REVIEW: Damn Yankees – Damn Yankees (1990)

Scan_20160525DAMN YANKEES – Damn Yankees (1990 Warner)

Now here is an album I haven’t played in a long time!

When the supergroup known as Damn Yankees first emerged in 1990, they quickly became my favourite new band.  Ted Nugent, Tommy Shaw (Styx), Jack Blades (Night Ranger) and drummer Michael Cartellone emerged with one of the hottest new albums of the summer:  Pure radio-ready hard rock, but with the integrity added by the Nuge himself.  All aboard!

(I like that Ted is in the credits also as “security”.  You can picture it.)

So what is Damn Yankees?  Light rock, Great Gonzos, or a mixture?  The answer is:  all of the above.

The predominant direction is radio-ready hard rock circa the time. Even though all these guys had been around for a while (especially Ted), if you didn’t know who they were it was easy to mistake them for the new hot band.  Their lyrics are geared to the young.

Dressed to kill and lookin’ dynamite,
With her high-laced stockings and her sweater so tight,
I asked her name,
She said her name was ‘Maybe’…

Oh come on guys!    Jack Blades was 36 years old when he sang that.  We already have one Gene Simmons.  Thankfully, the lead single “Coming of Age” was musically impeccable for hard pop rock.  Lyrically, there is nothing of any value here, just meaningless male drivel.  The Van-Hagar like licks of “Coming of Age” are enhanced by the aggressive lead guitar work of Terrible Ted, who probably thought the lyrics were pure poetry.

The bluesy riff of “Bad Reputation” screams Nugent, but the vocals of Blades and Shaw blend as if they have always been a vocal team.  Of course as we all know, Damn Yankees led to a long and very productive partnership for the two, with Shaw-Blades being a personal favourite album.  The most remarkable thing about Damn Yankees is indeed the blend of vocals.  Just listen to that bridge in the middle of “Bad Reputation”.  Two rock singers rarely complement each other as well as Shaw and Blades.  But just when you thought it was going too folksy, Ted returns with a fluttering blitzkreig of strings and (probably) freshly killed meat.

“Runaway” features some of Shaw’s great slide guitar work, on a mid-tempo rocker with an unforgettable anthemic chorus.  Damn Yankees is often forgotten for its guitar work.  Think about it though:  Tommy Shaw and Ted Nugent are two of America’s best from the old school.  While the songs are simple pop rock, the solos are simply awesome.

By the time fall 1990 rolled around, it was time to drop a ballad for a single:  “High Enough”.  In the year 1990 there were a number of acoustic ballads that were all very similar sounding:  “Silent Lucidity”, “More Than Words”, and “High Enough”.   There is no better way to describe “High Enough” than “sounds like summer 1990”.  Unfortunately it does not stand out or have any qualities that make it more memorable than the other ballads out that year.  The saccharine strings just do me in.  I get ballad-fatigue. And let’s not even talk about that awful music video.

The band’s namesake track “Damn Yankees” sounds like a Nugent song.  It has a chunky, ballsy riff, though nothing to write home to mother about.  Unfortunately the lyrics are terribly dated, the kind of pro-American intervention sentiment that went out fashion many years ago.  With references to Manuel Noriega and the Middle East, this is all much less glorious with the benefit of hindsight.  There’s a lesson to be learned there:  avoid overly politicizing your lyrics, young rockers.

For a better ballad than “High Enough”, check out side two’s opening track “Come Again”.  This one is old-school, sounding something like Styx’s “Boat on a River” colliding with the Nuge on “Stranglehold”.   It builds into a frenetic solo section that is just to die for, Nuge seemingly doing his best Eddie VH impression.  Then on “Mystified”, Ted brings the blues while Tommy gets down on the pedal steel.  This is a great little blues rock jam of the kind ZZ Top are comfortable with.  I’m certain Rev. Billy would approve of the Nuge’s blues licks, authentic as they come.

