"Dr. Feelgood" Post-1994 - #39

"Dr. Feelgood" Post-1994

Actually, the topic is as dead as a piece of meat on the plate in front of you. I've taken a lot of flak during the last couple of years for expressing my opinion, that Dr. Feelgood simply ceased to exist when Lee Brilleaux died. Everything else is a cover band. I knew right from the start of this debate, that history would prove me right. But seeing Wilko Johnson in an interview in the current Classic Rock magazine made my day.

Question:
You left the Feelgoods as long ago as 1977. How do you feel about the band carrying on these days with the name but without a single original member?

Reply:
I'm quite an articulate guy, but even I don't have the vocabulary to describe the current band. Without Lee (Brilleaux, singer who died in 1994) it's not Dr. Feelgood. The connections are just to tenuous.

Unfortunately, this brought the topic back, which I, by now, had well and truly forgotten, as "Dr. Feelgood 2011" are relegated to the backseats of Rock's history. Not even I get heated up about this anymore. But I had to laugh when I read it and I knew, I was always on the side of the good guys. Wilko, I do owe you one!

Cheers

Devon

Alice Cooper - Welcome 2 My Nightmare - Part 2 - #38

Alice Cooper - Welcome 2 My Nightmare

2011. A new studio album by everyone's favourite artist, Alice Cooper. This is kind of a sequel to 1975's "Welcome To My Nightmare", the debut Alice Cooper solo album. The work comes in a plethora of releases and each different one seems to sport a bonus track, not available on any of the other items. I've said, what I had to say about this. If fans are ripped off in such a way, I don't feel sorry about the decline of the music industry. You reap what you sow.

Right now, I've only the double vinyl issue (on red wax nevertheless) in my possession. The CD with accompanying magazine is still not here (Classic Rock issue), which is total b.s. as well. This was advertised as being out a full month before the albums hits the streets. Stupid marketing gimmick, I bought the Vinyl today (and I believe, the normal CD version was also available). The LP comes with a mini poster and coversized booklet. The latter is quite nice. The poster? I don't know. Kindergarten stuff. The original "Welcome To My Nightmare" doesn't have a cover graphic to write home about, but they have lowered their standards even further. This qualifies easily as one of the most horrible (pun intended) covers. Jesus Christ, what kind of amateurs are trying their "skills" these days. Where have the days gone, when talented people created good graphics?

The music? Much has been made of the fact, that the original Alice Cooper Band was back in the Studio! It was hailed as the second coming of Christ! Original? Wait a minute! Last time I checked, Glen Buxton was still dead ... so much for the claim of "original" ACG. And as far as I've heard, the rest didn't even get to be in the studio at the same time. And worse is yet to come, The living members of ACG are only to be heard on three tracks. Hardly news you need to be aware of. And what's more, wether they have lent their skills to these three songs or not, I wouldn't have noticed anyway. Alice Cooper could have hired any musician to fill out these slots, with no change to the quality. Or he could have used his current standard band on all tracks. Oh well! 

The music needs to grow on you. Starting very slow and a few tracks later drifting off to funfair music and everything else between here and Transylvania, this is not the kind of album you expected of a 2011 solo Alice Cooper. Especially since the last couple of releases had the quality of a fifty ton steamroller. But after a couple of listening sessions, I'm already beginning to like this slice of music. Although this is certainly not on a par with the original "Welcome To My Nightmare", as there's to much missing and the album is still a hodge podge collection with just to many gimmicks thrown in. It's entertaining, yes, but for the most part, don't expect your rockin' Alice. Very mainstream, but sometimes you want to shout "get to the point". As negative as this might sound now, there's some excellent stuff here, but I don't rate it as high as, say, "Killer" or thereabouts. And it doesn't help, when Alice Cooper tries his hands at Disco music (even though he might make a statement here) or with this godawful bonus track on the LP version. I have better Electronica or Industrial music in my collection. Just wonder where this leftover came from!

Buy the album, when you're in a record store the next time and you can't decide wether to buy a hits collection of yesteryear or this here. At least you're on the side of the good guys.

Cheers

 
Devon

Heidi Brühl - Hundert Mann und ein Befehl - #37

Heidi Brühl - Hundert Mann und ein Befehl

I'm not one for German Schlagers (with very few exceptions), but this here is remarkable. I was only aware of the Freddy Quinn version of this Cover (Sgt Barry Sadler - The Green Berets) until someone pointed me this way. Heidi Brühl is singing the song from a women's point of view, although the original German version is from a man's standpoint. I believe, it has nothing much to do with the Barry Sadler interpretation of this song.

