Who’d a thought? All it took was David Lee Roth and I can stay awake through the whole thing! Does this seem okay to do to you? I really don’t care. I don’t care about either song really, but if I did this wouldn’t bother me any more than a car commercial.
4ZSad2HmTJE]
I had a friend that used to be a big Stones fan and he always liked their cover songs. I do too, but he used to just think everything he heard would have been better had The Stones done it. I’m thinking in particular that he thought The Stones would have absolutely killed Billy Thorpe‘s “Children of the Sun.” I never liked that song, but who knows?
J_wIcNtBNfo]
I know what song I always wanted them to do. I wanted them to do it because I thought it would have kicked ass on Rod Stewart‘s version, and I like the way Rod did this song. I can just imagine Keith and Mick Taylor slashing through this, and Jagger would have owned this one. Besides, Charlie would have only done a cursory drum solo, letting the guitars get right back to work.
LKO1037uK9E]
I also wish The Stones would have released their version of “Drift Away” (I’ll use an mp3 of it; the YouTube versions seem to cut off early and it’s been awhile since I shared any of the vaults with you guys), but they recorded it while it was still pretty high in the charts, I think. Still, it would have been a nice B-side.
What song would you like to see them cover?
Has Townsman 2000 Man been away from the Halls of Rock for longer than usual, or have I been so busy myself that I haven’t noticed his always-welcome presence? I hope all is well with 2K and that he’s resting on some faraway beach. In the meantime, some disgusting excerpts from a forthcoming tell-all by Milner‘s jailbait shotgun passenger, Mackenzie Phillips, reminded me of the following delivery by 2K, in response to an earlier thread he posted. These solo Papa John tracks creeped people out too. Enjoy!
This post initially appeared 1/23/08.
By request. I can’t believe you guys don’t think this is as bad as I do. I’m gonna take a shower now.
John Phillips, “Zulu Warrior”
I got an email the other day that’s the best news I’ve had all year. The Dexateens are releasing their new album, Singlewide and for the first time ever, they’re going to tour to promote it! You probably don’t know who The Dexateens are, but in my little part of the world, they get as much play as any other band I’ve ever followed. They were my New Favorite Band back before someone at Fox pissed me off and I quit my occasionally updated and hardly read blog. They have too many releases to maintain that title, so they just fall into the category of one of My All-Time Favorite Bands Ever category.
I found out about them in the best way to find out about a band. I was shopping at My Mind’s Eye in Lakewood, OH and in the miscellaneous “Ds” I saw their first album. I liked the cover, and I loved their name. I flipped it over and saw they were on Estrus and I figured the odds were damned good that this band was gonna have some guitar firepower. I have always shopped like that, and I usually have good luck. I had a few other things that day and when I got in my car I listened to those while I was driving around doing my job. I never got around to The Dexateens that day, but the next day I looked at the stack of new stuff and popped that in first and headed for the other side of town.
I don’t know what it is about twangy punk that I like, but it’s something. I never cared much for Southern Rock, mostly because I never much cared for The South, I guess. I live as far North as you can get in my part of the country, and if you go a few miles north in Lake Erie, you’re in Canada. So I feel a lot more in common with that nation than I do with the Deep South of my own country. I hate the racism and the stereotypes of The South, and my few dealings and visits there didn’t do anything to change my mind. When I popped in the first Dexateens album and “Cardboard Hearts” staggered up and slapped me in the face I knew I was gonna be hooked. This was fast, sloppy, loud and just made me want to knock off early, get some beers and make some noise!
The Dexateens, “Cardboard Hearts”
I had started listening to Drive By Truckers around that time, and I was seeing that the music coming out of The South was completely different from what I thought it would be. I like DBT, but I’m not one of their legendary fans. They just made me think I shouldn’t judge 50 or so million people by some hang-ups I had. I’d been listening to Lucero a lot and I was feeling pretty wrong about a lot of my preconceptions of The South, and here was a band that just seemed all fired up for fun. I was totally unprepared for “Cherry,” a 200 mph bitter diatribe against Bobby Frank Cherry, a white guy that bombed a Black church in 1963, killed four Black girls and lived free to boast about it until 2002. Then he was tried and put in jail, and that’s where the SOB died. These guys – The Dexateens – seemed like a band I could really get behind. By the time the Stonesy “Shelter” played, I really thought I might just play the first five songs on this album all day and never move past them. I started looking all over to see if they would play in Cleveland, because I couldn’t wait!
