THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS
THE GILDED PALACE OF SIN/BURRITO DELUXE
1997-A&M
Produced By THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS, LARRY MARKS, HENRY LEWY & JIM DICKSON
1. Christine’s Tune
2. Sin City
3. Do Right Woman
4. Dark End Of The Street
5. My Uncle
6. Wheels
7. Juanita
8. Hot Burrito #1
9. Hot Burrito #2
10. Do You Know How It Feels
11. Hippie Boy
12. Lazy Days
13. Image Of Me
14. High Fashion Queen
15. If You Gotta Go
16. Man In The Fog
17. Farther Along
18. Older Guys
19. Cody, Cody
20. God’s Own Singer
21. Down In The Churchyard
22. Wild Horses
For the bargain listener…if it’s the right pair of albums, there’s nothing better than a two-fer. This is one of the most important two-fer’s ever released, as back in 1997 (and for a significant number of years), both of the Gram Parsons era Flying Burrito Brothers albums were out of print, so this was the only way to get them. The albums were originally released in 1969 and 1970, following Parson’s (and just as importantly, Chris Hillman’s) departure from The Byrds following the Sweetheart Of The Rodeo album. Parsons had substance issues which would soon kill him, and a tight friendship with Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones which would influence both men musically in big ways. Parsons was unable to hold any kind of project together for very long, so these are the only two albums he made as a Burrito Brother before starting his solo career and his legendary partnership with Emmylou Harris.
As for his work with the Burritos, Parsons is a pioneer in the field of country rock. Some of the work here is highly influential and important…even if the recordings are somewhat primitive sounding and not of the best quality. The high points are great, but there’s also plenty of filler. Still, both albums are worthwhile. Gilded Palace is better, with more of a creative mix of ballads like “Sin City” and what may be Parson’s best vocal on “Hot Burrito #1”, Burrito Deluxe is more rock, and includes a gift from Richards in “Wild Horses”. Some of the material sounds dated and rushed, but if you’re a fan of alt-country or connecting the dots from rock to country in any way, this is required listening. The importance of Parsons can be summed up in five albums: Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, these two albums, and his two solo releases (GP and Grievous Angel). This is good to have, and both albums on one disc is pretty cool.
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ACCEPT
METAL HEART
1985-PORTRAIT
Produced By DIETER DIERKS
1. Metal Heart
2. Midnight Mover
3. Up To The Limit
4. Wrong Is Right
5. Screaming For A Love-Bite
6. Too High To Get It Right
7. Dogs On Leads
8. Teach Us To Survive
9. Living For Tonite
10. Bound To Fail
The closest that Germany’s Accept has come to commercial success in the US was the song “Balls To The Wall”. Otherwise, this influencial metal band has gone largely ignored here, and hasn’t exactly been a huge success in the rest of the world, either. Led by pint sized screamer Udo Dirkschneider, one of the reasons why the band failed to gain a foothold was albums like Metal Heart. Americans in the 80’s loved them a power ballad, and you won’t find anything close to one from this band, or on this album. Their sixth album, and their most consistent work, Metal Heart is fast and heavy and loud from start to finish. There are no fake sounding odes to girls here. No pretty boys in hair spray and fishnets trying to sound sincere. This is rock, and if you’re in the mood to rock out with no wussy interruptions, then this is the album for you. It does have its flaws, for sure…but Metal Heart will most definitely rock you.
Part of the down side is Dirkschneider. He sings high, but partly because of his accent and his poor command of English, he sounds warbled and understanding the words can be an issue. They also have a thing about trying to incorporate classical music into the guitar solos…not the greatest of ideas. But there are also terrific rockers here. “Screaming For A Love-Bite” , “Metal Heart”, “Dogs On Leads”, and “Up To The Limit” would have made rock radio in 1985 a whole lot more entertaining than it was. Wolf Hoffman plays lead guitar without trying to be Eddie Van Halen, and Dirkschneider may be incoherent at times, but he’s got a maniacal squeal that adds a lot to the songs. Metal Heart is one of the great 80’s metal albums that you probably never heard. Pity…the 80’s would have been a lot more fun with more Accept.
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'Fore the devil knows we're dead...
