Memories: The Lost Liner Notes for Return To Elliston Square CD

Anybody who was “there” at the time knows that the Nashville rock music scene – circa 1980s – was an exhilarating, exciting time to be alive. Bands were doing interesting things, making incredible music as they were forming a local scene for the first time. A.J. Schaefer of local indie Spat! Records agrees, and his label has recently released the ultra-groovy compilation disc Return To Elliston Square, 1979-1989. The CD features 22 songs by a wealth of bands, including rare tracks from folks like Cloverbottom, the Ratz, and, yes, even the Enemy’s “Jesus Rides A U.F.O.”

At the label’s request, the Reverend wrote up some nice liner notes for Return To Elliston Square, outlining each band with a brief history, etc for each. Unfortunately, budget restraints prevented Spat! from using the full notes – they just used the intro section on the CD insert – so I thought that I’d post them here for the world to read. You can see the album’s full tracklist on the Spat! Records website, but here are the liner notes that you won’t get to read anywhere else!

The Lost Liner Notes for the Return To Elliston Square CD

It’s hard to believe, but at one time there were no local rock bands to speak of in Nashville. That’s right – no Kings Of Leon, no Pink Spiders, no Paramore splashed all over magazine covers nationwide. Back in the mid-‘70s there was just R. Stevie Moore and his pal Victor Lovera, writing songs and recording music down in the basement.

By the end of the decade, a new creative wind had started blowing across the Music City, inspiring a generation of young musicians. Some say it was the Ramones’ Exit/In show in January ‘79, some say it was the 1976 release of Stevie Moore’s Phonography, the city’s first entirely homegrown original rock album. Regardless, bands like Cloverbottom, the Smashers, Dave Olney & the X-Rays, and the Actuals began to pop up looking for places to play, a situation remedied by Rick Champion at the legendary Phrank ‘n’ Steins. Soon thereafter came the White Animals, Factual, the Ratz, and Jason & the Nashville Scorchers, opening the floodgates to a thousand and one bands. Andy Anderson’s Nashville Intelligence Report zine documented the growing scene and Vanderbilt’s WRVU-FM (91 Rock) played the music.

What you have in your hands is a collection of some of the best and brightest of Nashville’s first wave of rock bands, circa the ‘80s, when the local scene was still defining itself. There are a lot of deserving bands that didn’t make this volume, talented folks like Afrikan Dreamland, 69 Tribe, Chapel of Roses, Burning Hearts, Radio One, the Bunnies, and too many others to list. The bands that are represented here were not alone in creating a local rock scene that had never existed before in Nashville, but they are among the most interesting. Check ‘em out and hear for yourself where the fertile local rock scene of today began.

– Rev. Keith A. Gordon, curmudgeon and critic

Cloverbottom
In early-to-late-‘70s Nashville, the name “Cloverbottom” was a pejorative term, used to ridicule the person on the receiving end. Named for the city’s notorious center for the mentally retarded, Nashville’s first punk band was also one of the city’s first original rock bands. Booked by Rick Champion at the legendary Phrank ‘n’ Steins, the band played a few original tunes sprinkled in-between Buzzcocks and Stranglers covers. Cloverbottom’s core line-up of Rock Strata, Johnny Hollywood, and Bryan D’Beane recorded only one lone three-song EP, 1980’s Anarchy In The Music City, but those three songs still kick ass almost 30 years later!

Actuals
Too far ahead of its time, Nashville’s Actuals…later evolving into Actuel…stood alone as one of the city’s few electronic bands. The duo of vocalist/guitarist Steve Anderson and bassist Gary Rabasca made up the band’s core, pursuing a vision of high-tech music that was unique for the states at that time, and uniquely alien for the Music City audience. Under the Actuel name, the band released a couple of 12” EPs which, along with a 91 Rock benefit show appearance, won them a loyal local following. Dessau’s John Elliott and Factual’s Robb Earls were both members at one time.

Factual
Keyboard wizard Robb Earl was one of a handful of visionary local musicians in the early ‘80s, his band Factual combining keyboards/synth-driven new wave pop with strong rhythms to make what the band called “intelligent dance music.” Primarily a live outfit, Factual nevertheless appeared on both the Never In Nashville and London Side Of Nashville compilations as well as releasing a couple of 45s. Earls would go on to form Warm Dark Pocket and later open Sound Vortex studios, while guitarist Skot Nelson would play with Guilt and Dessau; Factual also included bassist Johnny Hollywood and powerful drummer Bones Brown.

