Thursday, October 31, 2024

The Bad Day - Live And Loud

I haven’t got round to seeing The Bad Day play live yet, which I reckon is a pity because their three studio albums to date suggest they have the kind of rock’n’roll energy that’s all about live performance.  And that energy is indeed present on Live And Loud.
Opening track ‘Forget’ is a good example, a slow thudding beat forming the backdrop for an intro of squawking harp from Sam Spranger, who then competes with guitarist Nick Peck to scatter licks around.  There’s good dynamics as bassist Adam Rigg croons away Elvis-like (well, a bit), before they dial up a rolling, revolving riff to drive things along, and Peck and Spranger add stinging guitar and scurrying harp solos.
Later on there’s more heft, appropriately enough, in the form of ‘Fatman’, as Peck opens with
The Bad Day - having a nice day, by the looks of it
some surging slide, before switching to Morse Code-like picking to fit with Rigg’s staccato vocal.  Peck’s skating slide solo gives things another lift, and then Rigg cools things off with a bass break, which also lays down the backing for the next verse.  But the following ‘Jump’ is one of my favourite moments, as Peck knocks out a Hooker-like classic blues riff, which then explodes into a harp-blasting accompaniment to Rigg’s shakin’ all over vocal.  Peck pounds away at the riff, which shape-shifts and grows arms and legs as Spranger wails away.  It’s peak rock’n’rollin’, packed into a lean and muscular three and a half minutes.
There’s an 11-splurge on ‘The Bad Day Pt 1’, comprising four “segments” from the “concept album” that was The Bad Day itself, their eponymous second outing.  Of these ‘Wake Up Carolina’ continues to seem catchy but under-seasoned to me.  ‘Queen Of The Dirty Mind’ is rough, ready, and harp-tastic, with a peak moment as Peck fires in a riff that’s distinctly redolent of Sweet’s ‘Blockbuster’.  But the best section is ‘Devil’s Lullaby’, a heartland rock meets punk rabblerouser that comes over like the Gaslight Anthem.  It’s a cracking tune – no wonder, as it owes a lot to the Boss – and they shift their attack nicely on the bridge, with drummer German Moura switching up the rhythm.
They do break one of Cameron’s Rules For Live Albums though, by including more than one take of some songs.  But I’ll give them a pass since this is (largely) down to the inclusion of three stripped back renditions recorded at a “Backlit Acoustic Session”.  And the unplugged treatment of ‘Devil’s Lullaby’ is certainly worth it, slowed down and giving the plaintive melody more room to breathe, and showing off neat lines such as “You’re the note that I can’t reach / You’re a classic four on the floor”.  ‘Wake Up Carolina’ still feels like it would suit some other band better, and while ‘When The Cage Comes Down’ has a tense, edgy undercurrent the acoustic treatment doesn’t convey it to the max, though the quasi-Celtic feel of the riff is still appealing.
‘Wandering Man’ finds them back in prime rocking mode though, with a bouncy vibe and a great big ringing riff that’s the centre of attention for the first verse, leading to a big hook of a chorus.
Another medley occupies the penultimate spot on the album, opening with the loping ‘Welcome To The Show’.  It’s the only selection from their third album The Irish Goodbye, replete with oh-woah-oh-ing backing vocals on the chorus, wah-wah licks and punchy chords from Peck, and flurries of swirling harp from Spranger.  Another take on ‘When The Cage Comes Down’ shows off its prickly, itchy, backscratching riff and some rat-a-tat drums to go with Spranger’s slithering harmonica.  And there’s a third – third, ffs! - version of ‘Half Now, Half Later’, with its dreamy opening guitar motif presaging the aching vocal, patiently building to the big verse with its ever-so ‘Baba O’Riley’ three chord riff.
They close with the title track from their debut album Table By The Wall (released as The Bad Day Blues Band), Spranger’s spiky harp to the fore over bristling guitar and drums, until the energy spills over in an almighty rave-up of stabbing guitar, clattering drums and howling harp.
Live And Loud is a warts and all live album, a good document of the feverish vitality The Bad Day can whip up – and hopefully a good trailer for eventually experiencing their live show for real.
 
Live And Loud
 is out on 1 November, and can be pre-saved here.

