Another musical hero has fallen and the response from the metal world has been an outpouring of appreciation and praise for both the music and the personal ethos of the great Ronnie James Dio, former lead singer of Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and his own band Dio.
Even though my metal years for the most part are far behind me, I have always held Ronnie James in the highest esteem for his powerful, operatic metal vocals and songwriting. To me Holy Diver is still the best metal album ever made, period. His work with Black Sabbath on Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules is not far behind, either. And before that, he formed Rainbow with Ritchie Blackmore. Plus he is credited for inventing the "devil horns" hand symbol that has become synonymous with the entire genre of heavy metal. That's quite a legacy, none of which is surprising. What does surprise me is how well loved he was by so many. I had no idea guys like Lars Ulrich from Metallica and Brian May from Queen were such appreciators and fans. Apparently he had such a good heart that it seems he doesn't have a single enemy.
Certainly the music of Dio appeals only to a particular kind of music fan, the metalers who are not put off by the medieval imagery that RJD loved so much, but even so its hard to deny the metal power of the band on the Holy Diver and Last In Line tours. Check out this live take of "Stand Up And Shout" with Vivian Campbell absolutely shredding while Vinny Appice and Jimmy Bain on drums and bass brutally pound out the rhythm.
Didn't someone sing good things don't ever last? The Black Crowes have announced that they will take an indefinite hiatus at the end of this year. This is sad news for me, The Crowes have, in the last 5 years, become one those bands that, frankly, I just can't seem to get enough of. Its gonna be hard to not have "the next show" to look forward to for a long time. Thankfully, the rest of the year will be full of Black Crowes shows, including a 6 night run at the Fillmore in SF to close out the year.
The band members have put a lot of collective thought into this and have probably been planning it for some while, based on the fact that their soon to be released album and the 2010 tour are being presented as a massive and heartfelt "thank you" to every fan the Black Crowes have ever had. Even better news is that most of the shows in the late summer and fall will be three hour affairs, with an hour and a half acoustic set and then an hour and a half electric set.
Full tour details on cities, dates, on-sale dates as well as news about the soon-to-be-released acoustic greatest hits double album Croweology can be found in this press release.
This video came across my path recently and it reminded me of how great Black Sabbath were in their prime. Not like all us 70s rock fans don't know that already, but its good to be reminded of it, especially with some fantastic live footage. Its amazing to me what could be done with just guitar, bass, drums and vocals. I'm trying to think of something articulate to say about what made Sabbath so killer. Nothing really needs to be said when the music is this good and overpowering. Bill Ward is killing it on drums. With Geezer Butler on bass, its a formidable rhythm section. Iommi and Ozzy doing their thing. Simple, basic, and gloriously heavy! Getting labeled as demonic (not that they didn't project that image themselves) when really they were espousing late 60s hippie values, albeit with dark, plodding, war-hammer heavy music.
It does occur to me that there will probably never be another era in rock music like the early 70s. So much drama coming from the music and the music only. This is how rock is supposed to be and I don't care if I sound like an old curmudgeon if I say that very few rock bands today seem to have any clue about how to do it. How could there possibly have been so many legendary, groundbreaking bands peaking all in the same few years? What insane combination of unlikely variables had to come together perfectly for this serendipity to happen? Its an understatement to say that they don't make rock music like this anymore.
Alex Chilton has died, so I will listen to his music with Big Star, which I haven't listened to in some time. I will remember how good the music of Big Star has made me feel and the happiness and joy it has brought to me. I feel especially fortunate to have seen Big Star play live twice when I was living in their hometown, Memphis, Tennessee and also that I got to tell Jody Stephens and Alex how much their music means to me and how gracious they were. In spite of Chilton's reputation for being moody or gruff, he was open and friendly to me and I appreciated that alot.
Fans of the genre known as power pop that Big Star is the uber-touchstone of know the feeling well: the simple pleasures of a catchy pop song with bright and chimey guitars and lots of harmony singing. If you don't know the music of Big Star, just think about a bunch of American guys in the early 70s who just wanted to make music like The Beatles and other mid 60s British Invasion bands. It came out just a little different, the guitars were a bit dirtier, the music was just a tad more ramshackle, with a bit of a barroom swagger. Simply wonderful stuff, short lived, underappreciated in its time, endlessly influential to a whole cadre of 80s bands 10 years later. Do yourself a favor and check out some Big Star.
tompetty.com has posted a new track called Good Enough that will be on the forthcoming Heartbreakers album Mojo. On first listen this sounds really fantastic. It starts out as a dirge-like slow blues and morphs into a wicked Mike Campbell blues guitar solo rave up. Campbell has always been a tone-meister rather than a smoking soloist, and fittingly enough his tone on this track is great, sounding quite different than the last few albums, but this is a blistering solo as well!
