Monthly Archives: October 1997

Guitar Slinger

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Guitar Slinger

By: Brian Setzer Orchestra

Type: Big Band Rockabilly

Hot Tracks:

  • Rumble in Brighton
  • Ghost Radio
  • Town Without Pity
  • (The Legend of) Johnny Kool
  • Hey, Louis Prima

I’ve long felt that Brian Setzer was one of the most underrated guitarists out there, and it’s great to see him succeeding with his new big band. This release has more energy than his previous one, starting immediately with a cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “The House Is Rockin’.” There are only about three songs on this twelve song CD that really allow the listener to take a breather, and they are placed strategically close to the beginning and the end, allowing the middle of the CD to fly high and fast.

The best of the mellow songs is his version of “Town Without Pity,” which slows down enough to allow Setzer to show off his Sinatra-like vocals before jumping straight into the high-energy “Rumble in Brighton,” which could have been a hit for the Stray Cats if Setzer had pulled it out back then. The high-speed fretwork at the end of the song is nothing short of amazing.

Setzer gets a little help from former Clash member Joe Strummer on two songs, most notably “Ghost Radio,” a rockabilly ballad about a stormy trip across the Texas plains and how the ghost of Bob Wills helps to save a bus trapped on a bridge. Setzer is good about acknowledging his influences, and this tribute to the Texas Playboys is his most ambitious reference yet. Later in the album, he pulls off a Chet Atkins/Jerry Reed style guitar break in “Hey, Louis Prima” as another tip of the hat.

The last song on the album, “Sammy Davis City,” (again penned with the help of Strummer) is a little strange. It is worthwhile, though for the chance to hear how Setzer can make an acoustic guitar sing. He shows his knowledge of chord movement clearly in this slow, sparse arrangement and leaves us wondering why the CD is over already.

There really is not a weak track on this album. People who enjoyed the mellow ballads of his first outing with the orchestra may be a little surprised at the wake up call this album gives, but I think they will adjust. There’s too much good music not to!

Rating (out of a possible five):

Four

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Four

By: Blues Traveler

Type: Counterculture Groove Rock

Hot Tracks:

  • Stand
  • Fallible
  • The Mountains Win Again
  • Hook

It’s about time Blues Traveler started getting the talent recognition they deserve. Interestingly enough, the songs on the album that are becoming hits are not the ones that I feel deserve the most recognition. Of the tracks that I listed above, only one has become a nationwide hit (“Hook.”) “The Mountains Win Again” has a strong following in the Denver area, for obvious reasons, but does not seem to be quite as popular in other cities. There are other tracks that I would list before the big hit, “Run-Around,” but I wished to limit the list to four tracks.

John Popper’s intelligent cynicism makes for excellent lyrics, especially in “Hook.” I suspect that this is the best treatise on the music business since Billy Joel penned “The Entertainer” — but this time the focus is more on the purchasers than the record companies. I wonder how many people blindly repeat the lyrics without realizing that they are the subject of the song.

The airplay tracks seem to follow the formula of “put John Popper in the spotlight since he’s such an incredible harp player and a good vocalist to boot.” I wish they would give Chan Kinchla, the band’s guitarist, a little more room to stretch and show off too. He can hold his own trading solos with Popper and provides a very solid backing for Popper’s Hohner pyrothechnics when the time comes. Several of the tracks on this album feature Kinchla, including “Stand,” “Fallible,” “Freedom” and “Crash Burn.”

A note on jamming: I’m glad to see bands like Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Phish and Big Head Todd coming to the fore. The music industry in recent years has been dominated by bands that, in general, don’t jam. Even jazz in recent years has seemed canned, rather than alive and full of improvisation. I’ve missed the extended jams that sixties and seventies rock music produced, but the above named bands are bringing it back. Phish and Blues Traveler especially are capable of improvising jams in a live situation, and to me this shows more talent and attention to musicianship. I should point out as well that I feel this style of jamming is far beyond the Grateful Dead jam style, in which there seemed to be no sense of timing or form. All of these bands give careful attention to form and timing in their jams and this has the effect of letting us enjoy the jam without becoming bored, as the Grateful Dead jams often did.

<Ducking various objects thrown by die-hard Deadheads>

Rating (out of a possible five):

Boston

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Boston

By: Boston

Type: Classic Rock

Hot Tracks:

  • More Than a Feeling
  • Smokin’
  • Rock and Roll Band
  • Foreplay/Long Time

No CD collection is complete without this classic album. Though it’s been out for over twenty years, it remains a staple of classic rock radio, and even the most technology-friendly bands of modern music are hard pressed to match the legendary Boston sound.

