Alex Chilton: Dusted In Memphis (And Elsewhere 75-80) (Bangkok Productions/1980)

Alex Chilton had been a teen idol in the mid-late 1960's with blue-eyed soul band The Box Tops. He'd then been a power pop innovator in the early 1970's with Big Star. He then embarked on a long and sometimes controversial (amongst fans) solo career. The first release from his post-Big Star period was the Singer Not The Song EP released in 1977 on Ork Records. This was recorded in Memphis and was produced by rock critic Jon Tiven in 1975, and was released in its' entirety in 1981 as Bach's Bottom (a play on "Box Top"). But these recordings aren't really representative of the first true solo music Alex made with his first solo band.

Alex moved to New York City in February of 1977 and formed a band with Chris Stamey on bass (later of The dB's) and Lloyd Fonoroff on drums. Shortly thereafter Fran Kowalski joined the band on keyboards and they became known as Alex Chilton & The Cossacks. They regularly performed at CBGB's, Max's Kansas City and The Lower Manhattan Ocean Club. They were approached and courted by Elektra Records' Karin Berg, whom Alex had known for some time. Elektra funded recording sessions that were engineered by John Klett at Trod Nossel Studios in Wallingford, Connecticut with the hopes of signing the band.

These sessions yielded unique and interesting recordings of "She Might Look My Way" (which Alex had co-written with Tommy Hoehn), "Shakin' The World", "My Rival", "Windows Hotel", "A Little Fishy", "All Of The Time" and a cover of The Seeds' "Can't Seem To Make You Mine". Sadly, Elektra passed on these recordings deeming them "too uncommercial". This is a great shame as it is an excellent document of where Alex was at during this stage of his career (he wooed the critics during his time in NY, but not the major labels). Two recordings that were in fact released that Alex had recorded with Chris Stamey at Trod Nossel - the fantastically produced "The Summer Sun" b/w '"Where The Fun Is", released as a Chris Stamey single (produced by Alex, he also plays guitar, drums, percussion and shares vocal duties with Chris).

The Dusted In Memphis bootleg contains six of the seven Cossacks songs (omitting "All Of The Time"). Other songs included are a rough mix of "Lovely Day" (an outtake from Big Star's Third which eventually came out on the Keep An Eye On The Sky box set), "Baron Of Love Part Two" which appeared on the Peabody Records version of Like Flies On Sherbert in 1979 and "Take Me Home And Make Me Like It" & "The Walking Dead" (both later appeared on the Razor & Tie version of Bach's Bottom, the latter in an edited form). The Cossacks material (excepting "Little Fishy") later appeared in digital form on (also a bootleg) Beale Street Green.

"My Rival" was re-recorded in a drastically different arrangement and released on Like Flies On Sherbert and "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" was re-recorded an released on the B-Side of Alex's "Bangkok" single in 1978. A live version of "A Little Fishy" came out on the Japanese-only release One Day In New York. "She Might Look My Way" came out of Tommy Hoehn's Losing You To Sleep album.

Allegedly, the only copy of these recordings that anyone associated with band had was lost in the house fire that claimed Alex Chilton's mother's life. If this is true, and the masters have been lost, it is truly a great, great shame as these are possibly the best post-Big Star recordings of Alex's long solo career.

If you find this release, I high recommend you pick it up.

Here's the video review:

Special Thanks to: Ardent Records, Stephanie Chernikowski, Michael O'Brien & Allan Tannenbaum

Jerry Cole & His Spacemen: Surf Age (Capitol/1963 & Sundazed Music/2008)

Jerry Cole was one of the most sought-after session guitarists of the 1960's Los Angeles scene. He was a member of The Wrecking Crew and regularly appeared albums by The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Paul Revere & The Raiders and Little Richard. He also had a little band of his own known as The Spacemen. Jerry Cole & The Spacemen released three albums which were all released on Capitol Records. The second of these, Surf Age, has been reissued by the fantastic Sundazed Music (along with Hot Rod Dance Party) in a limited pressing of 1,000 copies on colored vinyl.

Surf Age is an instrumental surf rock album with your standard guitar, bass, drums arrangement. Songs are occasionally ornamented with organs, sometimes saxophones and lots of percussion. The album was produced by Jim Economides (who also wrote about half of the material) and it's a nicely recorded/produced album. The material is sometimes danceable in an old-school way. It's definitely a wonderful relic of its' time. I personally like the bass saxophones but I could do with out the sax solos - they're the one thing on the entire recording that "date" it, oddly enough. Whereas the standard guitar-bass-drums surf rock set-up is fairly timeless. The riffs are great but the material as a whole is somewhat on the forgettable-side.

However, these releases are a guilty-pleasure of mine as I'm way into this period of music (especially surf rock from the West Coast) so I'd recommend this to other like-minded fans as well. 