Practical Stylists

 

Practical Stylists
Nashville’s power-pop kings are still fondly-remembered by early ‘80s Nashville fans as an entertaining live band with talent, guts and a unique guitar-driven melodic pop sound. When guitarist David Russell left, vocalist/bassist Scott Sullivant and drummer Jim Hodgkins recruited singer/songwriter/guitarist Bill Lloyd, fresh-off-the-bus-from-Bowling Green, to take his place, adding yet another dimension to the band’s already impressively deep sound. Although the Stylists’ recorded legacy is sparse…only a couple of now-collectible 45s…the band’s manager, Allen Sullivant, has managed to keep the flame alive with a seemingly endless vault of live tracks and video clips.

The Movement
One of the Music City’s most criminally-overlooked power-pop outfits, the Movement rocked local clubs like nobody’s business. Frontman Ritchie Owens was a veteran of bands like the Resistors, and original bassist Greg Herston earned his bones with Basic Static; along with guitarist Bob Ocker and drummer Bongo (Lerry Reynolds later replaced Herston), the Movement crafted a lively pop-rock sound that was British to the bone but fell right in line with turn-of-the-decade major label bands like the Shoes or Pezband, who all mostly took their cues from the Raspberries and Cheap Trick, anyways. The Movement, tho’, were really something special.

The White Animals
Depending on who you ask, the White Animals were either the second or third most popular live band in town during the early-to-mid-‘80s. Although nobody could touch Afrikan Dreamland onstage, the White Animals held their own with an original mix of garage-rock and ‘60s-styled psychedelic-pop with dub overtones. Over the course of half-dozen albums, released on the band’s indie Dread Beat Records label, the White Animals refined their sound and matured into a great rock band both on the stage and on vinyl. Why they never got a major label deal is one of the great mysteries of the decade…

The Young Nashvillians
The Young Nashvillians were, hands down, the most entertaining local band of the ‘80s! While other bands made great music, the Young Nashvillians were never about anything other than F-U-N. Formed in 1982 as a summer project, a four-track basement tape of songs made its way to Kevin Gray of the White Animals, who subsequently released the tape on Dread Beat as Metropolitan Summer in 1983. The band followed with The Young Nashvillians Are Here the next year before the members headed for school and careers. For a couple of glorious summers, tho’, the Young Nashvillians ruled the WRVU airwaves!

The Ratz
Although they presented as old school punks, from this late day, the Ratz sound like a new wave power-pop band to these ears. Regardless, one 7-incher was all that Nashville would get from the ultra-cool foursome, one of the first of a swelling wave of Nashville rock bands, and one of the restless best. Fronted by “Les Rat” (Les Shields) and “Joey Offbeat” (a/k/a Joey Blanton) with bassist “Randy Rodent” and big-beat skinman “Bone,” the Ratz lit up local clubs for an all-too-brief time. Next stop: Blanton to the Enemy, Shields to Raging Fire by way of Go Jimmy Dub.

The Enemy
Written by the Reverend back in 1985 (in Nashville Intelligence Report): “Formed in October 1984 by guitarists Joey Offbeat and Lee Carr, the Enemy chose to ignore the emerging undercurrent of a country punk/C&W revival by performing a daring mixture of hardcore, powerpop and metal-edged, drop-forged instrumentation. Trendy, unfair pigeonhole labels such as thrash or ‘three-chord rock’ fall before the Enemy’s twin scythes of energy and humour.” Hell, sounds good to me. Best known for the novel “Jesus Rides A UFO,” written by Nashville’s homeless poet laureate Gregory Mauberret, in truth, the Enemy was much better than most remember.

Shadow 15
When people talk about ‘80s-era Nashville rock, the name Shadow 15 inevitably crops up. Adored by just about everybody on the scene, the band’s meager recorded output, combined with the consistent quality of their music, has made them all the more legendary. It helps that the band’s adrenalin-fueled sound was complimented by a strong vocalist in Scott Feinstein, incredible guitarist Shannon Ligon, underrated bassist Barry Nelson and explosive drummer Chris Feinstein. They called their sound “garage rock,” but in reality Shadow 15 distilled the best of punk fervor and “shoegazer” rock with Sky Saxon’s reckless spirit, creating something entirely new and exciting.

