Recently, the Loud Family message board thingy had a thread assessing 2008's first quarter of music releases. Usually, the stuff I acquire is stubbornly out of step with that particular demograph, due to what I guess could be a mid-life crisis that has been going on for about 8 years..My tastes have leaned heavily on hard rock from the 70's ( possibly the equivalent of a red sports car???).
This time around has been different, though. While I haven’t purchased a whole lot of CD’s so far, there are 2 titles in particular that I think will be of interest to most folks that read this blog. Further more, these were brought to my attention at work. City Hall Record’s purchase of Runt Distribution has not only brought us more business, it is bringing a new customer base that is heavier on the cred of cool alternative music (Walker Bros., Elliott Smith, Dillard & Clark, Judee Sill etc...)
The coolest thing I’ve heard yet is Van Duren’s Are You Serious?. I’ve gone through it twice now, and it is truly amazing. Liner notes compare him to Big Star, Todd Rundgren and Emitt Rhodes. To some degree I agree, but I’m also hearing a bit of Stories (with the vocals pitched down a tad!). It was recorded in 1977 and I think that puts the sound and the production in a weird and unusual place. There are some un-ironic synth parts mixed in occasionally, that while I love ‘em, they do tend to give this record a strange... aura. The dude sings well. It’s on the Water label and hopefully our shipping department can get it into the stores by the weekend.
The other very cool release we have at work is on Big Beat, a subsidiary label of the U.K.’s Ace Records. It’s a 2 disc set called Thank You Friends - The Ardent Records Story. It’s pricey ($31.98 list), but damned essential. I found Disc #1 of most interest. The Terry Manning tracks are great. The 2nd disc is almost entirely Alex Chilton, Chris Bell and Big Star demos and alternate mixes. If you’re a huge Big Star fan, you’ll need this. If you like them just fine, it could be a bit of overkill - I have found that in general the best versions of songs end up on the record and demos sound like...well, demos! Cool tracks by Rock City and The Hot Dogs are included. This could be hard to find - we way under-ordered - but should be getting more in soon!
I love the newer stuff by Ween, but their latest: La Cucaracha only made 2 trips through my player before I yanked it out and gave it to Stacey to trade back in at Amoeba Music. Hated it.
Speaking of Stacey...she brought me a copy of Pride Tiger's The Lucky Ones. Great hard rock the sounds like Thin Lizzy meets...I dunno..Pat Travers and Cactus. I usually don't think a whole lot about lyrics, but the ones here are pretty dumb. But it rocks!
Many people have been discussing the new REM album, but frankly, I was more interested in getting the new Black Crowes CD - Warpaint. Hard to justify this, I just like rockin’ out to these guys. It’s good, but not great, but a keeper nonetheless. Someday I’ll need to address my REM aversion, but it goes deep and not all that interesting, but I do hope it does well for them!
2 comments:
Are You Serious is a wonderful and overlooked classic pop album. I recently got to do a show with Van Duren at Otherlands in Memphis. He was splendid, still has all that range. I found myself singing along to songs I hadn't heard in thirty years.
You can still find the man here:http://www.vandurenmusic.com/
Cool! Thanks for the link. It's great to hear that he's still playing (Sounds like a pretty good line-up - wish I was there!). My goodness this album gets better every time I listen to it.
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