There really is no disputing that John Bonham is in the top five of all-time greatest rock drummers and its not hard to make a case for him being numero uno on that list. If you are at all a fan of rock music, this is not new information to you. But its good to be reminded now and then why we hold the greats in such high esteem. Its not just because of their reputation, its really because of the things they did to earn the reputation in the first place.
So give this a viewing and then bow down before the mighty, mighty, mighty JOHN BONHAM!
It is a common notion that there is an unavoidable trade-off between youth and experience in rock bands: the newly emerged have the unbridled energy and drive without the experience to keep things solid while the ones who have been around awhile might not burn as hot as they once did, but have the well-honed skill in their craft to make up for it.One could make a claim for this to be true with the Mother Hips in 2009, nearing 20 years together as a band and having just released their seventh studio album, Pacific Dust.There is something to be credited to survivors in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, at least to the ones who have done it with their artistic integrity intact.Who knows if the apparent wisdom comes from having survived or if the survival is a result of inherent wisdom?But few could argue with the experience of hearing such a band playing live in a room. Not many fans of good rock music seeing the Mother Hips for the first time can deny their quality.And if it’s true that they are now not as reckless and hell- bent as they once were, there is certainly an assuredly skilled and confident air to the way they perform, more than there was when they were starting out.
Pacific Dust is sonically a near-perfect presentation of the sound of The Mother Hips, and by that I mean the sound that happens when these four men are in the same room singing and playing together with no overdubs or studio trickery.Pacific Dust sounds as if the listener is in the sweet spot of an acoustically perfect venue while the band plays deep in a groove without technical worries or other distractions, utterly owning their songs.Singer/songwriter/guitarist Tim Bluhm recently attributed this quality of Pacific Dust partly to The Hips’ ability, developed over years, to easily get the sounds they want out of their instruments and voices, but also to their familiarity with both San Francisco’s Mission Bells studio (of which Bluhm is co-owner) and their producer David Simon Baker (another co-owner of Mission Bells) which enabled them to capture the sounds far quicker than is typical and thus the band were still fresh and excited for each performance.As a result, Pacific Dust sounds not only assured, confident and effortless, but also very alive and intimate, like at a great rock show, as well as rich and lush like a great pop record.This is the true sound of The Mother Hips!
The record opens with key cut White Falcon Fuzz (inspired by the White Falcon guitar in the foldout inside cover of Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush LP), a rumination on the transfiguring power of music and how it can shape lives.It is both a looking back to the origins of the inspiration to pick up a guitar and an assessment of a musician’s place in the world after 20 years of being in a band.Although overstuffed with non-stop lyrics that barely give him time to breathe, Bluhm sings it seemingly effortlessly.The opening riff is crunchy, the guitar interplay is intriguing, the rhythm is kept cracking and sharp by the perfect timing and minimalist flair of drummer John Hofer and the mid-tempo song is held together by the melodic and complex bass playing from resident musical genius Paul Hoaglin.The backing choral vocals and ending guitar solo make this song soar, feeding off the simple joys of being satisfied and happy with all the good things in one’s life. The positive outlook is palpable and it is clear from the beginning of this album that The Mother Hips are personally and artistically in a very good place right now.
Thinking that our love will last is thinking that the part of our love that lasts is gonna be the good part…any legacy of mine is gonna be sunshine and I leave it behind as a sign of my love for mankind
All In Favor is Loiacono’s take on the same theme and is thus a kind of companion piece to White Falcon Fuzz, looking back at the personal life of the band with an honest, critical perspective
…the path of self-destruction -unlimited buffoonery in the dark …in beautiful theaters with their lights so blue and orange to help us feel important for awhile…our van caught on fire just like our egos…
but also looks forward with what may be either a sobering or promising thought for fans of this band:
“How long can music last?”She whispered into my ear
Pacific Dust hits its stride in earnest with the one-two power pop punch of Bluhm’s Jess OXOX and Loiacono’s The Lion and The Bull leaving me staggering, smiling and head-shaking at the pure pleasure delivered by melody, hooks, and harmonies that would make Jeff Lynne envious.And this is nothing new for The Mother Hips, they’ve been doing it for years.They firmly deserve a place in the music history texts beside ELO, Badfinger, Big Star, Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, etc. as purveyors of sweet pop songs in the tradition of great 60s rock ‘n’ roll.When Bluhm and Loiacono jump a decade to emulate 70s AM radio on songs like One Way Out, Cheer Up Champ and All In Favor, I get the feeling it’s done with the utmost sincerity and honest appreciation for the genre.But the smooth and glossy sheen of these songs is tempered by the surprisingly bittersweet lyrical themes that are there for those not completely spellbound by the pop brilliance of the music. From the emotionally and physically wounded letter-writer who is the narrator of Jess OXOX to the relationship tensions of The Lion and The Bull to the Taoist/go-with-the-flow way of handling obstacles of One Way Out, these are pop songs with substance and true-to-life realism about human existence.