Monday, October 28, 2024

Steve Hill - Hanging On A String

Steve Hill’s last album, 2022’s Dear Illusion, was an upbeat affair on which his usual one-man band sound was frequently augmented by horns on a bunch of songs dead set on brightening up your day.  Hanging On A String, it’s fair to say, is not a similarly sunny sequel to that album – and perhaps no wonder when his life in between included waking up in the middle of a house fire, and surviving a couple of serious road accidents.
That house fire experience is referenced in the first line of the title track, in the midst of a storm of serrated edge guitar and stomping kick drum.  You might say there’s a whiff of ZZ Top boogie about the riffing, except Hill isn't aiming for the Texas trio’s easy vibe.  Instead you get a screeching
Steve Hill prepares to bring the walls tumbling down
Pic by Jean Sebastien Desilets
guitar solo, and Hill musters some extra angst on the way to a scrabbling conclusion.  It’s a first salvo of the agitation and anxiety that pervades much of the album.
‘Devil’s Handyman’ is a dark and menacing grind, with Hill’s voice echoing like he’s in a cavern of night as he serves up the viewpoint of the title character – a dealer taking advantage of people’s vulnerability, with a very fitting danse macabreof off kilter guitar.
Later, ‘World Gone Insane’ stirs up more darkness, opening with a slow and haunted guitar motif before letting rip on a nightmare voyage of paranoia about the modern world, driven by a Sabbath-like fast-churning riff coated in fuzz and feedback.  Hill pounds away for nearly 7 minutes until a final scraping drone of guitar spirals down the proverbial plughole, and to be honest I reckon the radio edit does the job rather more crisply.
The issue of Artificial Intelligence rears its ugly head on ‘You Know Who’, a mid-paced outing whose melody carries a Bowie-like sense of alienation – though Hill’s delivery is growling rather than fey.  But ‘Turned To Dust’ is a rather better tune, lamenting a past that’s gone and can’t be recaptured, accompanied by an intriguing, slurring guitar line.
Hill brings these themes to a conclusion with a cover of The Doors’ ‘When The Music’s Over’, which comes with a spooky intro of snaking lead guitar and half-buried spoken conversation before settling into it’s ponderous groove.  It’s a clear fit in terms of the dark vibe that’s threaded through the album, but its brooding through-a-glass-darkly progress doesn’t do much for me, at least until Hill whips up a bit of a storm in its second half.
It's not all doom and gloom mind you.  ‘Show Ya’ is an elemental, breathless declaration of the determination that has enabled him to make music his career.  It’s basic rock’n’roll with an almost punkish energy, and gives the album a welcome shot of adrenaline.  ‘Maggie’, meanwhile, is a celebration of its eponymous heroine, with an Angus Young-like teasing bluesy intro that gives way to a good time boogie as Hill recounts Maggie’s qualities – with a few dubious notions along the way, until the final line delivers the pay-off.
There’s a bonus track too, in ‘Just Have To Ask’.  It’s a mid-tempo refection on the need for a helping hand – which is, in fact, at hand if one could only ask.  There’s a suitably uplifting tune lurking in there too, if it could only escape the rather too measured backing.
Steve Hill continues to confound with the sound his one-man set-up produces.  But a couple of tracks here are overlong, and the saw-toothed guitar tone that dominates much of the album becomes a bit wearing.  A wistful or romantic acoustic song such as he’s produced in the past would have helped to balance the atmosphere.  But I bet he’ll be back in a couple of years to ‘Show Ya’ again.
 
Hanging On A String is out on 1 November, and can be ordered here or pre-saved for digital here.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Quickies - Jack White, Takeaway Thieves, and Snowblind

Today's round-up brings together three different versions of rock'n'roll, from the famed Jack White to up'n'comers Takeaway Thieves and Ireland's "progressive metallers" Snowblind.