When their second album, Red Dust Rising, came out in 2005, I was ready for another sonic assault with some decent lyrics and plenty of guitars. They were still on Estrus and I was pretty sure that it would just be more of the same, but that sameness would be just fine by me. What I got was still plenty of guitars, but more twang, and a more deliberate pace. I was thinking maybe they needed a slow song so they could take a break a little during their shows, but this was different. I had tried finding out something about them, and it led me to a band called The Quadrajets who were a big influence on The Dexateens. I really assumed Red Dust Rising would be the same thing, and I was wrong. They still played some things fast and loud, but they were tighter and their sound was more their own. It’s definitely Southern Rock, but where that wall used to be impenetrable to me, their attitude and good sense to use many loud guitars whenever possible had me won over. I hate picking songs from this album for you, because I think everyone should have this one and there isn’t a weak spot on it. I think “Take Me to the Speedway” portrays their frustration of things in The South, but it works as a personal relationship, which I think is something Southerners feel more deeply than those of us up North. “Devoted to Lonesome” almost caught me by surprise, but that had already happened with the title track, and I knew I had found a band that I could really get behind. Still no Cleveland shows, though. I consoled myself with the boogie of “Pistol Totin’ Man.”
The Dexateens, “Take Me to the Speedway”
The Dexateens, “Devoted to Lonesome”
The Dexateens, “Pistol Totin’ Man”
(Much more after the jump!)
Continue reading »
Guitar Firepower is a dangerous thing and shouldn’t be attempted by dabblers. Madonna may be a great star, but I don’t think she was ready for the awesome kickback a real guitar generates.
I’m going to try to start a little series inspired somewhat by BigSteve’s awesome Pub Rock articles, but just as much as an idea I’ve had forever to come up with a way to share all the bands from Ohio, or that were Big in Cleveland but never seemed to make it anywhere else. I know a lot of people think supporting local music is just going out to clubs, but these bands are releasing albums and singles (or did) and I think it’s a shame that they were (or are) largely ignored, often right here in their home state. There probably won’t be any rhyme or reason for why I pick someone, other than I like them.
I’m going to start with The Damnation of Adam Blessing. This was a band from the West Side of Cleveland, firmly rooted in the hard, psych-blues rock of the late ’60’s, early ’70’s. Some of the lyrics are uncomfortably corny these days, but there’s no denying the big riffs, slamming drums, and heavy bass that’s kind of stayed on as a driving factor in rock music from the Midwest. It may be dated, but I think it’s part of our DNA. As much as I like Punk or Americana or whatever it is that I like, I always fall back on bands with big riffs and loud guitar solo’s. It’s like my baseline, and I think it’s like that for a lot of bands from Ohio no matter what genre they wind up being a part of.
At some point their name was shortened to just Damnation, but everyone I’ve ever known has used their full name whenever they talked about them. While they truly belonged to the generation just before mine, I knew a few kids that listened to them besides me, but we were way too young to go see them. Finding their records used to be easy. They were on United Artists, so there was always a copy at the store if you wrecked yours or gave it away to a friend visiting from out of town. I remember going to replace my copy of the first album one day and finding out that they were just gone, out of print and unavailable. Back then Record Conventions were pretty new (I think), and the out of town dealers would mark up some of our beloved old Cleveland bands to ridiculous prices, so I didn’t replace my Damnation music for years. I had a crappy cassette of some beat as all hell LP’s, and that just had to be good enough.
