hernandez replaced Bjork on drums and that line-up efforted one more album in 1995, ...And The Circus Leaves Town, a self-aware title if I ever heard one.  All parties involved in the various incarnations of Kyuss have continued with their music explorations, some great (Homme and his Midas touch), some good (Brant Bjork and the Bros) and some not quite up to snuff (one-time bassist Nick Oliveri's Mondo Generator, not to mention felony charges that might land him 15 years in the grey-bar hotel).  Kyuss has done some reunion shows of late, without Homme's blessing or participation but with his cease and desist request.

 

Underrated Album v. 5-Sunrise On The Sufferbus by Masters of Reality

Speaking only personally, the '90's were a bit of a drag musically.  Obsessed with either cleaning up after the cocaine binge known as the '80's (and thus eliminating their creative motivation) or keeping up with the affectation of disaffection coming out of Seattle most bands forgot what it meant to just do what you do.  Enter Masters of Reality.

Now, I don't expect anyone to have any idea of who I'm talking about but this collective of musicians have been sporadically putting out albums of varying aptitude since their self-titled, Rick Rubin produced debut album in 1988.  Sunrise On The Sufferbus was the 1992 follow-up to that (also unappreciated) gem.  The master of Masters, Chris Goss, put himself, bassist Googe and drummer Ginger Baker-yes, the Ginger Baker who is the greatest drummer of all time-on to a 14 song disc that was, basically, unlike anything coming out at that time. 

The choice of Baker is probably not much of an accident, seeing how Goss has a higher register akin to Baker's former Cream nemesis Jack Bruce.  As such, this album has a bit of a desert-rock vibe shot through a prism of classic rock.  No mistake there either (on the desert-rock end), seeing as Chris Goss is long-time running buddies with Josh Homme of Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age/Them Crooked Vultures/Eagles of Death Metal.  There's a deep west coast feel to this album that wouldn't truly be heard in its pure form until Kyuss released the Chris Goss produced Welcome to Sky Valley (the next installment of Underrated Albums).  Plus, how can you go wrong when one of the tunes, 'T.U.S.A.', has Baker griping about how we here in the colonies have no idea how to make proper tea.

The video herein is the song ('She Got Me') that got the most play off the album (read:it was on twice on MTV) and does feature a quick glimpse of Jenny From The Block dancing it up in the best Fly Girl fashion imaginable (for Pete's sake, the 90's were garbage).  Enjoy.

 

Underrated Album v. 4-Guitar Romantic by The Exploding Hearts

Rock and Roll is rife with tragic stories of unrealized fullness of potential, from Eddie Cochran to Amy Winehouse.  One story that has been lost to the ages is that of a band from Portland, Oregon, The Exploding Hearts.

Coming together in 2001, the band quickly hit the West Coast radar with their mix of influences stemming from 70's New Wave, power pop and British punk.  By April of 2003, their debut album, Guitar Romantic, was ready to go and released.  Then came July 20, 2003.

On their way back from a gig in San Francisco, bassist Matt Fitzgerald fell asleep behind the wheel, losing control of the van.  Vocalist/guitarist Adam Cox and drummer Jeremy Gage were ejected from the vehicle and died at the scene.  They were 23 and 21, respectively.  Fitzgerald later died at the hospital, he was 20.  Guitarist Terry Six survived, but the band and its future did not.

What was left behind was one album of punk power pop that still stands up, nearly 10 years later.  I found this album in 2004 and was absolutely heartbroken to find that this band had come and gone, basically before it got started. I'll let the video speak for itself rather than trying to heap superlatives on something I feel is THE lost gem of the first decade of this century.

 

Underrated artist: Terry Reid

As a follow-up to Eric's post about the lovely Maggie Bell -- and to make another Led Zeppelin connection -- this week I've been spinning Superlungs by Terry Reid, one of the forgotten artists from the across the pond.

You can read his full story here, but the long-and-the-short of it is that Jimmy Page offered him the gig to be Led Zeppelin's lead vocalist, an offer which he turned down for a few different reasons. It was probably for the best; while Reid does have an impressive set of pipes, I have trouble placing it in the context of Zep's tunes.

There's a reason the four musicians in Led Zeppelin came together at the time they did. Reid made a few records and toured, built up a following, but then slowly faded into rock's history pages merely a footnote. Here are a few tracks for your listening pleasure.

 

 

 

Underrated Album v. 3-Queen of the Night by Maggie Bell

If I were to tell you there was a singer out there who was considered "the Scottish Janis Joplin", had an album produced by Jerry Wexler, got a record contract thanks to Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant and had the one and only Jimmy Page guest on one of her records, you'd think this singer was all-timer, right?  Well, I'm not stupid, I understand what country I live in and thus, hardly anyone has heard of or remembers Maggie Bell.

Maggie first hit the radar in the early 70's as lead singer of Stone The Crows but the band split suddenly after the on-stage electrocution of guitarist Les Harvey, brother of (The Sensational) Alex Harvey (oh wait, never heard of him either, eh America?).  After that grisly tragedy, Maggie struck out on her own and was able to secure a recording deal with Atlantic Records with the help of the aforementioned Peter Grant (presumably just beating an Atlantic flunkie senseless until a contract was offered), who brought Jerry Wexler on board to produce this Underrated Album installment, Queen of the Night. 