Jack White – No Name
 
I can’t say I’m a devoted Jack White fan.  Yeah, I’ve got some albums by The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather, and I admire his determination to do the unexpected and generally fuck things up to keep his audience on their toes.  But he also seems too bleedin’ clever by half at times, and his tendencies towards squawking, whiny vocals and clatter’n’bash percussion can become grating.
But still, I like this – a lot in fact.  It took me a while to get round to buying No Name, and to give it a proper listen, but it was worth it.
Take something like ‘Bless Yourself’, fr’instance, which marries a lead-heavy, jabbing, thudding
Shape-shifting chameleon Jack White
riff to a very Whitean herky-jerky rhythm and a more or less rapped vocal, packing plenty into three minutes. Deciphering White’s lyrics amid the maelstrom isn’t always easy, but he’s no cliché merchant, as this confrontational ‘sermon’ suggests with lines like “If god’s too busy then I’ll bless myself”.  And a little later he’s returning to religious imagery with ‘Archibishop Harold Holmes’, a preaching, testifying monologue by the eponymous pontiff - "Just like Joshua and the fabled walls of Jericho, I'm here to tear down the institution" - on which a churning ‘Immigrant Song’-like riff rides a rap undercurrent, supplemented by a wiry, Sixties-sounding staircase of a guitar theme.
White is the kinda guy with an encyclopaedic musical memory, and on No Name there are lots of can’t-quite-put-your-finger on it glimmerings of old songs and artists.  Are these inadvertent, or is he teasing us, like a fly fisherman casting for trout?  Cop an earful of ‘Terminal Archenemy Endling’ for example, on which spooky guitar notes lead to a melody that nods heavily towards Zeppelin’s ‘That’s The Way’, but brooding rather than sweet and pastoral.  Oh yeah, and the subsequent surging guitar riff sounds pretty Zep-like too.
Whatever, White has bashed out some cracking tunes here. ‘That’s How I’m Feeling’ flips from verses with a darkly post-punk feel to a chorus like a demolition ball, to an intriguing electronica-like guitar break.  ‘Tonight (Was A Long Time Ago)’ is bright and catchy with its stop-start riff of jaggedly resounding chords.  On ‘Underground’ he mashes up Resonator-slide Delta-style blues with perky pop reminiscent of – what, Mungo Jerry maybe?  Okay, maybe not.  But ‘Morning At Midnight’ is a great garage-rock outing, with its jabbing, stabbing riff, quiet/loud dynamics, catchy hook, and scratchy, sparky bridge – as Jack himself proclaims, “Oh yeah!”.  These are my highlights, but you may find your own among the 13 tracks, all delivered with energy and conviction.
Jack White is a chameleon, a shape-shifter, and a moving target.  But No Name, an album he chucked out with barely a whisper of PR, sounds like the work of a guy who woke up one morning from a fever dream of rock’n’roll, hit the studio, and tried to get it all down before it escaped.
 
No Name
 is out now on Third Man Records.
 
 
Takeaway Thieves – Diamond Point
 
I bought Diamond Point after tripping over the opening track (and single) ‘Kickin’ My Heart Around’ on YouToob, a belter of a glam-rock infused tune if ever I heard one.  It’s a raucous affair with a ringing riff, rasping vocals from Peter McLoughlin, a stonking chorus teeming with gang vocals on the title line, and a neat guitar solo from Ben Gibson that may not be especially original but fits the bill perfectly.
Takeaway Thieves get noisy and sweaty
Pic by Cyclops Gig Photos
The Thieves aren’t wedded to this glam’n’garage rock vibe across the whole of Diamond Point, but they do give it another shot with the rattling rock’n’roll of ‘True Story’, which comes with a glorious turbocharged riff, a cracker of a melody and hook, and more of those all-hands-on-deck backing vocals, plus spot on spasms of piercing, trilling lead guitar.  The following ‘Gotta Get Back’ isn’t in exactly the same space but still rocks like a bastard, kicking off with a snapping snare drum and bouncing riff, to go with McLoughlin’s in-yer-face vocals, enthusiastic grunts of “Yeah – ugh!” on the side, and good dynamics in the bridge.
‘What Do You Want’ is Def Leppard-style anthemic, sorta, with rock steady bass’n’drums from Adam Hall and Max Yates, electro-static riffs to stick your hair on end, and another tasteful bridge.  They show a subtler touch with vocal harmonies here, and there are some smart guitar harmonies too, from Gibson and his guitar buddy Neil Hunter, adding up to three minutes and 11 seconds of sharp and snazzy melodic hard rock.
Elsewhere, straight up hard rock is pretty much their go-to place, and if it doesn’t quite have the same joie de vivre, they still make a decent fist of it.  ‘I’ll Be Waiting For You’ has a pummelling riff, and rat-a-tat vocals from McLoughlin.  ‘Crazy Horse’ is crunching stuff, with a jagged, slaloming riff, racing bass and whomping drums, and wailing vocals from McLoughlin, to which Gibson adds a zinging guitar break.  ‘Sundance’ is built on a staccato riff and some supple bass from Hall, and the chorus brings a bit of a glam-edged spark culminating in some Slade-worthy crashing chords. They cool things off nicely on the bridge too, with some distorted vocals, before another mint-fresh, noodle-free solo from Gibson.
‘Gypsy’ is grinding and gutsy, but perhaps more predictable, though with the odd feisty line like “I’ve stained the carpets everywhere I’ve been”.  They also have a bash at slowing things down with ‘Find My Way Home’, which gets more interesting as they rev it up a bit, and the more ambitious closer ‘Suicide 66’, with its pseudo-Arabic epic moments, though it doesn’t really feel like their sweet spot.
Takeaway Thieves probably won’t be the next big thing, but I reckon they’d be just the job for a noisy, sweaty rock’n’roll gig.  Good luck to ‘em.
 
Diamond Point is out now on Coffee’N’Mint Records, and can be ordered here.
 