“Rock City” ain’t bad at all, accelerated for your pleasure and name-dropping Jimmy Page in the lyrics.  It’s not the heaviest song on the album — they save that for the end — but it’s definitely second.  There is little doubt, based on interviews with the band, that the heaviness came from Ted.  Let’s all take a moment now to thank Ted Nugent for rocking so damn hard.  Thank you, Mr. Nugent.  Penultimate track “Tell Me How You Want It” is a pretty good mid-tempo song, with classy vocals from Tommy and Jack.  Had they released more singles from the album, this one would have been up for the job.

And then finally…

A blues lick, and Ted speaking:  “Nice lick!  I have a feeling this is gonna be a rhythm and blues song…nice, real nice.  Tasty.  WAITAMINUTE!”

“Piledriver” is just a dumb sex song, but it’s also pure Gonzo Ted, the Ted you knew was hiding somewhere on this album.  You wanna hear Ted go friggin’ top gear for four and a half minutes?  “Piledriver”, baby!  Tommy and Jack on the backing vocals even drop an F-bomb!  Can you believe it?  They’re the nice guys of the band!  But let’s not forget Michael Cartellone on the drums, hammering relentlessly, not only keeping up with Great Gonzo but setting the freakin’ pace!  Even without headbanging along (strongly recommended), you’re exhausted by the end of the tune.

I say again, thank you Mr. Nugent.

As it turns out, Damn Yankees is still an entertaining listen 26 years later.  I didn’t properly appreciate the smoking guitars on it at the time.  Back then, I was interested in ballads and singles and catchy tunes.  Even so I still liked “Piledriver” back then…because it’s awesome.  The album’s real flaw is on the lyric sheet.  I know these guys can do better than some of these tracks.

3/5 stars

#490: Sh*t LeBrain’s Mom Says

Thanks for joining me this week, for the week of Getting MORE Getting More Tale. I hope you enjoyed all five musical stories!

Monday – #486:  Dream Music
Tuesday – #487: All Apolologies
Wednesday – #488: Almost Cut My Hair
Thursday – #489: I Forgot To Remember To Forget
Friday – #490: Shit LeBrain’s Mom Says

CHEESE

I love my mom.  I have the best mom in the world!  That’s why I want to share these memorable mom quotes.  Let’s hear it for my mom!

1. One day we were at the cottage playing cards.  Someone cut a stinky fart.  My sister demanded to know who the cuplrit was.  “Who cut the cheese??” she asked.

“What cheese?” answered my mom.

 

2. Remember “More Than Words”? Extreme really broke into the mainstream with the standard-setting acoustic ballad. This is the one, more than any other acoustic ballad, that conjures the most images. My mom liked the song. She asked my sister and I who sang it.

“Extreme!” we answered simultaneously.

“Who’s Nick Streen?” she asked back.

3. My mom and dad just got back from a cruise. They excitedly told me about the different activities I would enjoy. Rock climbing, bumper cars, and lobster every night if I wanted it. “And they have special shows,” added my mom. “Like Rock of Ages.”

Doing my best to exaggerate the degree to which I was offended by this suggestion, I slowly turned my head to stare, and removed my glasses raising the eyebrows just so.

My mom caught my drift, but not why.

“Do you not know what Rock of Ages is?”

I answered matter-of-factly, “Yes I do, that’s not my point!”

“But it’s about rock!” clarified my mom.

My mother-in-law, who was also visiting at the time, knew what I was getting at.

“Your son is a music snob,” she said.  She turned towards me and quickly amended, “Or a music aficionado if you prefer.”  I smiled at her and laughed.   That was it exactly.

 

Thanks for being such a good sport mom!  Glad you enjoyed the trip.

#489: I Forgot To Remember To Forget

meme

GETTING MORE TALE #489: I Forgot To Remember To Forget

Here are five short stories about forgetfulness in the old Record Store Days!

1. The Boss Man lived his life via one of those day timer books. Everything was in there – all his contacts, all his notes, where he had to be, when he had to be there, everything. So it was quite difficult for him when he left the book on top of his car and drove off! Needless to say he had to buy a new day timer and start over.

2. In my last year, I totally forgot I was working a morning shift. It was during the Christmas rush, and we had two people opening:  me and one other guy. Since my reputation was that I showed up at least an hour early for an opening shift, my absence was noted before we actually opened. My co-worker Kam called me. “Did you forget you were opening today? You’re usually here by now.” Quickly covering for myself, I answered “Nah I was just doing some banking, I’ll be there really soon.” Saying this as I pulled on my pants trying to get out the door….