Although many of these songs brim with positivity, it’s not of a Pollyanna sort. Life for a moderately successful national-level rock band is surely not any easier now than it was 20 years ago.In fact, particularly in these times of economic problems, it may be harder.But The Mother Hips seem better equipped to handle the struggles of daily life as a rock band and to do so with a smile, even if it’s sometimes a wry laugh at one’s own foibles and idiosyncracies (“not that I need to get down any more than I already am, Henry the VIII made a much better friend”).All too often people are the biggest obstacle to their own contentedness in life.It seems that awareness of this has helped these songwriters become very content and comfortable with themselves and their positions in life as much so as they are as musicians in the studio and on the stage.But there is also darkness, anger, and discouragement on Pacific Dust, too. Third Floor Story, a 10 year old song about the tribulations of the music business, is a pulsating, percolating, snarling funk rocker rerecorded to finally appear on a Mother Hips album.Cheer Up Champ shows that a feeling of failure still sometimes haunts even the most talented of artists:
I can’t win it seems I can’t catch up to my dreams ‘cause its me that I’m fighting I’m riding back from a bad show I’m licking my wounds, yeah you know how it goes
But it’s also a self-pep talk (“cheer up, champ, at least you still got your health”) with the idea that feelings can be changed by changing one’s thoughts (“I’m able to sing because I’m able to fly…when the morning comes I’ll find my wings”) and thus brings us back to the positivity the album opens with.
Playing spot the influence in the music of The Mother Hips is an easy game.Obvious reference points for their original music include Neil Young, Merle Haggard, The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers, The Bee Gees (in the 60s), and The Kinks.The Beatles’ legacy of influence, however, is rarely mentioned when people write about The Mother Hips and that is puzzling to me, because when you watch them play, just two guitars, three singers, bass, drums, and hear the rich and melodic sounds they make with just this simple arsenal of musical tools, the similarities are almost too obvious.The Beatles influence rises to the surface on the George Harrison-ish (courtesy of resident Beatle freak Hoaglin) slide guitar solo on One Way Out, the Abbey Road-like backing vocals on Cheer Up Champ and the string sections on All In Favor and Young Charles Ives.
There was a time in stonier days when the Hips dealt out quite a bit of dark psychedelia.And then there followed a time when that style of music became anathema to them as they aggressively resisted the jam band/hippie label.In 2009, the Hips seem to have come to peaceful terms with this facet of their music, reviving some of their older, extended jamming songs in their live show and even better, composing new songs in this vein.The title track of Pacific Dust, with its leaden, slow, and heavy riff is all early 70s proto-metal (think Black Sabbath , Spooky Tooth, Budgie, etc) was a rehearsal jam turned into a full fledged song by adding a melody and lyrics.Cheer Up Champ’s coda surprisingly morphs into a Cortez The Killer-like guitar jam, all dark, slow and drenched in feedback. In accordance with the theme of this record, the Hips seem grateful for where music has taken them in their lives and they no longer feel the need to shy away from any part of their musical past.
For me, not quite hitting the bullseye but coming close, the third quarter of the album is a bit of a lull. Young Charles Ives is a lyrically and musically interesting historical fiction piece from Loiacono about the childhood of the famed avant garde composer while Bluhm’s Are You Free, with its 80s synth arrangement lacks the immediate attractiveness of other songs on the record.
In spite of the strong opening, the brilliant mid-section and the third quarter lull, the album manages to reach its pinnacle at its finish, closing with a rare Loicacono-penned stone power-rocker, Bandit Boy, all nasty, heavy, guitar riffs and scorching vocals that make me want to fist-pump and shout in stoke followed by the clean, smooth white man’s 70s soul ballad/Neil Young noise-rock fadeaway, Bluhm’s Cheer Up Champ. These album closers, one from each of the principle songwriters in the band, again feel like companion pieces as they both delve into the psyche for some hard-earned insight about finding a Zen-like peace in life and/or integrating body, mind and soul.Musically they cap off the album, saving the best for last and leave me satisfied, grinning like a fool, convinced that one of the most talented and underrated rock bands of the last 20 years is still on top of their game, still mixing up nearly all of the music they are capable of into a strong album, polished, solid and head and shoulders above most of what passes for good rock music in the early 21st century.
