Bootleg Review: Jason & the Scorchers' Absolutely Mannheim (2000)

JASON & THE SCORCHERS
Absolutely Mannheim
(Massive Attack CD-R #990167, 67:56 min)

SOURCE: Tracks 1 – 16, Mannheim Germany, June 10, 1985. Tracks 17-19, Farm Aid II, Austin TX 1986.

SOUND QUALITY: German set is fair audience (5) with significant drop-outs, clicks, fade-aways and enough hollowness and echo to make one wonder what sort of cave they recorded the songs in. Nevertheless, Jason’s vocals are reasonably clear and Warner’s guitar is up front in the mix. Farm Aid tracks are fair audience (5) with tinny sound, abrasive top end and a bit of distortion.

COVER: Typical Massive Attack packaging, with a B & W shot of Jason Ringenberg on the front and a pretty cool “American Gothic” styled B & W shot of the entire band on the back along with tracklist and venue info.

TRACKLIST: Lost Highway/ Last Time Around/ Are You Ready For The Country?/ Can’t Help Myself/ If You’ve Got The Love (I’ve Got The Time)/ Shop It Around/ Broken Whiskey Glass/ Help! There’s A Fire - Hot Nights In Georgia/ Pray For Me Mama (I’m A Gypsy Now)(incorrectly listed as “Still Tied”)/ Travelin’ Band/ Change The Tune/ You Win Again (incorrectly listed as “This Heart Of Mine”)/ Harvest Moon/ Absolutely Sweet Marie - If Money Talks/ Amazing Grace/ Shotgun Blues (incorrectly listed as “Far Behind”)/ Are You Ready For The Country?/ Broken Whiskey Glass (incorrectly listed as “Harvest Moon”)/ White Lies       

COMMENTS: From the dank ambience of Cantrell’s and the beer-soaked stage at Phranc-n-Stein’s, Jason & the Scorchers broke out of the primal early ‘80s Nashville club scene to hit the world stage, their 1985 tour of Europe earning them a considerable fan base in England, Germany and points north. Although the band worked consistently throughout the ‘80s – in fact, demand for their live shows kept the wolves from the door when EMI bankrupted them – they never quite crossed over to the mainstream. A couple of spins of Absolutely Mannheim show why the Scorchers earned such a rabid cult following, however. Their audience is so loyal that a couple of years ago, the live recording sessions in Nashville for Midnight Roads and Stages Seen drew Scorchers fans from across the U.S., South America. and northern Europe to take part in the fun.
 
Although the sound on Absolutely Mannheim, quite frankly, sucks, the performance is typical high-energy, high-octane Jason & the Scorchers. Touring Europe for the first time, supporting their first full-length album Lost & Found, the setlist here is almost identical to that on the rare Rock On Germany LP, an album that writer Clint Heylin considers one of the best bootlegs ever made. I’ve got a tape of that album, smuggled out of Germany by band members, and I believe that Absolutely Mannheim is even better. The performances are both exciting, but by the time of the Mannheim show, the Scorchers had been in Europe for three weeks and the live sets had really jelled. The set is pretty much normal for 1985-vintage Scorchers, the band performing most of the Lost & Found album mixed with cuts from the band’s critically-acclaimed Fervor EP and a couple tunes from their original Praxis label 7” EP, Reckless Country Soul.

With fifteen years of retrospection, original Scorchers songs like “Shop It Around,” “If Money Talks,” “Last Time Around,” and “Broken Whiskey Glass” are comfortable favorites; at the time they were precious cowpunk rave-ups that fused traditional country with punk energy and attitude, providing Nashville rockers with something to believe in. Inspired covers performed here include Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway” (which opened most every Scorchers set) and “You Win Again” (which would eventually be dropped from the set), Neil Young’s “Are You Ready For The Country?” and Dylan’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie.” A Scorchers signature tune, the video for “Absolutely Sweet Marie” would introduce the band to early-eighties MTV audiences.