3. Ah, daylight savings time. Spring forward, and fall back! One day the Boss Man called me from our store in Waterloo.  Keep in mind, I always got to work early except for that one time!

“Mike, have you heard from [“Bully” – name redacted]?” She’s not here at the store yet.”

I answered him no, but that she’s not usually in that early in the morning anyway, and not to worry. She’d surely be in before opening.

“But she’s late!  I had to open the store!”

But she wasn’t late, and the store wasn’t supposed to be open. The clocks had turned back, but the boss forgot to change his. The boss got there early without realizing it and opened the store early anyway! We had a good laugh over this misunderstanding.

4. They had me running all over the place. I drove all the way to open a store in Oakville, Ontario one morning, only to discover I forgot the key to that store at home. Thankfully the boss man wasn’t far away and within 20 minutes he was there to open the door for me! Crisis averted again!

5. Once, and only once, somebody forgot to lock the door at closing time. I opened the next morning and was shocked to find the door unlocked. Obviously nobody had tried the door during the night or the alarms would have gone off. That was scary! My dad always taught me to lock up the doors when you leave a place. In fact there were times – many times – on my drive home when I couldn’t clearly remember locking the door, so routine had closing become. So I would drive back and check. I never left the door unlocked, but I also never would have been able to sleep at night if I didn’t go back to check!

 

REVIEW: A Rebel Few – As the Crow Flies (2016)

A multi-site event: Let us introduce you to A REBEL FEW.

KeepsMeAlive – Aaron’s review
BoppinsBlog – Boppin’s interview with ADAM SHORTREED of A REBEL FEW
BoppinsBlog – Boppin’s review

Scan_20160422A REBEL FEW – As the Crow Flies (2016 A Rebel Few)

Now here’s a local success story in the making!  Four guys with nine songs headed south to record their debut album in Texas with producer Sterling Winfield, whose name you might recognize.  He has Pantera, Damageplan, and Hellyeah albums on his resume, so it seems obvious that A Rebel Few were going for a heavy sound.  What they ended up with is one of the best sounding indi heavy rock albums you’ll likely get to hear.

There are Pantera influences, and you can hear some Zakk Wylde too.  What sets these guys apart is singer Raposo (just Raposo).  He’s more than just another melodic growler.  The world is full of those.  We have enough.  Raposo has depth and control, as well as expression.  He can do a smooth voice, not just the growls.  He’s world class.  He fits the band, who combine shredding with riffs, groove, heavy bass and drums.

All the songs are good, but there are some that really stand out.  “A Rebel Few” hits the highway with anti-matter propulsion, so furious it is.  Many of the riffs on this album sound Sabbathy in origin, and “Born Again” is one such moment.  “Empires Fall” is radio-ready riff rock.  There is some seriously good shit on this album, and it’s all crunchy and heavy on the low end.  What it lacks in originality, is made up for by the vocals.  Listen carefully; you will hear a serious amount of vocal quality that you don’t get out of the general rock herd.  When Raposo really gives’er, he almost sounds like a young John Bush.

This album will give you a burst of energy like one of those awful caffeine drinks…but good for you!  If you are not air-drumming or air-bassing or air-guitaring along, then you are not doing it right.  This review is taking longer than average to write, because you can’t type while you’re furiously air-drumming along with Chris Spiers.   As for the air-guitar part, I find lead shredder Barry Marton on his way to developing into a monster.  He can play it bluesy, he can play it slick.  The raw material is there and you can hear glimmers of depth between the blurs of notes.

The big surprise is saved for last, and it’s a doozy.  “Pure Revolution” would be a good title for a speedy rock number, but it’s just the opposite.  Touches of piano and light guitar introduce the only power ballad on the album, and it’s a good’er.  Maybe calling it a power ballad isn’t right, but it has ballady moments, and also powerful riffs, so why not?  There are heavy Dio guitar chugs, but also those quiet spaces where the vocals really get to come out.  Either way, it’s a kick-ass song.