  

What's so interesting here is not so much the song itself, but the delivery of the tune. First, Heidi Brühl looks absolutely stunning in this video. Then, this is the video for which the word teutonic must have been invented. This is a top class performance and I very much believe, that this was intended the way it comes across. Ice cold, shivers down your spine, that's what it is. The thing has class written all over the video. In one sweep, the team who produced this piece, has confirmed and denied everything that one believes to know about the Germans. And then the choir set into the dimly lit frame. This is one of the most interesting videos I've seen in a very long time.  Unfortunately, Heidi Brühl died when she was in her fourties (complications after cancer surgery). You don't have to buy Schlager CDs now, but you can still admire this one here.
Cheers

Devon

Test Pressings / Acetates - #36

Test Pressings / Acetates - #36

If you're after test pressings or acetates, here's a word of warning. For years, test pressings and acetates have been on the market, that are not the real deal. There's an industry in the Far East feeding the market with fake "acetates" (I'm speaking of vinyl only, as in my opinion, there are no CD acetates, whatever there might be available). Suddenly you see these items creeping up from places you've never heard about in your life. It's sometimes hard to spot a genuine article, when all you have is a picture on an auction site, and most of the time not a very good one at that.

Test pressings seem to be made from stock copies by way of taking off the label and replacing it with a white label with some fantasy writing or even better, bleaching the original label, so what you have in the end is a white label. But, of course, again, you can hardly spot this before bidding. Just ask the seller for a confirmation, that this is the real deal and if you don't get it, hands off! Of course, once you have the item in your hands, it's apparently easy to see that you've been had. Bleached labels with the original artwork shining through, handwriting the same over a set of different vinyls and the etching in the wax being the same as the one off stock copies.

In view of test pressings and acetates having a premium on them, sometimes very high, don't let yourself being taken advantage of. As tempting as an item might look, make sure you're not going to fall for a fake product.

Cheers

Devon

Imelda May - #35

Imelda May
An Irish singer who just recently has released her 3rd studio album, this one called "Mayhem". The lady has made quite a few waves and is about to conquer the world. Ms May comes along the Rockabilly route, but has gone further afield now with Blues and Jazz taking up quite a slice of her repertoire. Rockabilly is still present, but she is not what some critics call her, "Easy Listening". Not in the sense it was meant to put her down. Here's her website  http://www.imeldamay.co.uk/

There are quite a few quality videos available on the internet. Instead of going for her Rockabilly side, I've chosen one of the best ballads I've heard in years (let's make this decades). Go and explore her music.

Cheers

Roland

Gash – A Young Man’s Gash (Or Why A Rare Record Is Not Really Worth Its Money) - #34

Gash – A Young Man’s Gash (Or  Why A Rare Record Is Not Really Worth Its Money)
 

A German Band from the 70’s, alternatively called heavy (by some “experts”) or progressive (by another bunch of “experts”). They go on about what a fine record this is, especially the B-side which also features a full orchestra and that the A-side is of a somewhat lesser quality, but still holding up to the overall excellent quality of this album, which, btw, has never been legally re-released on CD (although there is a counterfeit CD available by a bootlegger outfit called “Germanofon”). Avoid this Label at all cost. Not just because of the counterfeiting nature of their product, but also because of the inferior quality (read, mostly pulled from scratchy vinyl).

And before you try to find a decent vinyl copy for EUR 300.00+, forget about acquiring one of these as well. Take your silver bullets with you, a handful of garlic and a peg with a hammer. And if you happen to see this album somewhere, make sure to give it all you’ve got, just to make sure this is not going to haunt any collectors worldwide anymore. My gratitude to you for saving the world from one of the worst and most redundant LPs in the whole universe. Imagine Black Widow, but just with the teutonic inability to put anything into verse, because, yes, friends and neighbours, this is an album that gives you nightmares for a long time to come. 

Talking about the music: This is syrupy stuff, that’s quite o.k., if it’s meant for your kids afternoon nap. Nice organ doodling its way through the tracks, being accompanied by untalented drum and guitar works. But the real icing on the cake (in the most negative way imaginable) is the “singer” and the “lyrics”.  The vocalist is this kind of deadpan German guy, you can see in Hollywood pictures about the second world war. Kind of “Ja mein General! Wir werden die Russen im Morgengrauen angreifen!”, well almost. There is no feeling there, this is about  reading the 8 o’clock news on German TV from the teleprompter.