ACCEPT
METAL HEART
1985-PORTRAIT
Produced By DIETER DIERKS
1. Metal Heart
2. Midnight Mover
3. Up To The Limit
4. Wrong Is Right
5. Screaming For A Love-Bite
6. Too High To Get It Right
7. Dogs On Leads
8. Teach Us To Survive
9. Living For Tonite
10. Bound To Fail
The closest that Germany’s Accept has come to commercial success in the US was the song “Balls To The Wall”. Otherwise, this influencial metal band has gone largely ignored here, and hasn’t exactly been a huge success in the rest of the world, either. Led by pint sized screamer Udo Dirkschneider, one of the reasons why the band failed to gain a foothold was albums like Metal Heart. Americans in the 80’s loved them a power ballad, and you won’t find anything close to one from this band, or on this album. Their sixth album, and their most consistent work, Metal Heart is fast and heavy and loud from start to finish. There are no fake sounding odes to girls here. No pretty boys in hair spray and fishnets trying to sound sincere. This is rock, and if you’re in the mood to rock out with no wussy interruptions, then this is the album for you. It does have its flaws, for sure…but Metal Heart will most definitely rock you.
Part of the down side is Dirkschneider. He sings high, but partly because of his accent and his poor command of English, he sounds warbled and understanding the words can be an issue. They also have a thing about trying to incorporate classical music into the guitar solos…not the greatest of ideas. But there are also terrific rockers here. “Screaming For A Love-Bite” , “Metal Heart”, “Dogs On Leads”, and “Up To The Limit” would have made rock radio in 1985 a whole lot more entertaining than it was. Wolf Hoffman plays lead guitar without trying to be Eddie Van Halen, and Dirkschneider may be incoherent at times, but he’s got a maniacal squeal that adds a lot to the songs. Metal Heart is one of the great 80’s metal albums that you probably never heard. Pity…the 80’s would have been a lot more fun with more Accept.
Restless And Wild is a fine album. Accept was really strong in the first half of the 80's. A case could be made for Balls To The Wall as well. Also, Staying A Life is a pretty great live album, although it's a bit long. _________________ May we all get to heaven
'Fore the devil knows we're dead...
CHERRY POPPIN’ DADDIES
ZOOT SUIT RIOT: THE SWINGIN’ HITS OF THE CHARRY POPPIN’ DADDIES
1997-MOJO
Produced by STEVE PERRY & CHERRY POPPIN’ DADDIES
1. Zoot Suit Riot
2. Ding-Dong Daddy Of The D-Car Line
3. When I Change Your Mind
4. Here Comes The Snake
5. Mister White Keys
6. Come Back To Me
7. Brown Derby Jump
8. Dr. Bones
9. Pink Elephant
10. Master And Slave
11. Drunk Daddy
12. No Mercy For Swine
13. Cherry Poppin’ Daddy Strut
14. Shake Your Lovemaker
In 1997, the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies were a moderately successful local band with a decent following from Eugene, Oregon. They played mostly ska, with some swing music thrown in for fun. Their manager came to them one day and told them that their fans were practically begging for cd’s of swing. He suggested to them that they release a swing compilation. The band thought he was crazy, but he convinced them. Thus, the Daddies released a greatest hits album with no major deal and only three previous albums out. At about the same time, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy had created a swing revival with their music for the film Swingers. Zoot Suit Riot was swept up in the craze, released on a major label, and for about a year, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies were stars. When the brief swing craze died off, so did the Daddies. But it seemed like just about everyone had a copy of this album, even if they forgot to play it after the turn of the century.
Pull it out, friends, dust it off, and relive what may have been the coolest craze of the 90’s. 9 of the tracks are from the band’s three previous albums. Four were recorded specifically for this compilation (including the massively successful title track), and one was re-recorded. Singer Steve Perry (not THAT Steve Perry) leads the band through several satisfying romps like “Drunk Daddy”, “Here Comes The Snake”, and “Ding-Dong Daddy Of The D-Car Line” that will make you want to throw your partner over your shoulder. The best songs are perfect: there is a bit of filler here, but it’s mostly very good. The Daddies never approached any other kind of success after this, and Perry is somewhat bitter that his band was pigeonholed as a swing only band. But, it bought them a nice 15 minutes, and we all have Zoot Suit Riot as a consolation prize. Dust this baby off and dig!
