Friday, June 20, 2014

The MC5

I'll give you a testimonial, THE MC5!

With the rambling 2 minute speech from Brother J C Crawford, we get a sense of the tornado forming from within and after warming up the crowd with his five second speech, the band unleashes with the punk Ramblin Rose.  With an out of tune guitar from Wayne Kramer (he admitted in interviews it was out of tune) the band is like a uncoming train wreck.  Being one of the first albums to use the sex with your parents word KICK OUT THE JAMS MUTHAFUKKA  The Motor City Five or MC5 lays everything to waste on the way to the I Can See The Miles rip of Come Together.  The drunk tempo of Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa, one has to catch his breath before turning the record over for Borderline, the mutated blues of Motor City Is Burning (with another Brother Crawford rave up), and back to the noisegrind of  I Want You Right Now before concluding with the the trainwreck ending of Starship based on a poem by Sun Ra.  This is the beginning of the MC5.

Basically a garage rock band, but with an eye on Ornotte Coleman Free Jazz type of avant garde noise, The 5 were ahead of their time. The twin guitars of Fred (Sonic) Smith and Brother Wayne Kramer, Mike Davis' bass, Rob Tyler's screaming vocals and the underrated Dennis Thompson. The MC5 made a couple of regional singles, a fairly note for note rendering of Them's I Can Only Give You Everything, a feedback laden I'm In The Mood, a John Lee Hooker song remade as I Just Don't Know.  And the harder to find Borderline which Rhino either couldn't or wouldn't add to their mix CD of The Big Bang, a subpar overview of what MC5 had to offer.  Warts and all, it shows them to be high energy rock, even more wilder than some of the stuff that came out in 1968, but it also shows the downside of the band, adding the worthless Miss X from High Time. Wayne Kramer who wrote that also compiled the best of too.  Not much variety for oddities except for 3 of the 4 singles before they signed to Elektra and Thunder Express from a bootleg album.

The MC5 were signed to Elektra, the label that was better known for british blues and folk music rather than rock but with the success of The Doors were starting to take off.  Elektra also signed another Detroit band The Stooges but the thought was that The MC5 was going to be bigger.  And the ideal was to record The MC5 in a live setting.  Bruce Botnick recorded the happening.  Now Kick Out The Jams was a groundbreaking album for myself.  I came across the title track via the Superstars Of The 70s series that Warner Music put out and we got to hear the Brothers and Sisters version of said song but never did I hear the MF shout till I found the actual record for 1.97 at Wells years ago and proceeded to make my dad mad about hearing that, half crocked on beer and made it known that it was a piece of crap.  Especially on hearing Starship, I wonder if he was going fly off the easy chair, snatched the record off the player and break it into little pieces.  But I liked most of the record, including the first side.  Years later, I would trade a Neil Young Freedom Picture CD disc for a Japanese version of Kick Out The Jams.  40 plus years later, I still find Kick Out The Jams to be the definite MC5 statement and album.  This is rock and roll, from the pounding drums to the loud and whacked out guitar work and shouted vocals.  Rob Tyler was a shouter and not a screamer and it's a shame that nobody bothered to film their concert at the Grande Ballroom that night. You had to be there.

The 5 were radical rockers and it cost them their contract with Elektra after a now long gone department store refused to stock Kick Out The Jams and somebody responded with a F bom on Elektra paper.  Which even the radical label thought that was going way too far and they dropped them.  Atlantic actually snatched them up but begin to transfer the band into something less radical.  They hooked up with Jon Landau, a Rolling Stone review writer and future Bruce Springsteen manager and managed to make one of the more fucked up recordings in their history.  Back In The USA is a fun album.  The songs are damn  good but the recording of that record is odious and lacking any bass.  If anything Jon Landau's production was the main blame.  Some of their better known songs (High School, Tonight, Human Being Lawnmower) are here.