Maggie's well-ranging voice is put front and center on this gem, moving deftly between sounding Rod Stewart-esque in its rough hewn barroom growl to Bonnie Bramlett sweetness on 'Yesterday's Music' a tune co-written by David Clayton Thomas of Blood, Sweat and Tears.  Other covers include 'Souvenirs' by John Prine, 'A Woman Left Lonely' popularized by Janis herself and 'After Midnight' by JJ Cale (but better known by Eric Clapton's take), in which Maggie sounds like a soul queen driving a calypso beat.

A year after this record was released, Ms. Bell signed with Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label and released the equally incredible Suicide Sal.  From there she fronted a band called Midnight Flyer,  closer in step to her past with Stone The Crows in its bluesiness, their lone album not selling well at all.  Maggie is still out there at age 67, playing to crowds in Europe, teasing the possibility of an autobiography and leaving fools like me to lament the fact that she's toiling in obscurity.

 

 

Uriah Heep

File this one under "huh?"

I present to you Uriah Heep, one of the corniest and most beloved rock acts from the 1970s that nobody's ever heard of. Led Zeppelin [a band I love dearly] weren't the only ones singing about magic, wizards, kings, birds of prey and other mythical beings.

Check out those wicked screams and harmonies. I think the masterminds behind Spinal Tap had bands like these in mind when they made their 1984 flick.

 

 

Underrated Album v. 2-Them Changes by Buddy Miles

Back again with another album that has been lost in the shuffle.  Recently added to the Matthews Archive is Them Changes by Buddy Miles.

A little background on Buddy Miles, after playing with folks such as the Delfonics and Wicked Wilson Pickett, Buddy founded The Electric Flag with guitarist Mike Bloomfield (another forgotten hero in the history of rock, a clean, loud guitar in an era slightly obsessed with fuzzy tones) then later being tapped by some dude named James Hendrix to play in his post-Experience venture, Band of Gypsys.  Any guy that Jimi wanted to play with, I'm all ears.

Released in 1970, Them Changes was the third album in a largely unheralded career of one of the best drummers that no one ever heard of, lost in a sea of Moon's and Bonham's.  The record was recorded shortly after Buddy was unceremoniously dumped from Band of Gypsys (not at Jimi's doing) and shortly before Hendrix 'scused himself to kiss the sky and laid a foundation of funk, soul, blues and jazz.  The title track is a stand-out and the attached video is my favorite song on the album.  The Neil Young cover ('Down By The River') leaves just a little to be desired, but Buddy's singing on the Allman Brothers classic 'Dreams' is top-notch.  Produced in part by music legend Steve Cropper, various guitar work from Jim McCarty (from another unacknowledged early '70's outfit, Cactus and also The Detroit Wheels), bass work from fellow Band of Gypsys member Billy Cox and brass from The Memphis Horns, Them Changes has a great overall groove and can stand shoulder to shoulder with anything that Stax Records was releasing at the time.

 

My favorite covers of Beatles songs

All of this Beatles talk has inspired me to come up with a list of my favorite five Beatles’ covers of all time. The compilation of this list took hundreds of hours, blood, sweat, and tears to create and I know that you will all quickly purchase these songs to add to your collection.  

In no particular order, my five  favorite Beatles’ covers:

Blackbird by Crosby, Stills, and Young 

I didn’t know this was a Beatle song for many a year. It’s slower and a bit more romantic than the original. I know the song is about race and the 1960s, but I didn’t realize that when I heard the song for the first time as a teenager. 

I am the Walrus by Bono

This cover comes from the Beatles’ movie musical Across the Universe. I love musicals but found the movie to be underwhelming. While I didn’t enjoy the film, it was worth watching for this song alone. I would love any song Bono sang if he was wearing a cowboy hat. I’m weird that way. Goo goo g'joob g'goo goo g'joob.

Come together by Michael Jackson

There are a million covers of this song, but this one is my favorite. If you remember the days when MTV played music, Michael Jackson always had great mini-movies music videos. His mini-movie Moonwalker started with Man in the Mirror and ended with Come Together. If you look closely you should see glimpses of Danny Devito, the villain of the movie in the video. 

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by Jimi Hendrix

I really like the original Sgt. Pepper’s song. It reminds me of the music my 4^th grade music teacher would have us sing to after our school bought its first cd player. The lyrics are fun and catchy and not inappropriate for elementary school age kids to sing.

Jimi’s version very doesn’t feel fun and catchy, but anyone who says they listen to him for the lyrics has him confused with someone else. Hendrix is known for his kick ass soulful guitar and he totally brings that all to this song.  I know listening to this will make you lean back, close your eyes,  and reach for that secrete bottle of somethin somethin you keep in your desk drawer. Please restrain yourself if you are reading this at work. 

We can work it out by Xena Warrior Princess 

Xena Warrior Princess, one of the best campy dramedies of the late 90s, did a fun cover of “We can work it out” on their second musical episode of the series. The song was great but I couldn’t find it on YouTube. Instead please enjoy this, this, or this clip from the musical episode (YouTube won't let me embed them). If you close your eyes and put in Beatle lyrics is almost the same. These clips alone should inspire you to rent the whole series and watch it from beginning to end.