 
Snowblind – Shapes In The Trees EP
 
Safe to say this 5 track EP by Irish trio Snowblind ain’t yer typical Blues Enthused review fare.  But I’m covering it because it’s such a headscratcher.  There are some things I really like on Shapes In The Trees, and some things I really don’t – often in the same song.
Partly this is a generational thing.  See, I was a heavy metal kid back in the mists of time, but never got into speed metal, thrash metal, doom metal or anything else that’s long on stürm und drang and short on wit.  Whereas Snowblind are young enough to be very much au fait with the shouty, thud and blunder oeuvre of the likes of, say, Mastodon.  But here’s the thing – Snowblind still come up with elements that appeal to an old git like me.
So let’s consider the eight minute plus opener ‘Shapes In The Trees’.  It kicks off with twisting, spinning guitar lines from Sean Boland, interleaved with bobbing and weaving bass from Ian Mckeon and drumming from Jake McCarthy that’s thunderous to be sure, but also imaginative.
Snowblind - lumberjacks in their spare time, and they're okay
Before long though Mckeon, who I gather undertakes most of the vocal duties, is bawling, snarling and yelping in the throatiest of fashions, and they’re resorting to some pneumatic drill riffing that makes my shoulders sag.  Then after a brief quiet section and some hammer-on-anvil chords Boland embarks on an earcatching, slithering solo admirably and flexibly backed up by the rhythm boys, an approach they laterreprise (after a bit more caterwauling) to create some dazzling patterns.  And right at the end Mckeon – I assume it’s still him – reveals that he can in, in fact, damn well sing.  In these moments of imagination I get the feeling these boys have spent a lot of time listening intently to Rush, for which I applaud them heartily.
And so it goes on.  I don’t go a bundle on the stalking vibe that opens ‘Barrow-wight’, and though the backing gets interestingly spiky as they pick up the pace, Mckeon is back in sinew-straining vocal mode – until suddenly gliding into a swoopingly melodic passage.  Boland drops in an elegant courtly guitar break that could have come from Jethro Tull or Wishbone Ash.  Then after a bit of unnecessary pounding they produce an impressively strident, discordant segment, topped off with soaring, tuneful vocals.
The shortest song here, ‘Primal Spy’, features scurrying, prickly guitar and rapid fire drums, producing a taut and urgent vibe accompanying another bout of quality vocals, and a genuinely hooky chorus.  Eventually it evolves into a different animal, finding deeper, more more gears while McCarthy hammers along like his life depends on it, until they round it off neatly.
Closing track ‘Go Forth’ saddles up with some agonised vocals and a strained melody, before they break out into a headlong rush of a riff, Mckeon more or less chanting along with it in some kind of Hades-bound mantra.  But then they dive into another excellent bridge, well-paced and melodic, with Boland making good use of chorus-type effects, for a breather before another breathless riff over which Boland lays out more excellent guitar work, with crackling tension between his lead lines and the urgent riffing.  Intricate, jack-knifing stuff likes this reminds me of Diamond Head, those head-spinning riff meisters of yore.  Which is nice.
Of course, I’m not really the audience for Snowblind.  But this once-upon-a-time wearer of a badge-adorned denim jacket says they should dial up McCarthy and Mckeon’s capacity for heavy but sinuous rhythm work as the backdrop for Boland’s spiralling, dynamic guitar work, and stick to gen-yoo-wine singing.  That way lies a seriously potent force.  Honest injun.
 
Shapes In The Trees
 is out now and can be ordered here.