High Time might be the better of the two Atlantic releases.  Without Landau around they self produced it with Geoff Haslem (Velvet Underground, J. Geils Band) and perhaps this album is the one true vision of what the MC5 was all about.  The crazed beginning of Sister Anne which ends with a Salvation Army band doing a death march, the one note lead guitar ending of Baby Won't Ya, the eerie Future/Now and the punk jazz of Skunk (Sonically Speaking) you can hear the influences coming together for the MC5.  It wasn't made for the radio and sales showed it (it didn't chart).  The Five were dropped from Atlantic.

There's been a onslaught of post MC5 reissues and concerts but the three that I did buy 66 Breakout shows an early but potent lineup of the Five doing covers and plenty of James Brown.  Thunder Express was recorded in 1972 with a replacement bass player and the band runs through their better known songs.  I came across Phun City UK on a bootleg German import, the sound is K Mart recorder poor but the band is in fine form.  I haven't heard anything else when Total Energy reissued some MC5 concert performances (some were reissued via Castle/Sanctuary in the 2000s) but I'm guessing the sound quality varies from good to poor.  Buyer beware.

Just as Rhino reissued the Atlantic albums and Elektra issued Kick Out The Jams on CD Rob Tyler passed away.  Fred Sonic Smith, later married Patti Smith retired from music to raise a family and then died in 1994. Wayne Kramer would reunite with Mike Davis and Dennis Thompson to do some reunion shows in the 1990s and then in 2005 with Dick Manitoba (The Dictators, Manitoba's Wild Kingdom) did reunite and played from time to time till Davis died in 2012.  To which Kramer finally retired the Five once and for all.

In essence, The MC5 never got the credit due when they were around, album sales were lackluster to nonexistent but for those who had an album probably form radical bands of their own.  The albums are flawed but a product of the times.  But they may have been the most radical and the most dangerous band to ever come out of Detroit.  With elements of garage rock and free jazz from the likes of Archie Shepp, John Coltrane and Sun Ra, no other band even attempted this as you can hear on Kick Out The Jams, this makes the MC5 one of the more original bands of the 60s. 

And as the story goes, you had to be there to see it to believe it.

Albums:

Kick out the jams (Elektra 1968) A-
Back in the USA (Atlantic 1970) B+
High Time (Atlantic 1971) B+
Thunder Express (Skydog 1972) B
The Big Bang (Rhino 2000) B-

Saturday, June 14, 2014

The White Stripes

Throughout the seven decades of rock and roll, there has always been garage rock.  It has never gone away even from the heydays of 60s garage rockers such as the Standells or Louie Louie Kingsmen. The more absurd the more fun (The Trashmen Surfin Bird, local Keokuk freakouts Gonn, Blackout Of Gretely, a more muted version of Dirty Water by The Standells). And there's plenty of historical overviews out there that celebrates the three chords and the truth bands from the garage, from Nuggets to Pebbles and even Teenage Shutdown  which really turns every rock out there to find the most  obscure garage rock band that practiced enough songs to make it to the corner tavern and then quit to get real jobs the next day.  While the major labels don't pursue the local garage band (not enough autotuner or bro country rap) many toil in obscurity.  Thank your lucky stars for Little Steven's Underground Garage which for a time, had his own Wicked Cool label to spotlight the garage rock bands as well as putting out a few volumes of The Coolest Songs In The World, the last decade's version of Nuggets and are found cheap at thrift stores.  The best of the bunch Len Price 3 and this year's The Strypes have put out new albums of garage rock fusion to indifference attitude sales and shrugs.  And so did Jack White this week with Lazaretto.

In the so called garage rock movement of the late 90s and early 00's,  the major labels did sign bands of this genre. And most was blah and missing something special.  The Strokes come to mind with Is This It? to which was the first thing I said after hearing it.  The White Stripes quietly came out of the late 90s with a low fi first album on Sympathy For The Record Industry, a label more associated with the more radical indee labels out there (Merge, Touch And Go, Taang! to name a few).  In no way did the Stripes rewrite the music book on how to make it in the music industry.  Hell, nobody even predicted that they would go far.  They were just another garage rock band intent on selling a few thousand copies of their album and then see how far it would go.