Raging Fire
Originally known ‘round town as “Ring of Fire,” changing their name when it conflicted with another band, as Raging Fire these roots-rockers blazed a trail across the SE circuit like Sherman duck-walking through Atlanta. Fronted by the fiery Melora Zaner and driven by Michael Godsey’s wildneck guitar, which channeled Link Wray’s six-string mojo every night, Raging Fire quickly earned a national rep for their excitable live show. They coulda been big, they woulda been big, they shoulda been big – Raging Fire walked the walk with a sound that mixed Buddy Holly pop with X’s punk fervor and Hank’s lonesome heart.

Young Grey Ruins
Local writer and musician Allen Green (Suburban Baroque), in the pages of Andy Anderson’s Nashville Intelligence Report, described the music of Young Grey Ruins as “Psychedelic Furs gone garage or Ziggy Stardust gone punk…take your pick.” Allen wasn’t far from the mark, as this long-lost band’s sound was fresh, original, and unlikely, mixing three-chord overdrive with new wavish pop and blasts of sax in a shot for underground cred. YGR was short-lived, tho’, playing local dives (even opening for the Gun Club), and is mostly remembered for sending guitarist Shannon Ligon and bassist Barry Nelson to our beloved Shadow 15.

Government Cheese
Not strictly a local band per se, Bowling Green’s Government Cheese nevertheless orbited the Nashville club circuit like a red-hot comet. The band’s intelligent pop-punk sound was created by a tight-knit chemistry, talented musicians and the band’s charismatic frontman and primary songwriter, Tommy Womack. A couple of 12” EPs, a vinyl album, and a single CD – combined with constant touring and memorable live shows – sealed Government Cheese’s legacy as one of the region’s most popular and creative outfits. Womack’s memoir of the era, The Cheese Chronicles, remains the best book about a touring rock band that’s been written. Ever.

Walk The West
Walking a Morricone soundtrack across a lonesome, tumbleweed-scattered punk rock landscape, Walk The West – vocalist/guitarist/teen heartthrob Paul Kirby, the Goleman Brothers (Will on geetar, John on bass, respectively) and drummer Richard Ice – recorded a lone, lost album for Capitol/EMI before evolving into the Cactus Brothers. With a darker, earthier sound than Jason & the Scorchers, Walk The West rocked their roots hard, with just enough twang to show that they came from Nashville. Definitely one of the great unheralded alt-country bands, Walk The West was a good ten years ahead of its time.

Clockhammer
The odd man out among an ever-evolving late-80s local rock scene dominated by hard rock/metal, Clockhammer made fans and won critical acclaim everywhere but at home. Go figure. Could have been because the band’s sound – an inspired mix of metal, melody, and prog-rock elements – didn’t fit anywhere in the Nashville rock landscape. The trio of Byron Bailey, Matt Swanson, and Ken Coomer had mad musical chops and were crazy creative, and continue to be mentioned in whispered tones alongside other misunderstood geniuses like King’s X. Swanson still gigs around town, Bailey disappeared, and Coomer, well…he joined a band called Wilco.

The Shakers
Oscar Rice and Robert Logue were members of Royal Court of China, but when that band drifted towards becoming a nerf-metal caricature, the two split for the greener creative pastures of their side project, the Shakers. In Rebecca Stout they found a kindred soul and a unique voice that complimented the duo’s original folk-rock leanings. Truth is, professionally and musically, the Shakers were playing on an entirely different field than most other local bands, and they would have fit just as easily with ‘60s-era British bands like the Strawbs or the Incredible String Band as they did in late ‘80s Nashville.

Jet Black Factory
If I would have had to pick one late ‘80s Nashville band to play under the “Big Top,” I would have chosen Jet Black Factory without hesitation. JBF had a sound and vibe that stood apart from most of the region’s bands and, in Dave Willie, they had a charismatic frontman and gifted songwriter. JBF kicked serious ass, and could have easily mopped the floor with any of the Seattle bands that came a couple of years later…yes, Nirvana included. They didn’t make it big, of course, but their dark-hued guitar-drone and intelligent lyrics made for some excellent music to remember.