Saturday, October 19, 2024

MC5 - Heavy Lifting

You gotta laugh at the fact Heavy Lifting is tagged as ‘Explicit’.  That advice seems superfluous, when MC5’s most famous moment was arguably when singer Rob Tyner bawled “Kick Out The Jams, motherfuckers!” on their 1969 live album.  Whaddya expect – a cocktail party?
Of course, the MC5 that recorded Heavy Lifting was very different from the 1969 line-up, the original members reduced to just guitarist Wayne Kramer and (on a couple of tracks) drummer Dennis Thompson.  And sadly both of them died earlier this year before the album was released, as did manager, guru and rebel John Sinclair.  So a good deal of the heavy lifting in the making of this recorded involved big-hitting guest musos like Tom Morello, Slash, Don Was (who supplied much of the bass playing) and many more, under the supervision of producer Bob Ezrin.
Wayne Kramer flies the flag for MC5
But the spirit of the original Motor City demons is alive and well when ‘Heavy Lifting’ itself limbers up with a helter-skeltering riff and ooh-ing harmonies, before erupting out of the starting gate with a crunching riff reinforced by trampolining bass.  The vocal – I’m guessing courtesy of Brad Brooks, Kramer’s co-writer across most of the 13 tracks – is an aggressive, near-ranting rap, and the guitar break is a skewering thrust.  They follow that up with ‘Barbarians At The Gate’, a hot-rails-to-hell tirade directed at the Trump-obsessed January 6 riots.  It’s all clattering drums, high octane guitars and throaty hollering, with a fierce chorus boosted by a neck-snapping ‘Problem Child’-like riff, and concludes with a Catherine Wheel showdown of sparks-flying guitar and harp.
There’s more of this kinda thing further down the line, with the (un)steady as she goes lurching groove of  ‘Black Boots’.  But Kramer and co also dig some different grooves along the way to avoid getting in a rut. ‘Change, No Change’ marries booming, blooping bass to falsetto-ish vocals, with jagged guitar/drums lightning strikes, in an off kilter slow funk groove that could be the work of Beck – and I don’t mean Jeff.  As if to show that’s no fluke, ‘I Am The Fun (Phoney)’ is another deep, behind-the-beat groove, replete with squeaking, blinking, bleeping guitar intrusions, and a chorus that puts me in mind of Parliament’s ‘Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)’.  Hell, they even take Edwin Starr’s ‘Twenty-Five Miles’ Motown hit and rock it up with heavy duty guitars welded to its chunky, funky undercurrent.
There are more echoes of Beck on the loping ‘Blessed Release’, with its edgy, semi-slurring vocals and gritty undercurrent of stuttering guitar over a steady beat and bursts of shaker, and the closing ‘Hit It Hard’ edges closer to the realm of Prince with its loose-limbed guitar, bass’n’drums bump’n’grind, enhanced by horns and squawking female backing vocals, all coming together in a chant-along chorus and pulling in an elasticated bass break and searing sax from Joe Berry en route to the closing line of “When it comes to love baby, we’re all equal here”.
But there’s also a run of tracks that seem less intense, starting with the strutting ‘Because Of Your Car’, which edges towards the twisted-relationship territory of Alice Cooper, but with keening, double-tracked vocals and infected with a slinky Isaac Hayes soul groove.  Then ‘Boys Who Play With Matches’, ‘Blind Eye’ and ‘Can’t Be Found’ – the latter pair featuring Thompson on drums - seem like throwbacks to the garage rock origins of the original MC5.  If these power-popping tunes came from a different artist I dare say I’d like ‘em big time, but here the rough edges have been sanded down just a bit too much to fit – though ‘Can’t Be Found’, with its turbo-charged chorus and guitar solo, eventually ramps up the desired energy.
But I reckon the last word has to go to ‘The Edge Of The Switchblade’. This fist-pumping tribute to the 5’s heyday blasts in with a yelled ‘Alright!’ and whips up a storm of hard-rocking rambunction.  It’s an irresistible, guitar-squalling (Slash takes a bow here), hey-hey-hey-ing call to arms, proclaiming that “On the cutting edge you might get cut, that’s the chance you have to take”.
Wayne Kramer and his buddies were right on the cutting edge back in the day, and did indeed get cut.  It’s debatable whether Heavy Lifting is really and truly an MC5 album, when band members Rob Tyner, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith and bassist Michael Davis are long gone.  But I tell you what, it’s a pretty shit hot homage to the band’s memory.

Heavy Lifting
 is out now on earMUSIC.