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THE FLAMING LIPS
THE SOFT BULLETIN
1999-WARNER BROTHERS
Produced By THE FLAMING LIPS, DAVE FRIDMANN & SCOTT BOOKER
1. Race For The Prize
2. A Spoonful Weighs A Ton
3. The Spark That Bled
4. The Spiderbite Song
5. Buggin’
6. What Is The Light?
7. The Observer
8. Waitin’ For A Superman
9. Suddenly Everything Has Changed
10. The Gash
11. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
12. Sleeping On The Roof
13. Race For The Prize
14. Waitin’ For A Superman
Any time I start feeling like I may be too old to do what I do on stage, I think of Wayne Coyne. Coyne is the same age as me (even a few months older), and has been doing the Flaming Lips thing since 1983. That he has remained relevant to this day speaks volumes for us older guys. He’s not afraid to experiment, and he’s not afraid of change. Sometimes, this results in albums that are overly weird and tough to listen to. But sometimes, the results are magical. The Soft Bulletin is the ninth Lips album, and it is the band’s masterpiece. Following up the strangeness of Zaireeka, an album of four discs designed to be played at the same time, the Lips moved into a more electronic and ultimately more melodic phase that would continue evolving to this day. The Soft Bulletin isn’t just a great collection of songs (it is), but it’s also a whole unit, a unified piece, and a beautiful work of art that deserves repeated listens. This album should be among your favorites: give it a chance, and it will be.
Coyne explores strange and different themes on The Soft Bulletin, such as spider bites and head wounds, to make his way to more conventional song matter. It’s lyrically interesting, but what ultimately carries this album is the overall sound, from start to finish. The Lips move from the rock sound of albums like Transmissions From The Satellite Heart to new ground. Transmissions was a great album…as were Clouds Taste Metallic and the later Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, but The Soft Bulletin is the real greatest album in the Lips discography. Wayne Coyne continues to be my hero, with stage shows that rival circuses and albums like The Soft Bulletin. Hooray for the old guys! One of the greatest albums of the 90’s.
JOHN DOE
FOREVER HASN’T HAPPENED YET
2005-YEP ROC
Produced By DAVE WAY & JOHN DOE
1. The Losing Kind
2. Heartless
3. Mama Don’t
4. Twin Brother
5. Hwy. 5
6. Worried Brow
7. Your Parade
8. There’s A Black Horse
9. Ready
10. She’s Not
11. Repeat Performance
John Doe was a founding member, lead singer and bass player for the great LA punk band X. Between 1990 and 1987, that band was responsible for one of the greatest six album runs in rock history. During that period, Doe proved to be a prolific and powerful songwriter, and his vocals interwoven with those of his once wife Exene Cervenka made the X sound very unique. He hasn’t really slowed down much, either. Doe has released several solo albums (ten to be exact), as well as many collaborations with artists like Dave Alvin and Jill Sobule. He has also been a member of The Knitters, and has been active as an actor. His solo work has gone mostly unnoticed, but it has also been consistently very good. 2005’s Forever Hasn’t Happened Yet is Doe’s fifth solo album, coming and going without making so much as a blip on any kind of chart. Understandable…Doe has never really made music for the masses. But if you’re lucky enough to be a fan, there are always plenty of rewards.
On Forever Hasn’t Happened Yet, the sound is very rootsy (people tend to forget that in the early days, X used to share billing with the likes of Dwight Yoakam). And Doe understands what works for himself vocally. The album contains several vocal duets, which was a staple of the X sound. He’s joined here by the likes of Grant Lee Phillips, Neko Case, Kristin Hersh, and Cindy Lee Berryhill. Dave Alvin contributes guitar, and his X bandmate DJ Bonebrake is also present, so the music is all in good hands. The biggest issue with this album is brevity. The songs are uniformly short (only three top three minutes), and the album as a whole barely tops thirty minutes. And with songs like “The Losing Kind”, “Hwy. 5” and “Ready”, you really want there to be more. It’s a shame that Doe’s solo work isn’t better known, but for those who have discovered it, there are plenty of rewards available in his catalog.
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THE LIBERTINES
UP THE BRACKET
2002-ROUGH TRADE
Produced By MICK JONES
1. Vertigo
2. Death On The Stairs
3. Horrorshow
4. Time For Heroes
5. Boys In The Band
6. Radio America
7. Up The Bracket
8. Tell The King
9. The Boy Looked At Johnny
10. Begging
11. The Good Old Days
12. I Get Along
13. What A Waster
The Libertines had a whole lot of hype to live up to. Their debut album, Up The Bracket, was billed as the album that saved the whole of British rock music. And, while it’s certainly an excellent album, it’s not THAT excellent. It may have, however, pushed the British music scene into a better direction, but no one could have single handedly saved it. Except for maybe The Beatles. But that’s another story. The Libertines debut showcases a band of crazy, drugged up loud punks being directed by Mick Jones of The Clash through a series of nearly out of control bursts of loud and fast rock and roll. The crowd went crazy, and guitarist Pete Doherty almost became a drug casualty for it, his crack addiction leading him to break into his bandmate Carl Barat’s home to feed his addiction. They were able to hang together for one more album before breaking up in 2004, with Doherty’s addiction being the central issue. This was certainly a band that could have gone on to bigger and better things…but we’ll never know.