An early version of “Shotgun Blues” from the Scorchers second album (incorrectly listed here as “Far Behind’) shows the band still fine-tuning the song while the rendition of CCR’s “Travelin’ Band,” sung by Scorchers guitarist Warner Hodges proves that Hodges should stick to his six-string wizardry. The Mannheim set presented here is probably a couple of songs shy of complete – missing is “White Lies,” the first single from Lost & Found and a staple of the band’s performances at the time. In a summer of high points, however, the Mannheim show stands as one of the highest, the 1985 European tour peaking with an appearance in front of 40,000 people at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark where Link Wray joined the band onstage.

Whoever put this disc together made a few glaring errors in terms of song titles. Who could ever confuse “Broken Whiskey Glass,” one of the band’s first songs and a signature tune, with “Harvest Moon,” a ballad from the Fervor EP (as they did here on the Farm Aid tracks)? Other songs are also misidentified, either by title or by confusing them with other Scorchers’ songs. There are also a couple of indexing errors where the band jumps from one song right into another, as with “Absolutely Sweet Marie” and “If Money Talks” with the producer/manufacturer missing it entirely. These ridiculous mistakes and generally aggravating sound quality aside, it’s nice to finally see a Scorchers show on disc. Absolutely Mannheim is an important document of one of rock’s most underrated bands. With the wealth of live Scorchers’ material circulating on tape, some of it of pretty decent quality, maybe we’ll see more of Jason & the Scorchers on CD in the future.

Review originally published by Live! Music Review zine, 2000

Bootleg Review: John Hiatt's Hiattology (1999)

John Hiatt
Hiattology
(Tendolar #TDR-116, 71:42)

SOURCE: Tracks 1 – 10, unnamed venue, Ottawa Canada, January 4, 1989; tracks 11 – 14, unnamed venue, Hamburg Germany Listed as December 1989 but probably from

SOUND QUALITY: Tracks 1 – 10, very good soundboard (8-9) offering crisp vocals and instrumentation with volume dropping a bit across tracks nine and ten. Tracks 11 – 12 are very good audience (7-8) with a slight bit of hollowness, overly bright vocals and editing dropouts between songs.

COVER: Front offers single-sided color portrait of Hiatt copped from an old album cover while the back offers another nicked photo and track information. Silver disc just shows the Tendolar name and the Hiattology title. Amusingly enough, the title is spelled correctly on the disc but misspelled on the front cover.

TRACKLIST: Memphis In The Meantime/ Drive South/ Thank You Girl/ Tip Of My Tongue/ Tennessee Plates/ Alone In The Dark/ Ride Along/ Is Anybody There?/ Paper Thin/ Thing Called Love/ I Don’t Even Try/ Love That Harms/ Love Like Blood/ Falling Up

COMMENTS: John Hiatt definitely falls into the category of “one of the best artists that you’ve never heard.” The consummate songwriter and a perennial critic’s favorite, Hiatt’s checkered career has seen him jump from label to label in search of some degree of security and commercial success. Along the way, he’s made over a dozen albums for almost half a dozen labels, created some great music, some music that was good but not great, and excelled musically in genres ranging from folk-oriented singer/songwriter material to angry “new wave” rave-ups to soulful, blues-infused rock.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with Hiatt as an artist, chances are that you’ve heard some of his work nonetheless – performers as stylistically diverse as Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, the Neville Brothers, Iggy Pop, and a slew of country types have recorded Hiatt songs, some with great chart success. Nevertheless, Hiatt remains somewhat of an obscurity, a talented and charismatic artist whose best efforts tend to bubble just under the mainstream. As such, Hiattology is a one of a rare breed – a John Hiatt bootleg – of which only a handful are known to exist. The disc features a performance from what is generally considered to be the commercial and critical peak of Hiatt’s career, the three-year period circa 1987-1989 that surrounds the release of his Bring the Family and Slow Turning albums.  