Monday, October 14, 2024

Tab Benoit - I Hear Thunder

Tab Benoit has been around a while – he released his first album in 1993.  He’s also a winner of multiple Blues Music Awards.  But I Hear Thunder is his first new solo release since 2011’s Medicine, an album I thoroughly enjoyed when I picked up on it a few years later.  Still, it may have been a damn long time between drinks, as the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina, but Benoit pours a good measure.
People talk about artists being a ‘triple threat’, and Tab Benoit definitely deserves the tag.  He’s a characterful singer, a great guitar player, and writes strong songs with thoughtful lyrics, as this album demonstrates with ease and charm.
Tab Benoit, spotlight kid
Pic by John Frank Photography
‘I Hear Thunder’ itself gets things moving in a brooding fashion suggestive of an approaching storm, combining a riff that sounds like a slowed down second cousin of ‘Stormbringer’ with a groaning vocal that carries a hint of anxiety.  There’s imaginative, patient soloing too, and a daring drop in even more restrained mode to add to the tension.  And having laid down that solid marker, Benoit proceeds to cover plenty bases across the remaining nine tracks.
As a Louisiana native, he does a good job of preserving Tony Joe White’s swampy legacy.  On ‘Watching The Gators Roll In’ he does it in uber-relaxed, smilingly funky fashion, snagging the ear with a coupla nifty little hooks and evocative lyrics that build on the title.  Later on ‘Why, Why’ is slowish and contemplative, but also fuzzy, behind the beat, spare and scratchy, in a way that makes it more than the sum of its parts. And the closing ‘Bayou Man’ pulses with muscular energy as Benoit sings about rescuing a girl from the bayou elements. But it’s also a metaphor for a man confident he can give a woman what she wants: “What you need sugar, is for a bayou man like me to come along – and save you.”  And it comes with a real cork-popping solo.
Benoit can take things right down too.  ‘Still Gray’ is a superb, Americana-crossover slowie on which a man looking at a faded picture can still say “In my mind, I see the colours”, the plangent vocal evoking the sense of memory to good effect, accompanied by an undercurrent of buzzing guitar notes.  There a lyrical, gentle guitar solo too, well suited to the patient delivery.  Later on ‘Overdue’ is a slow blues, a ballad, a love song – take your pick – with a shimmering guitar intro, and a soulful vocal that’s beautifully sung.
Other songs develop different grooves.  ‘The Ghost Of Gatemouth Brown’ is a sprightly take on a Bo Diddley vibe, with a quasi-shave an’ a haircut rhythm and long-time pal Anders Osborne being urged to take a first, bright’n’breezy solo, before Benoit picks up the baton in steelier, edgier fashion.  ‘Inner Child’ is slowish and moody, with a rumbling, thorny riff, and impactful turnarounds rattling with drum rolls and lively, ringing chords, with a lift into the confident chorus: “What I know is what it takes to make you smile, just enough to see the glow of your inner child”.
‘Little Queenie’ is a stuttering, upbeat bop about a guy who everyone says is out of his league next to the local beauty, with sparky, witty soloing.  Whether he keeps his girl is unclear, but you want him to stay lucky.  The following ‘I’m A Write That Down’ is an offbeat and twitching promise to an irritating acquaintance that their “Your dirty little secret’s gonna get you yet”, over an intriguing, strolling riff and a nagging bass line, enhanced by a pair of spiky then bristling solos.
The thing about Tab Benoit is that he’s sui generishors catégorie, a real one-off.  He can get bluesy, swampy, funky, and even country if he wants to, and he does it all effortlessly and with style.  The Bayou Man is one cool cat.
 
I Hear Thunder
 is out now on Whiskey Bayou Records.

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

The Courettes - The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes

Hey-ho, let’s go!  Where, you ask?  Back in time my friends, with the raucously retro sound of The Courettes, that’s where!
Danish-Brazilian couple Flavia and Martin Couri love the sounds of the Sixties, and they ain’t afraid to show it on their latest album The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes.  It’s an honest hommage, but they bring their own energy, slashes of darkness, and knowing nudge and wink to the songs and sounds that they generate.  It’s fun fun fun folks, it's mono 7 incher vibes to get your tush moving, and then you can catch all the clever musical allusions afterwards.
So whaddya get in this time travelling sound machine?
Whomping backbeats?  Check! Martin Couri whacks out plenty of these, starting with the
Martin and Flavia Couri - monochrome and marvellous
Pic by Soren Solkær
opening track ‘You Woo Me’, with its fairground organ, Flavia’s slinky vocal, and gloriously tumbling last line to its verses.  He goes all Spector with the rhythm on ‘Wall Of Pain’, which opens with dreamy, slurring string-like sounds then gets tied together by a bass/guitar line that owes quite a few bucks to The Four Tops’ ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ (aka ‘Sugar Pie Honey Bunch’).  There’s a fetching tambourine-led boom-cha-cha moment too, for extra entertainment.
You want a Wall Of Sound smacking you around the ears?  Goddamn it, you got it!  Have a listen to ‘Keep Dancing’, which wraps string sounds and twinkling guitar around another stomping beat, while they splash copious amounts of reverb everywhere.  The verses come with a sweet and yearning vocal from Flavia, but meld into a defiant chorus of “I’ll keep dancing on my own, I feel so much better now you’re dead and gone”, with a terrific hook, “hey hey” interjections from Martin, and reinforcements in the shape of tubular bells.  Yes, tubular bells!  And those chimes crop up on ‘Don’t Want You Back’ too, which opens with an echoing vocal over a throbbing beat and little else, till the chorus crashes in with a three chord descending riff.  There’s a catchy ooh-la-la doo-wopping segment too, and a hard to ignore coda to boot.
You like a bit of cheesy girl group spoken narration?  There’s some of that on ‘Wall Of Pain’ too, and on ‘Boom Boom Boom’, a tribute to the charms of a drummer, featuring the lines “Charlie was my darling from Day One, When he’s sitting at this drums I’m under his thumb”.  Which means, as Flavia tells us in Shangri-Las mode, that some fella called Richard is getting his ring back.  The verses are very Shangri-Las Sixties pop too, simple and jangling, but the “My heart goes boom boom boom boom out of my chest” hook hints at less innocence.
And speaking of less innocent, they can crank things up into garage rock territory too.  ‘Here I Come’ is agitated and all action in a way that recalls Blondie – “I’m gonna git ya, git ya, git ya some day” sings Flavia – as they reached back for the rough and tumble of 60s stuff likes The Nerves’ ‘Hanging On The Telephone’.  Flavia’s guitar buzzes through the slam dunk riff to the punchy chorus, and she adds a razor-edged solo just to keep you on your toes.  ‘Better Without You’ is a breathless gallop too, that back beat kicking your ass while Ms Couri spits out a snarky lyric en route to the irresistible descending chorus.  It’s got a whiff of the Yardbirds in post-Clapton mode about it, like ‘Heart Full Of Soul’ grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged onto a sweaty dance floor.
I could go on, and tell you about the snappy, hip-wiggling ‘SHAKE!’, or the Motown-ish ‘Stop! Doing That’, with its candy chorus, handclaps, and jangling Beach Boys guitar, or . . . ah, you get the picture.
The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes ain’t profound and it ain’t perfect. But it’s affectionate and smart and clever, and delivered with bratty chutzpah and exotic looking guitars.  Get it while it's hot!
 