The breakthrough song was “What A Waster”, added as a bonus track on the American release. “The Boy Looked At Johnny” (the title is a reference to a Patti Smith lyric) and “The Boys In The Band” are magical, great punk songs, certainly benefitting from the experience of Jones. The title track and “Time For Heroes” are also excellent. The playing is loose, fast, and at times out of control. The writing is a bit underdeveloped, but you could tell that they were on their way to better things. Up The Bracket is an album of loaded promise, of things that might have been but never really were, and of a lot of fun and “unbridled enthusiasm”. Hard to believe that they were over within two years. Message to kids: drugs are bad, m’kay? Pick this album up, though. It’s a really worthwhile listen if you like punk at all. It recalls the older version of the genre really nicely.
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THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
PSYCHOCANDY
1985-BLANCO Y NEGRO
Produced By THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
1. Just Like Honey
2. The Living Dead
3. Taste The Floor
4. The Hardest Walk
5. Cut Dead
6. In A Hole
7. Taste Of Cindy
8. Never Understand
9. Inside Me
10. Sowing Seeds
11. My Little Underground
12. You Trip Me Up
13. Something’s Wrong
14. It’s So Hard
Another highly influencial British band, The Jesus And Mary Chain came out of Scotland in the early 80’s and began immediately challenging the boundaries of what a band could and could not do. William and Jim Reid were heavily influenced by The Sex Pistols, and by the time they started getting noticed, they were an oddity because they were not a synth band like everyone else. The band started adding noise and feedback to their already punkish sound, giving them a unique sound that they carried to their debut album, Psychocandy. People didn’t quite know what to make of this band with the blasphemous name and singles with titles like “Suck” and “Jesus Fuck”. As terrified as their label was of them, they also knew that the music was exceptionally good. Psychocandy became an instant classic, setting the stage for bands like My Bloody Valentine.
It’s not that the songs were anything complicated. Basic punk structures with a Velvet Underground state of mind were the norm. But the sound was something else altogether. Psychocandy is a sea of sound, pop songs buried in sonic blankets topped with searing white noise. This is one of the best albums of the 80’s for good reason…there’s really nothing else like it. “Just Like Honey”, “Taste Of Cindy”, and “The Living End” are examples of what was to come later on in the decade from other bands…but this band did it first and best. They abandoned their sound for the next album and the rest of their careers…they also never came close to the greatness of Psychocandy. This is a great sounding album. How in the world did we miss this in the 80’s? Not sure. But it’s never too late to make a discovery like this one.
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INXS
THE GREATEST HITS
1994-ATLANTIC
VARIOUS PRODUCERS
1. The One Thing
2. Original Sin
3. What You Need
4. Listen Like Thieves
5. Shine Like It Does
6. Need You Tonight
7. Devil Inside
8. New Sensation
9. Never Tear Us Apart
10. Suicide Blonde
11. Disappear
12. The Stairs
13. Heaven Sent
14. Beautiful Girl
15. The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)
16. Deliver Me
I read a review somewhere that compared INXS to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Not that far off, really. Both bands had consistent lineups (INXS had no personnel changes from 1977 through 1997). Both made consistently pleasing albums with plenty of hits that the critics shrugged off as unimportant. And both bands had very strong fan bases. INXS rose out of Australia in 1980 and made album after album, hit after hit, staying almost completely under the radar of those looking for the best bands of their time. But, years after the end of INXS and the suicide of lead singer Michael Hutchense, their music still stands strong. The Greatest Hits is almost a complete overview of their career: it ignores the first three albums, and came out before their last effort, Elegantly Wasted. It does cover their most fruitful period, when they were darlings of MTV and when you couldn’t listen to the radio for half an hour without hearing a song by INXS.
Their best period was from Listen Like Thieves (1985) through X (1990), with their biggest seller Kick in the middle. These albums are well represented here, and the compilation was issued with different track lists depending on what songs were big in what country. This, the American version, is a nice set of great singles without the filler of their studio albums. Things get a little weak towards the end, but the first eleven tracks, in particular, are as good a hits compilation as you could hope for from this band. It’s good to have “Suicide Blonde”, “The One Thing”, and “New Sensation” on one disc. They went on, even doing a reality show in 2005 to find a lead singer. But since the death of Hutchense in 1997, they released only one album of new material before calling it a day in 2012. But INXS was, particularly from 1985-90, one of the biggest bands on the planet. This is a good collection to re-live that experience.
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'Fore the devil knows we're dead...
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