Basically it was a duo of Jack and Meg White, husband and wife.  Jack, a music lover of the blues, Nuggets and Pebbles garage rock, and of course early Robert Plant, but Jack also played drums for semi legends Goober And The Peas before meeting and marrying Meg and taking her surname.  And then managed to get her playing drums for the The White Stripes project.  Jack could play just about anything on guitar or piano or drums, but Meg White's drumming can be described as sloppy at best.  She could barely keep a beat and she would have never lasted in any other band but somehow, it worked best in the White Stripes recordings. But it seems like when I hear Icky Thump or Get Behind Me Satan, it sounded she didn't touch her drums since the last recording or live performance.

The first four White Stripes albums are testamentary classic albums upon themselves. The low fi approach to the S/T and De Stiji shows that anybody with a four track and good songs can make a great album. White Blood Cells in 2001, the press and trade papers took notice, as well as help from V2 Records and they managed to get a hit single with Fell In Love With A Girl.  Elephant is their classic moment.  The riff of Seven Nation Army has become a sporting event chant in college football stadiums all over the US, thus guaranteeing Jack White a nice check every month. Ball And Biscuit being the other major hit off this record which does in someway pays tribute to the electric blues and Zeppelin of course.

However, the last two albums are not aged very well.  Get Behind Me Satan was more acoutsic guitar and  piano driven and contains some of the worst Meg White drumming committed on record.   Icky Thump, their last, I liked at first but then it grated on my nerves.  It had its moments as well but not enough for me to recommend it.  And then, Meg White either developed a fear of the stage or just got bored with it all and wanted to settle down out of the spotlight and The White Stripes were no more in 2011.  While Meg got remarried, Jack White continued to be more busier than ever by embarking on two band projects, The Raconteurs with Brendan Benson and the members of The Greenhornes and The Dead Weather with Alison Mosshart.  And of course, two solo albums as well.  But perhaps what is best about this all, is how much that Jack White loves vinyl enough to open up a music store (Third Man Records of course) and making a whole array of vinyl art, the new Lazaretto albums has a hologram of an angel when you play the album.  And White has worked with a whole array of artists  from the past (Wanda Jackson, Loretta Lynn, Neil Young).  And enjoys working with vintage music equipment to make his albums sound a lot different from the pro tools autotuned crap of this millennium. 

In some ways, Jack White is perhaps this generation of a real rock star.  17 years after The White Stripes first album, he has managed to progress onward with a wide variety of ideals borrowed from the past and looking toward the future.  With Neil Young, he recorded A Letter Home from old recording booth to voice your own records, which was used in fairs in the late 40s and 50s.  And continues to put out vinyl of one offs, namely a Jerry Lee Lewis in store performance.  White is the anti Spotify, the pro record junkie and it's a shame there's not many more like him.  I won't say if The White Stripes were the best out of the garage rock wave of the 2000's but they were the more longer lasting and influential. 

And perhaps the most fun.

Albums:
The White Stripes (Third Man 1999) A-
De  Stiji (Third Man 2000) A-
White Blood Cells (Third Man 2001) A-
Elephant (Third Man 2003) A
Get Behind Me Satan (Third Man 2005) B-
Icky Thump (Third Man/WB 2008) B

Jack White:
Blunderbuss (Third Man/Columbia 2012) A-
Lazaretto (Third Man/Columbia 2014) A-

Friday, June 6, 2014

The Angels/Angel City Revisited

In Australia the best known band remains AC/DC but prior before them you had the Easybeats to which George Young played in that band whereas Angus and Malcolm were the guitar drive in the other.  You can't escape Back In Black if you can.  It's everywhere.

AC/DC originally recorded for Albert Productions in Aussie land whereas Atco originally signed them (later Atlantic, then back to Atco before they awarded the masters to the highest bidder, Sony Music.  A lesser known band The Angels had the AC/DC guitar sound courtesy of the Brewster brothers but it was the vivid imagery, crooning and screams of Doc Neeson that for a short time gave the Angels a rival to the Young Brothers.