The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes is out now on Damaged Goods Records, and can be ordered here.

Saturday, October 5, 2024

Ronnie Baker Brooks - Blues In My DNA

Albums from Chicago bluesman Ronnie Baker Brooks don’t come along every year – his last release was 2017’s Times Have Changed, and a hell of lot of water has flowed under the world’s bridges since then.  This seems like a pity, because his personal mix of blues, funk and soul has strong roots, but isn’t stuck in the past.
Our Ronnie is, in case you didn’t know, the son of the late Chicago blues icon Lonnie Brooks, hence the title of Blues In My DNA. And Dad pops up in the brief snippet ‘Lonnie’s Blessing’, with the exhortation “Keep these blues alive!” ahead of the title track. ‘Blues In My DNA’ combines a cool, fuzzy riff with a dragging rhythm and reflective sprechgesang vocals from Brooks, as he lays out his inheritance.  It’s not just about his blues legacy from Lonnie, but the
broader story of a troubled neighbourhood, the struggles of his upbringing, and the way blues “the bad into a positive”.  And his gritty soloing captures the mood too, leaning into a few discordant notes along the way.
Ronnie Baker Brooks - the Chicago mojo still works
Pic by Jim Summeria
The most accessible track here is ‘Instant Gratification’, which opens with punchy chorus and a chunky riff that carries more than a hint of ‘Satisfaction’ and is ramped up later on. There’s stop-time riffing on the verses and plenty of guitar sizzle on a couple of solos.
But Baker also does a couple of soulful turns on ‘My Love Will Make You Do Right’ and ‘All True Man’.  His voice may not quite have a caramel sweetness on these, but it’s suitably light for the smooth Robert Cray-like stylings of the former, which may be a tad overlong but comes with a neat, melody-chasing solo.  ‘All True Man’ also has some seductive Cray leanings, but is a tougher funk strut with stinging guitar punctuation.  It’s brightened by piano embroidery around the margins from Rick Steff (as most of the tracks are), and features a piercing, clear-toned solo with distinct changes of pace.
Baker’s command of funkiness is also evident on the opener ‘I’m Feeling You’, with it’s brightly bouncing riff, pleasing melody and scattergun, zesty guitar licks.  There’s a slinky drop into a bass-led bridge, then with a grunted “Unhh” Baker sets off on a sharp guitar break. Then as the end approaches they punch up the backing to drive home an upbeat second solo.
Baker turns his hand to classic blues stylings too.  The slow and soulful ‘Accept My Love’ may not be anything exceptional, even if it’s nicely put together with its subtle backing that weaves in restrained moaning horns and strokes of Hammond organ.  But the slow blues of ‘Stuck On Stupid’ - an old cut he's chosen to reprise - is much stronger, opening with evocative lead guitar narration over ambling bass from Dave Smith and simple piano chords.  It’s about a guy trailing around after a woman who treats him like dirt, natch, and Baker captures the sense of resignation with a yearning vocal and a convincing, plaintive guitar soloing.
‘Robbing Peter To Pay Paul’ is a classic blues tale of being on your uppers, but it bumps along pleasingly, and Baker keeps the hoary old images fresh with a well delivered vocal interspersed with nippy guitar licks.  His nifty solo has a deft, light touch, and there’s a nice shift into a harmony-led conclusion.  And the closing ‘My Boo’ is a cheerful canter that takes a Wolf-ish, ‘Howlin’ For My Darlin’ type riff and lifts it into a sunnier, zippier mode, giving a fresh twist to a classic Chicago vibe.
Blues In My DNA isn’t a ground-breaking album.  But with a crystal clear production from Jim Gaines, it demonstrates that Ronnie Baker Brooks, with his effortless vocals and ability to make sparks fly from his fingertips, can continue to get the mojo working with traditional Chicago blues sounds.
 