Tom Scholz is one of the best minds in the rock and roll world even today. We don’t hear a lot about him, but his musicianship, mixing skills and electronic wizardry are especially evident on this album, which came out well before electronic guitar effects processors were common. Scholz, more than any other musician out there, knows how to use equipment to get exactly the sounds he wants and often invents equipment to make the sounds that he can’t get. He has built a successful business, Scholz Research and Development, out of the manufacture and sale of guitar effects processors and pedals.

But all this talk about electronics has nothing to do with the music. On this album, you will find a strong commitment to melody and harmony, as well as plenty of straight-ahead rock and roll. Songs like “Smokin’,”Foreplay/Long Time” and “Rock and Roll Band” showcase the instruments while “More Than a Feeling” and “Something About You” put a little more emphasis on Brad Delp’s soaring vocals. All of the tracks are high-energy and the sounds fill the room (or your headphones) well when you crank up the volume. This album also makes good driving music, though it is too short for significantly long trips.

Boston’s productivity has been hampered by record contract problems, personnel changes and fairweather fan reception since the beginning of the eighties, but Still, Scholz occasionally finds the time to a new batch of guitar driven, synthesizer free (mostly) rock and roll with the same killer sound and songwriting style.

A friend of mine used to say, “Boston is the sound the electric guitar was born to make.” I tend to agree. The tone Scholz was able to pull from his Les Pauls back in 1976 was every bit as fat and good as today’s advanced equipment can produce; in fact, most guitarists have a very difficult time duplicating that sound without some of Scholz’ equipment. It just goes to show you where a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering can take you.

Rating (out of a possible five):

Beautiful World

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Beautiful World

By: Big Head Todd and the Monsters

Type: Rock

Hot Tracks:

  • Resignation Superman
  • Helpless
  • Please Don’t Tell Her
  • Beautiful World
  • Boom Boom

Todd Park Mohr teams up with producer Jerry Harrison to create a good, solid album inBeautiful World. Mohr has just begun to show his talents in songwriting and guitar, despite having been in the business for years. The commercial success the band is currently receiving is well-deserved and has been long in coming.

Mohr has the ability to get a full spectrum of different tones from his guitar and — here’s the key — unlike most guitarists, he knows when each tone is appropriate. For every song he writes, he seems able to find a tone that fits the exact message he is trying to convey, as in “Caroline” and the stunningly clear solo on “Please Don’t Tell Her.” It is this variety that makes the album very easy to listen to and memorable.

Mohr and the band get some help from John Lee Hooker in his classic “Boom Boom,” the song that inspired ZZ Top’s “La Grange.” (I read recently that Hooker’s associates had filed for copyright infringement against ZZ Top — nearly twenty years after they came out with “La Grange.” Go figure.) Perhaps Hooker and Mohr are just trying to let the general public in on the fact that Hooker had the idea first.

Throughout the rest of the album, Mohr and friends deliver a variety of rock and jangle pop originals that should appeal to a wide range of people around the world. If Big Head Todd’s path to this point is any indication, they could take the world by storm in the next few years. I could even see a grammy in the works if they keep up this level of variety and quality. For now, though, this album will serve as the introduction of a very talented band to those outside the Boulder, CO area, where the band is based. This is only the beginning for Big Head Todd and the Monsters.

Rating (out of a possible five):

Writing the Natural Way

By lytspeed Posted in Opinion, Reading, Reviews, Writing Leave a reply

Writing the Natural Way

By: Gabriella Lusser Rico

Type: Instructional

Setting: N/A

Description:

Ms. Rico presents to us a series of guidelines for producing focused, honest, improved writing. Written in an informal style, with emphasis on right-brain techniques and approaches to writing,WtNW teaches us not to worry about whether the final product is exceptional, or if this comma or that should be left out, but to produce on paper a cohesive, organized structure of ideas with which to work. According to Rico, if you start from a base like this, an exceptional product is likely to form anyway, especially the more you practice. Punctuation and readability can be taken care of in revisions; the most important part of writing is the idea, and Rico shows us how to pin that idea down. 

Comments:

Writing the Natural Way is one of the best writing manuals I have ever seen. Instead of inundating the reader (and student) with NOs and DO NOTs, it says, “Try it; see what the product is like. Perhaps it will lead to something new and even more worthwhile.” The book can be taken as a kind of Montessori course for beginning writers — provide them with the tools to teach themselves and let them go, with instructor intervention only when necessary. 

Recommendations:

I highly recommend this book to anyone embarking on a career in writing or just wanting to revitalize his or her current writing. The examples and exercises are non-threatening and the creativity methods introduced (particularly “clustering”) are indispensable.