The Angels recorded three albums for Albert before CBS finally took a chance and compiled the best of the songs unto the Epic 1980 album Face to Face to which they became a one hit wonder with Marseilles  in 1980 to which the earliest song Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again which came from the 1976 S/T album.  The Albert version of Face To Face shows a much harder rock direction with a bit of punk overtones with lead off Straight Jacket which went into Marseilles, other songs include the more punk I Aint The One, and a live version of Live It Up.  No Exit the 1979 album gets slighty better production and a more melodramatic sound with Ivory Stairs, Save Me and the title track.  Upon The Angels signing to Epic Albert Productions put together their very on The Angels Greatest which slightly varies from the U.S. Face To Face, the US version having a more polished sound.

Dark Room is better than No Exit (the Australian version) , with Face The Day to which Great White had a hit single but I always enjoyed The Angels version better, it also features Night Comes Early, Poor Baby, the paranoia that is Devil's Gate and the medley of Wasted Sleepless Nights/Dark Room.  Again the US version differs deleting Alexander and I'm Scared in favor of a remade Ivory Steps and Straight Jacket.   It sold well enough for CBS to do another album but the end result Night Attack was spotty, as if the band was looking for a hit to get on American radio.  The title track was fairly good but the rest forgettable. Watch The Red wasn't even released in the US and has been considered to be their weakest album although I never heard it.

In 1984 The Angels signed with Mushroom Records down under and MCA to release what I consider to be their best album Two Minute Warning.  Evil and foreboding the beginning of Underground set the stage for some hard dark rock and roll with FM played favorites Small Price, Razor's Edge and the freaky Walking To Babylon although the meddling American label put Be With You on as a potential hit single, which wasn't.

And then they lost their way, MCA dropped them soon after Two Minute Warning was released (oddly, the then Warner backed Metal Blade reissued this album in 1989) and Howling the next album again wasn't released in the US but a listen to it revealed a lack of identity.  It didn't help that The Angels were adding soul chick singers, horns and more keyboards than usual.  Eddie Rayner from Split Enz played keyboards on Howling.   In 1988, Terry Manning took a crack at trying to produce The Angels and Chrysalis released Beyond Salvation a album that was half Beyond Salvation and the other half remakes of their 70s stuff.  Pointless but the drum roll on I Ain't The One threatens to blow up the speakers.  The album stiffed although two songs did get some airplay, Dogs Are Talking and the MTV played Let The Night Roll On.

You really need a score card to figure out what the hell went on with this band in the 1990s.  Red Back Fever, produced with Paul Northfield (Rush, Asia) was another clash in style and basically the band was having problems with their record label which they wouldn't record until 1998. Rick Brewster produced Sking And Bone and Kevin Shirley  (Journey, Joe Bonnamassa) mixed it.  Skin And Bone to which was their best album since Two Minute Warning although it was never released in the US.  The further complicate things Mushroom issued the very uneven The Angels Greatest Hits (the mushroom years) which cherry picks some of their albums beginning with 2 Minute Warning and adding a second CD of outtakes, live numbers and odd remixes to which Terry Manning's ZZ Top groove just didn't do the job.  To which it was the final piece of the puzzle and The Angels called it a day.  Before returning back to the fold a few years later,the original Angel City band got back together in 2008 but cause such a big riff that Doc Neeson bolted for a solo career and was replaced by former Screaming Jets singer Dave Gleeson.   I haven't heard their lastest Take It To The Streets, nor the new effort Talk The Talk.

The original Angels reunited for the 2006 reunion tour then Neeson had another falling out with the Brewster Brothers and moved on to a band of his own, Angels 100%. However  Doc Neeson's health begin to fail him and in 2010 begin to develop  brain cancer to which he beat it for a time and then it came back and eventually on June 4, 2014 died from cancer at age 67.  While the major music mags ignored Neeson's passing, many bands spoke in tribute of the contributions that Doc Neeson and The Angels have done to better music from down under.  While in the US they're only known for Marsalies, their only hit in the US, down under they had 12 gold albums to their credit.  And the replacement players (Jim Hilburn, replaced Bailey, Bob Spencer came in for John Brewster, and Brett Eccles replaced Graham Birstrup on Night Attack) were pretty good as well.  At times I think the Hilburn/Eccles rhythm section really tighten up the sound on Two Minute Warning.  The Birstrip/Bailey section was a bit more loose playing.