Blues In My DNA
 is released on 11 October by Alligator Records.

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

JD Simo and Luther Dickinson - Do The Rump!

If your tastes are strictly of the blues-rock variety á la Bonamassa or Kenny Wayne Shepherd, or maybe straight up Chicago blues, then I suggest you look away now.  Do The Rump! ain’t that kinda thang.
What we have here is blues mavericks JD Simo and Luther Dickinson getting together with Simo’s drummer pal Adam Abarashoff to rehash a selection of deep blue classics in singular fashion.  Seems they basically chucked some appealing song titles in the air, found a groove or rhythm to start the engines, then riffed and wriggled around it on the fly while the tapes were rolling. The result is a magnetic, immersive journey to the centre of . . . somewhere pretty damn trippy.
Abarashoff, Simo & Dickens - as they don't call themselves
Pic by Zac Childs
To be fair, they ease you into it with the swampy strut of opening track ‘Street People’.  But by the denouement of the nearly 10-minute closer ‘Peaches’ they’re off the main drag into an Electric Ladyland of asymmetric, zig-zagging disassociation, for want of a better description.
‘Street People’ kicks off with buzzing guitar from Simo, followed by a slightly off-kilter rhythm from Abarashoff that Dickinson joins with some deliciously dirty, guttural bass to create a jagged, swampy groove. Simo’s slide guitar then slurs around an ear-catching line for a moment before his vocals make a drawling entrance.  Dickinson peels off into a different bass riff, over which Simo ducks and dives into a squawking, squeaking solo, and they’re off and running.
JJ Cale’s ‘Right Down There’ is also patient but buoyant, but with its repeated offbeat rhythm  low swooning guitar, and Simo groaning away at the simple lyric before adding a slinky, slithering slide break. It's a take on Cale fit to give Clapton kittens.
From there on though, things start to follow a more trance-like path.  Dickinson takes over on lead guitar and vocals for ‘Lonesome Road’, calmly harmonising with himself while Simo’s bass bumps around deep below.  They surface on a lighter groove, Luther orbiting around it with a scratching, grinding, bleeping solo like a satellite transmission gone wonky.  Then ‘Come And Go With Me’ is their first outing in two-guitar-no-bass mode, the two guitars winding in and out of each other while Simo hollers the minimalist “Yeaahh, come on baby!” lyrics, the ghost of Hendrix flitting in and out of earshot here and there.
John Lee Hooker’s ‘Serves Me Right To Suffer’ opens with a stuttering rhythm and expressively plonking bass, while Simo’s guitar picks and pecks away like a bird chasing a worm.  Simo’s drawling vocal is very Hooker-like, but what really makes the track stand out is the way the guitar work mutates into sub-Saharan blues shapes, acquiring a sparkling, twinkling, twirling character over Abarashoff's relentless drum pattern.
The rhythm on ‘Do The Rump Louise’ is another wacko animal, like a three-legged horse trying to break into a trot.  A mash-up of Junior Kimbrough’s ‘Do The Rump’ and Simo channelling the lyrics of Fred McDowell’s ‘Louise’, it’s all stop-start stuttering guitars welded to a North Mississippi Hill Country groove, until Simo devolves into an impressionistic, volume knob-twiddling solo, followed by Dickinson embarking on another screeching, clanking excursion. ‘Come On’ follows, the only original fare on the album, and a perky little vignette spun off from ‘Come And Go With Me’ that's a palate cleanser before the climax of ‘Peaches’.
‘Peaches’ is an RL Burnside song that Dickinson and brother Cody tackled with North Mississippi Allstars on their album Up And Rolling.  That NMA reading was a bright and sassy duet between Dickinson and Shardé Thomas, but this is a not-quite-lazy, loping creature that sounds like a spliff was sparked in the break beforehand (and not the first one of these sessions, perhaps).  It's a low slung, two-guitar affair, with a nagging riff and drum pattern as backing for Dickinson’s languid vocal.  Then in their own good time the guitars start conversing, trading discordant flourishes and jazzy, flickering forays, before plunging into that final disintegrating coda.
There’s a sense in which a blow-by-blow account of proceedings like this is beside the point, of course.  Do The Rump! isn’t just a collection of songs.  It’s a spider’s web, spun out of country blues and more exotic ingredients, to capture the listener and cocoon them in the vibe.  Turn on and tune in, hipsters!
 
Do The Rump! is out now on Forty Below Records.