F.U.C.T.
There may have been local bands that rocked harder than Forever Ungratical Corinaric Technikilation (F.U.C.T.), but none did it with the zeal and unflagging spirit of Nashville’s hardcore heroes. In their day, F.U.C.T. would pull ‘em in from all over the south, and all ages. It helped that the band was mostly as young as its audience – and as rowdy – and singer Clay Brocker’s fierce onstage presence and natural charisma, along with the blistering metallic onslaught of the band’s songs, earned them a significant following that remembers F.U.C.T. fondly, even today. Uncompromising and influential, the band still plays live occasionally.

Dessau
A veteran of music scenes in both Nashville and Chicago by the early-80s, John Elliott had a particular vision and the foresight to predict, early in the game, the rise of industrial dance music. Beneath the crashing metallic rhythms and hard-chromed Sturm und Drang of the Dessau sound, a mechanical heart was steered by a strong creative hand. Often working with underground ghetto superstars like producer Martin Hannett and Ministry’s Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker, Elliott and bandmates like Skot (and Barry) Nelson, Mike Orr and Norm Ray…er, Rau forged a sound that was heard on dancefloors around the globe.

Word Uprising
They only lasted about a year, but had they stuck around, Word Uprising had the talent and songs to go somewhere beyond Elliston Square. Another band o’ veterans, including Faith Like Guillotine drummer Mark Beasley and Jet Black Factory’s David Jones (on guitar), with MTSU students Fred Greene (vox) and Bill McLaurine (bass), Word Uprising quickly built a local buzz with a buzzing mix of screaming NWOBHM fretwork and blasting cap drumbeats that would leave your head ringing (in a good way). They wanted to fuse ‘70s-style hard rock with ‘80s alt-pop and, for a while, they did just that.

Alien In The Land of Our Birth
Long before Today Is The Day, there was Alien In The Land of Our Birth, an experimental rock band that fused avant-noise with hardcore punk, taking Pere Ubu’s sonic madness to its illogical extremes and blasting Nashville audiences out of their shoes. Guitarist Steve Austin came late to the party, which started with drummer Brad Elrod, guitarist Billy Loffler III, and bassist Leo Granados, perhaps Nashville’s first Hispanic rocker. The band garnered significant radio airplay on 91 Rock and won a Nashville Music Award before splintering off into, most notably, acclaimed noisemakers Today Is The Today with Austin and Elrod.

The Grinning Plowman
For a few short years, the Grinning Plowman – Nashville’s favorite cult band – dominated the scene with a sound that was as avant-unusual as anything the city’s dark corners ever produced. Plodding, like a stoner-rock band, with tribal rhythms and razor-sharp fretwork…kinda like the Doors-meet-Candlemass with a dash of Killing Joke. Guitarist Keith Barton tore off some meaty riffs while Janet Ake and Derek Greene kept the heart beating and vocalist Michael Ake bravely sojourned across the band’s sludge-rock horizon. Another “coulda, woulda, shoulda” Nashville band, the Grinning Plowman’s Carlyle label stuff stands among the best the era has to offer.

(Correction: John Elliott of Dessau got in touch to let me know that he was the drummer on Cloverbottom’s Anarchy In The Music City EP. Sorry ‘bout that, folks...)

Vintage Review: Raging Fire’s Everything Is Roses, 1984-1989 (2015)

Nashville is a far different city in 2015 than it was 30 years ago. The Music City has become far more musically diverse, and the city’s rock music scene no longer exists beneath ground, with performers relegated to dive bars like Elliston Square or Cantrell’s. After all, Jack White lives in Nashville now, as do those two guys from the Black Keys, and the city has recently attracted talented immigrants like bluesman Keb’ Mo’. Even the city’s prodigal son, cult rocker R. Stevie Moore, has returned to Nashville.

These days, homegrown Nashville rock bands like Jeff the Brotherhood and Kings of Leon get glowing mentions in Rolling Stone magazine but, back in the day, as a freelance music journalist championing the city’s non-country music scene, I couldn’t get magazine editors on either coast interested in what was going down in Nashville. Jason & the Nashville Scorchers would score a major label deal, but for every local band that would eventually be beaten up and disappointed by the music biz, there were a dozen talented bands like Practical Stylists, Civic Duty, or Shadow 15 that were left standing outside the gates to heaven looking in…  

Ring of Fire

Raging Fire was one of those bands that deserved more, and during their brief tenure on the local scene – circa 1985 to 1989 – they nevertheless managed to make a bigger splash in our small rock ‘n’ roll pond that just about any other local Nashville band at the time. Originally formed under the name Ring of Fire by singer Melora Zaner, guitarist Michael Godsey (who sadly passed away in 2012), bassist Les Shields, and drummer Mark Medley, and managed by ‘man about town’ (and former Phranks n’ Steins booker) Rick Champion, they changed their name to Raging Fire and began dominating the handful of stages available around town with their high-octane performances.