Nevertheless, when Neeson's health begin to fail him, The Brewster brothers put together a Rock for Doc concert last year to which most of Down Under's best came out to pay tribute and even Doc himself joined on stage.  Doc's final recording was released last month, a reworking of Flash And The Pan's Walking In The Rain.  Picking up the lead vocalist from The Screaming Jets and Sam Brewster now playing bass, The Angels continue to be a much loved band from down under although the US never embraced them (like I did).  Nothing wrong with Dave Gleason being the vocalist but for myself the Angels or Angel City,  it was Neeson the voice of that band.

With that said, it begin with being signed to AC/DC's label (Albert Productions) and it ended with Skin And Bone in 1998. If nothing else, The Angels were like that other band, guitar heavy riffs, straight ahead rhythm but Neeson was a more thoughtful songwriter although more darker than Bon Scott or Brian Johnson.  Great White covered Face The Day and even Axl Rose paid tribute to Doc with a version of Marsalies.  It's a shame The Angels never got as big in the states as their counterparts AC DC. But The Angels were a great live band with the theatrics of Neeson being the ultimate actor a added plus.  And he will be missed.  One of the best singers in rock music I think.  And that's all you need to know.

The Albums:

The Angels (Albert) 1976 B
Face To Face (Albert) 1978 A-
No Exit (Albert) 1979 B+
The Angels Greatest (Albert) 1980 B+
Face To Face (US Epic) 1980 A
Dark Room (US Epic) 1980 A-
Night Attack (Us Epic) 1981  B
Watch The Red (Liberation 1983) C+
Two Minute Warning (MCA 1984 reissued on Metal Blade 1991) A
Howling (Liberation 1986) B-
Beyond Salvation (Chrysalis 1988) B+
Red Back Fever (Liberation 1991) B+
Live Line (Liberation 1995) B-
Skin And Bone (Shock/Liberation 1998) B+
The Angels Greatest Hits-The Mushroom Years (Mushroom Pty 1999) B-
Greatest Hits (Liberation 2011) B-
Take It To The Streets (Liberation 2012) NR
Talk The Talk (Liberation 2014) NR 
Brothers, Angels And Demons (2018) NR
Symphony Of Angels (2019) NR

Chris Bailey, bass player for The Angels lost his battle with cancer on April 2, 2013, he was 62
Doc Neeson passed away from brain cancer on June 4th, 2014 aged 67.

The Angels live on.  Dave Gleeson (Screaming Jets) replaced Neeson as lead vocalist.  John and Rick Brewster continue to be the link to the past Angels with Sam Brewster playing bass and Nick Norton on drums.  However, I have not paid much attention to the latter day Angels. While Gleason is a fine singer in his own right, it's hard to replace Doc Neeson, tho' Jim Hilburn tried his best as well.  The Symphony Of Angels album is them teaming with a orchestra. Brothers, Angels And Demons goes back to the days of the Moonshine Jug And String Band and collects pre Angels music from the Brewster Brothers, leading up the today's version of the Angels.   The Liberation Greatest Hits has the recording sped up and relies too much from the live album.

Out of all the band that came up form down under, The Angels got fucked.  Each and every one of their US albums had remade versions from the first three albums and Beyond Salvation ended up one half of the album and side 2 greatest hits redone.  MCA rejected The Howling album and basically killed Two Minute Warning when the original A and R guys that signed them up got fired.   Skin And Bone was the last album to feature Doc Neeson.  The Epic Face To Face remains in print and gives the argument that The Angels were the smart man's version of AC/DC. I also think that Two Minute Warning ranks up there with Dark Room and Face To Face. Had MCA promoted it better, The Angels had a chance to make it in America but in true fashion MCA didn't.    And with the passing of Neeson, The Brewster Brothers turned them into a tribute band.  Australia will always hold high regard for them as well as collectors in the US.  As for myself, I'll stick with the original lineup.