A fine soundboard recording from a January 1989 performance in Ottawa, Canada, the entire set showcased by Hiattology is drawn from the two aforementioned albums. Hiatt’s faithful legions of fans know this material like the back of their hands and it does, indeed, represent some of his best songs. Hiatt toured with a pick-up band dubbed the Goners during this period, this performance featuring the wonderful slide guitar of Sonny Landreth. All the material here is solid, but some songs stand out: “Memphis In the Meantime” is given a soulful, extended rendition while “Tennessee Plates” offers some particularly tasty riffage courtesy of Mr. Landreth. “Drive South” is pretty lively and “Thing Called Love,” a breakthrough hit for Bonnie Raitt, is performed here with heart, though less sass than Raitt’s version. Whoever edited this disc left in Hiatt’s between-song comments and intro, which definitely adds to the listening experience.

The final four songs on Hiattology are listed as from a December 1989 performance in Germany and feature guest stars Nick Lowe and Paul Carrack. Provided Hiatt’s onstage comments and given that the material is taken entirely from an earlier Hiatt album, Riding With the King, that was made with Lowe and Carrack, these songs are probably taken instead from a 1984 or ’85 performance. The four songs are good, but the true appeal of Hiattology lies in the Ottawa material. For those unfamiliar with Hiatt, this collection is a good way to discover the talents of this underappreciated performer and songwriter.

Review originally published by Live! Music Review zine, 1999

 

Vintage Review: John Hiatt's Beneath This Gruff Exterior (2003)

As a recording artist, John Hiatt has never achieved much more than cult status. He has never sold a lot of records; certainly not as many as other artists have recording Hiatt’s songs. Over the course of almost thirty years, however, Hiatt has forged a career of quiet excellence, creating nearly twenty consistently solid albums and writing hundreds of remarkable songs that lesser talents will be recording for decades to come. Entering his fourth decade of writing and performing, Hiatt epitomizes the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, and if he never makes the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, it will be that institution’s loss.

Hiatt’s Beneath This Gruff Exterior is another fine effort on the part of the underrated songwriter and his top-notch band the Goners. For those unfamiliar with Hiatt’s creative “modus operandi,” he pens literate songs that are peopled with brilliant characters – losers and lovers, the lost and the redeemed. Hiatt’s rough, soulful vocals are kind of like a frayed blanket, scratchy and worn but warm and familiar. The music is a mix of roots rock, Memphis soul, Delta blues, country, and folk, which is why Hiatt’s material lends itself so well to various interpretations.

Beneath This Gruff Exterior showcases both Hiatt’s songwriting skills and the road-worn chemistry of the Goners. Hiatt is not a bad guitarist, but he smartly steps aside and lets maestro Sonny Landreth fill his songs with whiplash slide work and a hint of bayou swamp-rock instrumental gumbo. The seasoned rhythm section of bassist Dave Ranson and drummer Kenneth Bevins keep an admirable beat beneath the festivities so that the magician Hiatt can weave his lyrical tales. The radio-ready "The Nagging Dark” rolls along like the runaway hearts of the song’s characters while “Circle Back” remembers the fleeting nature of friendships and family and the passage of time.

“Almost Fed Up With The Blues,” fueled by Landreth’s red-hot picking, is a brilliant anti-blues blues song, the protagonist sick and tired of being sick and tired. Hiatt’s imagery on “The Most Unoriginal Sin” is nearly the equal of vintage Dylan, Landreth’s shimmering fretwork creating an eerie atmosphere behind Hiatt’s somber vocals, the song’s star-crossed lover doomed before the first chorus strikes. Beneath This Gruff Exterior may not be the hall-of-fame caliber talent’s best album, but it doesn’t fall far from the top. (New West Records, released May 6th, 2003)

Review originally published by the View From The Hill community newspaper, Signal Hill CA

Vintage Review: John Hiatt's Hiatt Comes Alive At Budokan? (1995)

John Hiatt has created a lengthy and prosperous career out of outliving other people's expectations. Originally labeled as a young punk in the vein of Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson, way back in the mid-‘70s, Hiatt outlived that albatross only to be pigeonholed as a singer/songwriter. Several country hits penned for other artists threatened to stereotype this talented artist as a Music Row songmeister; a trio of brilliant albums in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s served to revitalize Hiatt's career and send him along the road to stardom. Unsatisfied, Hiatt threw critics another curve, recording an uncompromising rock ‘n’ roll record  – Perfectly Good Guitar – with a bunch of young alternative types. When will they get it into their heads that Hiatt is one of those rare originals that can't be categorized. Hiatt loves the music, genres be damned.