The members of Raging Fire had come up through the fledgling local scene: Zaner from the band Color Flag; Shields from the Ratz, one of the city’s first punk bands; and Godsey and Medley from Committee for Public Safety (CPS), Nashville’s first hardcore band. Their musical influences were as diverse as the members themselves, ranging from classic rock like Led Zeppelin and the Who to erudite punks like X and psychobilly pioneers the Cramps. Fronted by the diminutive Zaner, whose larger than life vocals exuded raw sexuality, the singer was backed by a hungry, ferocious gang of musicians. The retrospective Everything Is Roses, 1985-1989 looks back at Raging Fire’s too-short career, which included only an EP and a full-length album alongside a handful of compilation tracks by which to remember these Nashville rock trailblazers.

Raging Fire’s Everything Is Roses

Fond memories of a band don’t mean much if the music hasn’t held up well after a quarter century, and Raging Fire’s unique sound has proven to be as timeless as it is exciting. Everything Is Roses opens with “A Family Thing,” from the band’s 1985 EP of the same. With a deceptive intro dominated by Zaner’s angelic vocals and Godsey’s acoustic strum, the song literally explodes into a tsunami of chaotic instrumentation. Zaner’s vocals bob up and down through the sonic storm like a warning light as the band continues its instrumental barrage, changing directions so frequently as to create a sort of satisfying whiplash. The rhythmic “You Should Read More Books” is of an entirely different construct, with Medley’s knockout drumbeats and Shields’ dynamic bass playing creating an exotic foundation beneath Zaner’s breathless vocals, with shards of Godsey’s imaginative fretwork puncturing the song’s wall of sound.

“Beware of a Man With Manners” changes directions again, the band evincing a fierce punk undercurrent beneath its Southern Gothic lyrical trappings. Zaner’s vocals here sound a lot like Exene Cervenka while her lyrics channel a similar whipsmart literary edge. Godsey’s guitar playing is amazing here, dancing from 1970s-era arena rock histrionics to switchblade-punk thrash while the rhythm section provides an enormous presence, Shields’ bass holding down the arrangement so that it doesn’t fly off the rails while Medley’s reckless percussion threatens to teeter off the tracks at any moment.

Faith Love Was Made Of

The album's title track, “Everything Is Roses,” serves as the band’s signature song, a blinding performance taken from the City Without A Subway album, a 1986 Vanderbilt University radio station (WRVU) compilation. A monster track that made listeners sit up and take notice, Zaner’s vocal performance is pure lightning in a bottle, soaring above a trashy soundtrack fueled by Medley’s machine-gun drums and Godsey’s flamethrower guitar, the song itself an amalgam of punk-rock, Southern roots, and obtuse poetic lyrics that would make Zimmerman proud. By the time that the band recorded it sole full-length album, Faith Love Was Made Of, in 1986, Shields had left the band, replaced by local scene veteran Lee A. Carr (R.I.P.) of the Enemy.

Carr brought a more anarchic style to the band as opposed to Shields’ strong, soulful rhythms. The other members of Raging Fire had grown, musically, during the interim, the band gradually evolving, as so many do, by performing frequently across the country. “Knee Jerk Response” is a perfect example of this growth, the song a complex blend of Zaner’s vocal gymnastics, Godsey’s razor-blade guitar, and Medley’s more nuanced, but still powerful percussion. By contrast, “You and Me” is sheer punk-rock fury; a runaway arrangement with heavy instrumentation that often buries Zaner’s vocals, Medley’s tribal drumbeats giving way to the blind emotion displayed by Godsey’s screaming strings.