But the band has crafted their lyrics in a kind of language I don’t understand. Sometimes I think they’ve tried their hands at English, but I’m pretty sure, this is not what it was meant to be. I mean, us foreigners will make a lot of mistakes when speaking or writing in another language (as certainly everyone who reads this blog or has been over to my website or has met me in person, can attest to). What I don’t understand is, why can’t bands have some proofreader do a final check. I mean, these are just a couple of lines and it shouldn’t be so expensive for a person of English mothertongue to make a few corrections to a couple of words. But, really, if they want to go down in pophistory as the most stupid band in the world, this is their decision. It’s just, that, if you have absolutely no idea about a foreign language, you should just maybe stick to what you know. Maybe releasing a record with German vocals in this case.

There’s no lyrics here, as this would be a breach of copyright matters, but you’re invited to check out the www and laugh until your insides hurt. Interestingly enough, the LP doesn’t seem to have shifted a lot of copies when it came out, thus making this a collector’s item. But it is one of these instances, where the going rate doesn’t match the musical value. You’re paying around EUR 320.00 for a mint copy at the moment (if you can find one, that is) and all you get is a colourful fold-out sleeve and a piece of black plastic on the Brain label. Taken the music into consideration, this album should be discounted to about half a Euro. And that’s maybe overly optimistic. I bought my copy sometime around its original release in the first half of the 70’s, but I can’t recall why I’ve made the decision to pick this. I mean, I did buy some fishy ones throughout the last decades, but this one tops it all.

Cheers

Devon

Pirates - Shakin' With The Devil (The Best Of) 1977 - 1979 - #33

Pirates - Shakin' With The Devil (The Best Of) 1977 - 1979

Ever since I bought the 1971 LP "Johnny Kidd & The Pirates", way back, when I was young, very young, I've been a Johnny Kidd & The Pirates fan. To me, the old chestnut about only two true rock'n'rollers coming out of the U.K., and one of them being Johnny Kidd, hasn't lost a fraction of truth. These songs, I can listen to, without ever growing tired of them. Although I don't buy into the statement that only Johnny Kidd's backing band with Mick Green, Johnny Spence and Frank Farley were the real deal (that would be putting down the other guys that played in other incarnations of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates), the aforementioned trio is certainly a major line-up in the history of the band and with hindsight the only one to carry the torch.

In the 70's, our powertrio got started again (minus Johnny Kidd of course - R.I.P.). And there was a lot of good music being released by my heroes (and some awful stuff, but that was, when Mick Green had a Pirates sans Johnny and Frank going). You want to stick to releases by this core trio. Take my word for it. Here's the Pirates 1977 to 1979 when they had their highest post Johnny Kidd profile. This being a "Best Of" you might go "Aw, I don't need another compilation. Got all the official releases anyway". You're dead wrong. First of all, this double CD is available for a very nice price. You're not going broke, buying this item. Second, there's some unreleased material on the CDs, including radio promo spots (although I think you want to listen to the latter only once, but it's nice nevertheless) and third, the compilation as such is very enjoyable. Both CDs clock in at a little more than 75 minutes. Excellent sound quality, double fold-out digipack and a nice and informative booklet with lots of pictures. Released on Salvo as SALVODCD219. And if you want to visit the Pirates website (well worth it), here's the way to go: http://www.thepirates.co.uk/

Cheers

Devon

Alice Cooper - Welcome To My Nightmare 2 - #32

Alice Cooper - Welcome To My Nightmare 2

The new Alice Cooper album should be released sometime in October 2011. It's, of course, the sequel to "Welcome To My Nightmare". At least, it's marketed as such. The remaining members of the ACG have contributed to this longplayer. To what extent, I can not say. But I don't really expect a full (minus Glen Buxton, of course) outing of the ACG on this CD (not even for one track). However, it'll be the closest you'll get to the original line-up again. There's a fan pack available with the CD and some goodies such as a 132 page magazine and a current Alice Cooper interview. Plus, I think, there's a poster involved somewhere (although that might be just if you order it within a certain timeframe). The whole thing is not even GB£ 16.00 (includes postage). You might want to point your browser in the direction of Classic Rock magazine (U.K.) for more information and how to order it. And what makes this even more of a treat, there's bonus tracks on the CD, otherwise not on the album and you'll get it about one month before it hits the high street.

Cheers

Devon

P.S.: I just read, that there are at least six different releases, all with bonus tracks (and you have to buy the lot, if you want all of these "bonus" tracks). Well, that's marketing for you. Thank you very much. Downloading the stuff for free, looks suddenly like an option. If only to draw a line at some point.