Having more fun that he probably ever has, Hiatt now kicks out this set of fifteen cuts, Hiatt Comes Alive At Budokan?, softly spoofing a trend towards live albums with the Budokan label on them that were hot shit when he first hit the scene. Recorded at a series of dates last spring (none of them in Japan), this collection is a fine representation of Hiatt's dynamic live performances. Culled from shows performed at venues as diverse and different as clubs, theaters, racetracks and auditoriums, Hiatt Comes Alive At Budokan? showcases Hiatt's extraordinary songwriting skills on tracks like “Icy Blue Heart,” “Angel Eyes,” “Have A Little Faith In Me,” “Tennessee Plates,” and my personal fave, the rocking “Perfectly Good Guitar.”

Hiatt is a soulful vocalist, pouring his heart into each cut, wrapping each song with great emotion and electricity. Regardless of the size of the forum, Hiatt's delivery is warm and personal; the backing band, The Guilty Dogs, a solid set of professionals following Hiatt's lead. Hiatt Comes Alive At Budokan? is not a "big sound" live disc like so many bands offer, instead it is a more subtle experience, one that plays to your heart and your mind rather than bludgeoning one into unconsciousness. In the marketplace of trends, this set may be overlooked; Hiatt transcends time, however, and cannot be refused his due. (A&M Records, released November 22nd, 1994)

Review originally published by R.A.D! Review and Discussion of Rock ‘n’ Roll zine, 1995

Vintage Review: Los Straitjackets' Sing Along With Los Straitjackets (2001)

It’s an established fact among experts in these sorts of things that Los Straitjackets have long been the coolest psychotronic surf guitar band in the known universe. Clad in Mexican wrestling masks, these mutant offspring of an unholy marriage of Dick Dale and Joey Ramone have kicked out four incredible albums of surf-garage-rockabilly instrumentals since 1995. With album number five, the fantastic foursome hit upon a novel idea – why not add vocals to the songs?

They do just that on Sing Along With Los Straitjackets, enlisting the help of accomplished vocal technicians like Raul Malo of the Mavericks, Leigh Nash of Sixpence None The Richer, Dave Alvin, Allison Moorer, Exene Cervenka of X, and many others. The result is a glorious collection of cover tunes, Los Straitjackets providing the power and various singers contributing the finesse to classic rock, pop, and country material like Roy Orbison’s “Down The Line,” Jessi Colter’s “I Ain’t the One” and Scooter Davis’ “The End of the World.”

Guitarists Danny Amis and Eddie Angel blaze like a house afire while beatmeisters Peter Curry and Jimmy Lester hold down the bottom line behind folks like the Rev. Horton Heat, Big Sandy, and Nick Lowe. The hippest CD you could buy this year, Sing Along With Los Straitjackets cements the reputation of these maniac musicians as the baddest surf-rocking daddios ever! (Yep Roc Records, released 2001)

Review originally published by the View From The Hill Community newspaper, Signal Hill CA

CD Review: Tennessee Blues Mob's Deep Dark Alibi (2024)

Mike Phillips’ 1990s-era Nashville band Peace Cry is a classic case of “should have been.” The band had a dynamic stage presence, socially-conscious lyrics and, in Phillips, a blowtorch vocalist with fearless, rage against the machine charisma. Sadly, although Peace Cry was phenomenally popular regionally, they never sniffed a label deal and went the way of so many other talented bands. Flash forward 30+ years and Phillips has hooked up with a new gang, the Tennessee Blues Mob, and I’m happy to say that they’re kicking ass and taking names. With Deep Dark Alibi, their six-song debut EP, Tennessee Blues Mob roars down the lost highway on fat tires and a tailpipe belching fire and brimstone, politesse disappearing in the rearview mirror as the band proceeds to steamroll everything in its path.