Here's the video review:

Too Much Joy: Dr. Seuss Is Dead EP (1994/Joybuzzer)

Too Much Joy was a punky power pop quartet with a sense of humor. Lead singer Tim Quirk wrote wonderfully witty lyrics and was able to touch upon young adulthood as well as the best in the field. The band had the unique ability to sound loose while in fact being a rather tight outfit thanks to the crack rhythm section of bassist Sandy Smallens and drummer Tommy Vinton.  They had an-almost MTV hit with "That's A Lie" (a rap-to-rock cover of the LL Cool J song) and a few hit singles on Billboard Modern Rock Tracks in "Donna Everywhere" and "Crush Story" (the latter of which deserved to be significantly more well-known than it ultimately became). 

                                    TMJ relaxing on the set of the "That's A Lie" music video


Too Much Joy was dropped by Giant in the Autumn of 1993 after the Forever In Your Face Tour and this was released during the big dry-period following the 1992 album Mutiny and preceding ...finally in 1996. This was issued by the official TMJ fanclub newsletter Joybuzzer in the Summer of 1994. It was offered to both new-subscribers and renewing-members, which was a pretty sweet deal. Joybuzzer was run by Clive Young and was all-around excellent zine.
 
"Just Around The Bend" sounds like a great lost early 90's TMJ single. "Never Work" is good but isn't done much justice by the soundcheck recording. "Hey Merlin" has cool would-be psychedelic lyrics but suffers from a clumsy arrangement (or perhaps that was just the performance). "Outtakes" for this EP are "Death Ray Machine" (later on Gods & Sods) and the great "Sunroof" (a Gods & Sods download-only bonus track via eMusic).

This blue 7" vinyl EP (at 33 1/3RPM) is pretty rare. It was a limited pressing of 500 or 1,000 copies. It was mastered directly from DAT to vinyl. Only "Hey Merlin" has since appeared in a digital format on Gods & Sods, but all three-tracks are available for a very inexpensive download from toomuchjoy.com. If you can find this nifty release, by all means, pick it up.


Here's the video review:

 Special thanks to: Clive Young of Pro Sound News and Joybuzzer Zine.

Check out: maplikemine.blogspot.com

The Replacements: Festival Pier, Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, PA Saturday 5/9/15

The surprising and wonderful reunion of The Replacements came to Philly this past Saturday Night. The location was the outdoor venue of Festival Pier at Penn's Landing right off of the Delaware River. The weather was humid, but certainly more than bearable given the occasion. The band took the stage with authority and purpose and blasted through "Takin' A Ride", "Favorite Thing" a medley of "I Don't Know/Buck Hill" and "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out" before catching their breath with the latter-day B-Side "Kissin' In Action". Original members, rhythm guitarist/vocalist Paul Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson were in excellent form as were new members lead guitarist Dave Minehan (ex-Neighborhoods) and drummer Josh Freese (ex-Vandals, currently in Devo).

                                             (Objects in photo are closer than they appear)

I'd seen the band four times from 1989-1991, all before the age of 15. Since then I have a new-found respect for the band and their legacy. From the bands' performance, it seems that they too have learned to respect their own legacy and they delivered a seriously great performance with very little shtick from Westerberg (he's finally learned to hide behind his songs and nothing more).

The twenty-five song set contained a few fan-favorite surprises ("Hold My Life", "Little Mascara", "Never Mind" and "Valentine"), and a lone random cover (Sham 69's "Borstal Breakout") in favor of originals the band had been performing regularly on their Back By Unpopular Demand Tour (their nearly mainstream hit "I'll Be You", "Color Me Impressed", "Skyway", "Waitress In The Sky" and "Merry Go Round"). Plus songs that were singles and should have been massively big songs (i.e."I Will Dare", "Can't Hardly Wait", "I'm In Trouble", "Alex Chilton" and "Bastards Of Young"). I was happy to hear them perform "Within Your Reach", "Nobody"and "Seen Your Video" (which they hadn't performed when I saw them last September at their amazing Forest Hills Tennis Stadium performance). 

I sincerely hope they continue playing thus making this a regular once-in-a-lifetime event for their fans.

Special Thanks: Scott Scherquist. 

Embarrassingly distant photo by the author.  

Bad Religion: No Control (Epitaph Records/1989)

Bad Religion is one of the longest-running bands from the original late 70's Los Angeles, California punk scene. Their fourth album, released in late 1989 on Epitaph Records (which was formed by Bad Religion guitarist  Brett Gurewitz) - No Control is arguably the band's greatest album. It one-ups their previous album (Suffer) ever-so slightly in terms of top-notch material and a brighter overall sound. Granted there's a certain samey-ness to the materiel (arrangement-wise) however this doesn't seem to detract from the overall impact of the album as a whole. 

 

Greg Graffin's sociopolitical and sociological concerns suit the materiel perfectly and the harmony vocal arrangements are extremely tight (as is the band itself). Greg Hetson and Brett Gurewitz's dual guitars are equally matched by the rhythm section of Jay Bently and Pete Finestone. The highlights include “I Want To Conquer The World”, “Automatic Man”, “Change Of Ideas”, “Sanity” and the title track.

If you're new to Bad Religion, this is about as good a starting point as any. Also recommended are Suffer, Recipe For Hate and Against The Grain.

Here's the video review:

Special Thanks: Amy Riley-McClelland.