Hear Rock City

Taken from the 1988 CMJ (College Music Journal) compilation LP Ten of a Kind, “The Marrying Kind” was a Raging Fire fan favorite and a constant presence on the WRVU-FM playlist. Raging Fire rubbed elbows on that album with such esteemed “underground” artists as the Gunbunnies and Material Issue as one of the best unsigned bands in the U.S. A more subdued song than some of their milieu, “The Marrying Kind” offers one of Zaner’s best lyrical compositions, with aggressive, emotional vocals to match, Godsey’s six-string work displaying scraps of surf-guitar melody, albeit played with a punkish intensity, Medley’s steady timekeeping supporting the rhythmic playing of new bassist John Reed.

“A Desire Scorned,” from the Nashville Entertainment Association’s cassette compilation Hear Rock City: Tennessee Tracks, offers another great example of the band’s growth. The song’s poppy, melodic opening falls behind a delightfully textured arrangement built on the interplay of Godsey’s shimmering fretwork, bassist Glenn Worf’s bass line, and Medley’s cascading drumbeats with Zaner’s vocals displaying more maturity and confidence as they soar effortlessly above the dense instrumental backdrop.

Demos & Live Tracks

The CD and digital download version of Everything Is Roses include a wealth of rare live tracks and demo tapes, the most fetching of these being “Hands of God,” an unreleased 1989 demo with Rusty Watkins on bass and Jerry Dale McFadden (The Mavericks) on keyboards. The song opens with swirls of psychedelic guitar, and offers an explosive light/dark dynamic with Zaner’s vocals often flying solo through the mix only to be eventually overwhelmed by Watkins’ textured bass lines and McFadden’s inspired, 1960s-styled psych-rock B3 riffs.

Recorded in 2015 specifically for this release, “More Than This” is an update of a song originally released on Faith Love was Made Of. With Shields returning on bass, Medley on drums, and Zaner’s still-potent vocals up front, the late Michael Godsey’s role in the band is assumed by twin guitarists Joe Blanton (Royal Court of China, the Bluefields) and Warner Hodges (Jason & the Scorchers, the Bluefields). The result is a muscular rocker with incendiary fretwork layered in beneath Zaner’s voice, which doesn’t seem to have lost a step since 1989. The performance is of a harder style of rock, perhaps, than vintage Raging Fire, proving that Zaner’s distinctive vocal style plays well in any setting.

Collectible Formats

There aren’t many complaints to be made about Everything Is Roses. The band has released this vital slab o’ Nashville rock ‘n’ roll history in various formats, including a limited edition, extremely-collectible eleven-track vinyl album (which includes gems like “A Family Thing,” “Everything Is Roses,” and “The Marrying Kind”) as well as a 22-track compact disc and a 26-song lossless digital download (a download card comes with the vinyl version). All three formats feature an illustrated booklet with informative and insightful liner notes by Nashville music journalist (and friend of the band) Michael McCall.

Much of the production here is thin, which is more a function of the band’s original recording budgets than anything else, and thanks to producers and engineers like Mike Poole, Jeff Johnson, Richie Owens, and Rick Will, the band eschewed the stilted, unbearable production clichés that plague so many 1980s-era rock recordings. The strength of the performances transcends the production, however, jumping off the grooves and grabbing you by the ears. The band’s core members of Zaner, Godsey, and Medley clearly had an artistic vision for Raging Fire that they stuck to through thick and thin, and while they ran through a number of talented bass players during the band’s brief existence, the music never suffered.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Raging Fire was a band far ahead of its time and sadly, they may have given up the ghost too early, just as musical trends were changing from the Aquanet-drenched nerf metal oozing from the gutters of Los Angeles towards the more organic, alt-rock turf of the 1990s that was friendlier to a band with imagination. Nevertheless, Everything Is Roses is more than a mere nostalgia-tinted look backwards at a band that never made it, the compilation instead a worthy snapshot of a time and place when an outfit as original and energetic as Raging Fire, with an enormous musical chemistry, could develop outside of major label demands and expectations.

Fans of Nashville’s early rock scene will appreciate Everything Is Roses as a fond reminder of their misspent youth. For those who of you were never lucky enough to have caught Raging Fire perform live back in the day, or never chanced upon one of their songs playing on a college radio station, the performances here should come as a revelation, the distant sounds of a young band that never failed to deliver smart, passionate, literary music that still rocked like a tornado in a trailer park. Grade: A (Pristine Records, released October 6, 2015)

Review originally published by That Devil Music blog...