Damnation released three albums, and a fourth that was called Glory was actually Damnation but due to disagreements with United Artists, the band was forced to change their name (or so I’ve heard). I don’t have Glory, but I remember hearing it and being incredibly underwhelmed. Even the band members kind of shirk off that album, like bass player Ray Benisch:
In January of 1982 I was involved in a domestic shooting, at which no one was permanently injured. Inspite of having no prior criminal record, (except for that Glory album), I was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
An Italian label called Akarma released all the albums, and even released a boxed set of the first three albums. The boxed set is beautiful, with gatefold LP sleeve style jackets and the full artwork from the albums with a poster and a great booklet included. The booklet has a history of the band along with some quotes from interviews of the band. There’s really very little reference material on the band, outside of an article Ugly Things did and the boxed set booklet. Damnation were contemporaries of The James Gang and shared bills with them. They also opened for The Faces, Grand Funk Railroad, and Eric Clapton. They tell a story about Iggy and The Stooges that makes it sound like they really didn’t quite get what The Stooges were all about. I have to say, they really did get a shot with UA and their distribution network and management that could get them on stage with some pretty big crowds to see them. I’m not really sure why they’re so unknown.
Their fans have generally pointed out that what separates them from the hard rock bands of their era is their sense of melody and their harmony vocals. I don’t necessarily agree with that, because the songs I like best are probably their least melodic, but the vocals do add a lot of depth that a lot of the Power Trio’s of the time could never come close to. Unfortunately I also think it’s those vocals that lend themselves easily to orchestration, and orchestration tends to be overkill. The addition of strings on their third album, Which Is the Justice, Which Is the Thief? don’t add much to the music. In fact, they tend to overwhelm the band, and leave them struggling to be heard over the orchestra. Which Is the Justice… may not have been much better without the strings, but the label just added them after Damnation turned over their tapes for the album. The band was really unhappy with the end results, and I can’t blame them. Damnation could pull off a ballad like “Everyone,” and they didn’t need a string section and grand piano to write new outros to tack on to the end of their songs.
Damnation of Adam Blessing – “Morning Dew”
Damnation of Adam Blessing – “Back to the River”
Damnation of Adam Blessing – “Last Train to Clarksville”
Damnation of Adam Blessing – “Cookbook”
Nonetheless, their first two albums, Damnation and The Second Damnation are excellent examples of Midwestern hard rock. “Cookbook” is an original song that shows off all the band’s strengths in one nice, tight little song. I can remember seeing high school bands still playing that song when I was a kid, almost 10 years after the album had come out. I’m pretty sure they patterned their version of “Morning Dew” after The Jeff Beck Group’s version, but I grew up hearing Damnation’s version on the portable record players and car stereos of my youth. I can remember the first time I heard their version of “Last Train to Clarksville” and kind of freaking out because they were playing a Monkees song! How could a band with a name I wasn’t supposed to even say in front of my mom be playing a Monkees song? It was kind of cool, though. It was certainly better to my teenage ears than anything the Monkees had ever done. I like the rest of the album because it’s a little druggy and just a great late night record.
Continue reading »
I’m too young to have remembered Buddy Holly or Richie Valens, but I grew up with their music all around me. Maybe this would really be a better Mother’s Day post, because Mom’s the one who really got me interested in Rock n’ Roll (the Rock Nerd Obsession was not the desired effect, I’m sure), and Buddy Holly was mom’s favorite. She loved all the big stars of the ’50s, but she said Buddy was the one.
In eighth grade I took a History of Rock class. It was 1976, and it was a full year and counted as a real music class, even good for high school. I think that was a pretty progressive class back then, and I don’t think they offered it much more than that one time. We got to bring in records, and I loved the early part of the class because I had records I could borrow from my mom to bring in. Digging Chuck Berry was weird enough, but Buddy Holly was pretty unknown in our Jr. High; so while I was excited the only person in the room as excited as me was my teacher. We often just had conversations between the two of us with 25 other kids slack jawed or sleeping around us. He’s the one that explained how Buddy’s arrangements and studio knowledge was way ahead of the game to me. He used to say, “Man, if that plane hadn’t crashed I think you’d hear more Latino rhythms in rock ‘n roll from Richie Valens, and Buddy Holly would have done a studio masterpiece like Sgt. Pepper years before The Beatles.” He had some other theories I tend to agree with too, but I was just excited to see that Buddy was more to the world than just some old guy my mom liked.