Phillips’ vocals are raw, unbridled screams from the abyss suitable for Norwegian death metal but better for hard-edged blues-rock. Wrapped around his inscrutable lyrics, Phillips vox channel the pissed-off spirits of a hundred Delta bluesman while the rest of the Mob rumbles on behind him with malevolent intent. Guitarist Shane Borchert is a beast, gnawing on his headstock and firing off blistering licks machinegun-style like it's the Valentine’s Day Massacre, but capable of subtlety and nuance when needed. Terry McClain’s keyboards add the right amount of grandeur to the songs, while the rhythm section of bassist Damian Robinson and drummer Scott Mincey create swaggering rhythms with jet engine precision. Monster performances like the stomping funk of “Climb the Mountain,” the soaring pathos of “Six Feet Under,” or the anguished “Two Devils,” with its stabbing Gothic keyboards, skid between your eardrums like an out-of-control Harley. With Deep Dark Alibi, Tennessee Blues Mob pursues a throwback ‘70s sound with a razor-sharp contemporary edge, more than living up to their billing as a “dark progressive heavy blues rock” band. BUY!

 
Review republished courtesy of That Devil Music.com...

CD Review: The Heartsleeves' Coverage (2024)

Nashville’s The Heartsleeves fill the void between full-length albums with Coverage, a two-song CD single that pays tribute to punk-pop legends All/The Descendents with a pair of high-octane cover tunes guaranteed to strip the chrome from your trailer hitch. The Descendents’ “Silly Girl” is provided Scott Feinstein’s scorched earth guitar licks and jagged, pummeling rhythms courtesy of bassist Preach Rutherford and drummer Brad Pemberton. Feinstein’s vocals are appropriately lofty, blunting the sharp edges of the instrumental track only slightly in the creation of a rapidfire, radio-friendly tune…if AM/FM conglomerates still had any dignity, that is. The raucous, unrelenting performance of All’s “Minute” ramjams its punky energy and inspired recklessness into your ear cavity, steamrolling across your brain, exiting stage right and leaving a confused smile on yer face. Checking in at a taut four minutes plus and hotter than an M80 in your hand, Coverage is the Reverend’s “pick to click” for relief from your heat-induced summer coma… BUY!   

Review republished courtesy of That Devil Music.com website... 

Vintage Review: In Pursuit’s When Darkness Falls EP (1985)

When Darkness Falls, as the first pop/rock release of the Nashville-based MTM Records, places a heavy burden on the shoulders of the musicians known collectively as In Pursuit. MTM holds a heavy rep in the entertainment industry as a producer of quality television programming appealing to an intelligent audience…and they’ll be expected to uphold the same high standards and quality in the recordings they release.

When Darkness Falls fulfills all expectations, succeeding on every level. In Pursuit rises to the implied challenge to create an inspired gem of ‘80s-styled pop music. The five songs on this mini-album are compact, complex vignettes, tales of modern life. Bassist Emma provides lead vocals on the majority of the cuts, showing an impressive range of emotion and style. In Pursuit’s instrumentation is sparse, placed handily behind the vocals in the mix, ‘cause, after all, the lyrics are the message.

My faves? Well, the title cut, a nifty little made-for-radio hopper, grabs my ears and “Sacrifices,” which features guitarist Jay Joyce’s understated though effective vocals, shows a great interplay of vocals and instruments…and Jeff Boggs’ drums are always on cue. In Pursuit’s When Darkness Falls is a quality creation just waiting for a quality audience. (MTM Records, released 1985)

Review originally published by The Metro, 1985

Nashville's In Pursuit