Vintage Review: Raging Fire’s These Teeth Are Sharp (2017)

Nashville’s Raging Fire was, perhaps, the best ‘80s-era band that you never heard. As recent as a couple years back, unless you were blessed by the gods of rock ‘n’ roll to have seen one of their Southeastern performances during the band’s too-brief tenure, all that remained of their legacy was a pair of firecracker recordings and a red-hot memory branded into your brain. Formed in 1984, they were gone by ’89, swept away by the plodding hoofbeats of grunge, the architects of the band’s unique sound and fury moving on to jobs, families, and lives outside the realms of rock.

Sometimes the gods smile upon we mere mortals, however, and such was the case when Raging Fire’s surviving members – powerhouse vocalist Melora Zaner, bassist Les Shields, and drummer Mark Medley – decided to take a look back at their collective past and honor the memory of their fallen band members, guitarist Michael Godsey and bassist Lee Carr, by releasing the retrospective set Everything Is Roses, 1985-1989. Collecting every sonic scrap recorded by the band for posterity, as I wrote upon its release, “Everything Is Roses is more than a mere nostalgia-tinted look backwards...the compilation instead a worthy snapshot of a time and place were an outfit as original and energetic as Raging Fire, with an enormous musical chemistry, could develop outside major label demands and expectations.”

Raging Fire’s These Teeth Are Sharp

In the wake of the 2015 release of Everything Is Roses, Raging Fire got back together and, with some friends pitching in to help, they performed a reunion show in Nashville. That led to the writing of some new songs and, long story short, a wondrous new 2017 Raging Fire album titled These Teeth Are Sharp, the band’s 30+ years-in-the-making follow-up to 1986’s Faith Love Was Made Of album. The core gang of Zaner, Medley, and Shields are here along with contributions from friends like guitarists Joe Blanton (The Bluefields, Royal Court of China) and Jeff Cease (The Black Crowes, Rumble Circus) and keyboard wizard Giles Reaves (one of the Music City’s most underrated talents). The old musical chemistry is definitely present, even with addition of the band’s new playmates, making the nine songs to be found on These Teeth Are Sharp every bit as raucous, intelligent, and anarchic as the band has ever been.

From the opening riff of the title track, one can hear the presence of something supernaturally special. Zaner sings unlike any vocalist you’ve ever heard, her kittenish voice capable of twisting emotion into a things of dark beauty while the backing instruments shift directions with whiplash brutality. “A Narrow Sky” shows its talons early on with swooping guitar licks and Zaner’s poetic lyrics yielding devastating imagery like “do you know the feeling when the air closes in as quiet as the grave?” which is sung in an ethereal voice as menacing as it is seemingly innocent. The album’s lone cover, of the 1960’s-era Rufus Thomas hit “Walking the Dog,” is as alien an interpretation of the Memphis soul classic as you’ll ever hear with breathless, stilted vocals, sparse rhythm, and delightfully jagged fretwork that work in spite of the fact that it probably shouldn’t.

By contrast, “Free to Be” is a bouncy pop song with rapid-fire vocals (some sung in Chinese…), Medley’s stormy percussion, jangly guitars, and an altogether energetic vibe that seems like a genetic hybrid of R.E.M. and the Talking Heads but with pure Raging Fire DNA. “Raindances” is a rocker with imaginative guitarplay coupled with John Reed’s concrete bass lines and Medley’s unrelenting drumbeats, tho’ it, too, throws a spanner in the works with quiet passages that crescendo to an explosive finish. These Teeth Are Sharp closes with “Dreams From Under the Love Seat,” one of the band’s few songs with lyrics written by drummer Medley, who displays a knack for imagery-drenched wordplay. Zaner delivers a stellar vocal performance while the guitars sting with the anger of a thousand wasps and the instrumentation, overall, washed over you like a gentle tsunami.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Here in 2017, Raging Fire is, perhaps, the best band that you’ve never heard. This time, however, you can change this sorry status by heading over to the band’s website and grabbing up a copy of These Teeth Are Sharp before Raging Fire once again disappears into the mists of time. The band’s blend of words and music is as alchemical as it’s ever been as they expand upon their original sound without treading across old creative grounds, exploring new creative pathways. There’s plenty for the band’s old fans to like about this year’s model of Raging Fire, and a world of wonder for the newcomer to explore. The gods of rock ‘n’ roll are pleased… Grade: A (Pristine Records, released May 12, 2017)

Review originally published by That Devil Music blog