Get this CD.  Use your fingers, Google the band “A Rebel Few”, and do what you gotta do to get this music in your ears today.

4/5 stars

#488: Almost Cut My Hair

GETTING MORE TALE #488: Almost Cut My Hair

Whatever musical subculture you come from, if it has a uniform, then no doubt hair style is a part of that uniform.

Nowhere has this been exemplified better than the classic mohawk made famous by 1970’s punk rockers.  Mr. T made it mainstream in the 80’s, rendering the punk shock value of it dead.  On to the next thing!  How about a a 1″ hole in your earlobe to keep it edgy?  Hair cuts and music have a much longer association than that, of course.  The Beatles were considered rough and shaggy for their hair that COVERED THEIR EARS!  Can you imagine?  On the other side of the pond, Elvis was popularizing the greaser look.  All over the world, kids tried to look like these rebellious rabble-rousers.

The late Eric Carr, who served as Kiss’ drummer from 1982 until his passing in 1991, told stories of how he desperately tried to straighten his hair to look like a Beatle.  He’d put pantyhose on his head overnight to try and get the curls out.  Meanwhile, there are photos of young Gene Simmons with bangs down to his eyebrows and Paul Stanley with hair covering his ears.  (Paul had a second motivation — one of his ears is deformed and he was eager to hide it.)

In America, another hairstyle was emerging, and it was strongly related to the funk, r&b and disco scenes:  the Afro.  It is the only hairstyle I am aware of that is probably measured in diameter, not length.  In the 1960’s, the Afro was associated with the ripple effect emanating from the civil rights movement.  Today it is a classic hairstyle, immediately adding strength and character to almost any face that it frames.  The Afro is a beautiful thing, truly.

Billy Preston "the Fifth Beatle"

Billy Preston “the Fifth Beatle”

Almost as beautiful are the dreadlocks.  In many cultures, dreadlocks are sacred.  The association of dreadlocks with modern music is due to the emergence of Reggae.  Rastafari (part of the Abrahamic family of religions) emerged in Jamaica in the 1930’s.  Who in the whole genre of Reggae was more famous than Bob Marley?  Marley was Rastafari, and as his musical fame grew, so did his locks.  As far as pop culture is concerned, Marley is an icon, and the silhouette of his dreadlocked head is known all over the world.

I think somebody must have just invented hairspray at the beginning of the 1980’s.  That’s the best explanation that I can provide for what happened next.  Everybody lost their mind, and instead of measuring their hair in length or even diameter, they began to measure it in height.  It also began to take on bizarre shapes.  Like the wings of Mike Score, from the obvious example A Flock of Seagulls.  Cultures clashed.  Culture Club, a New Wave band, featured a cross dressing lead singer with braided hair!  It was glam meets Rasta in all the wrong ways.  Boy George today is happily bald.  Meanwhile, across the pond in suburban New Jersey, Jon Bon Jovi was attempting to break the 12″ height record.

The hairstyle closest to my heart is the one most associated with rock music:  the classic long-hair.  It’s the perfect hair in almost every way.  You can tie it back for the “I mean business” look, or just to keep it out of the way.  When you need to unleash the rock fury, long hair is superior.  The best part is, after a good solid thrash around, long hair usually looks better than it did before!  Only dreadlocks can rival classic long hair for headbanging money-shot images.

I never liked getting haircuts in the first place, but when I started getting interested in music in the early 80’s, it seemed as good a reason as any to stop getting them.  Besides, one kid at school named Ian used to chide me that I “didn’t look like a rocker” with my lame short hair.  I wanted so bad to look cool like a rocker.  Sure, there were some cool short haired rockers, like Rick Neilson, Alex Van Halen and Alec John Such, but they were a vast, sometimes teased, minority.  My hair started to grow down past my neck.  This caused clashes with my dad like you would not believe.  You thought Darren McGavin made for some foul language in A Christmas Story?  My dad can eat Darren McGavin for breakfast and ask for seconds.  My dad invented many of his own swears.  He even started singing in swears!  One of his biggest hit songs with us kids was always “Shittily, Shittily, La La La”.  And that is exactly how the lyrics went.  Over and over!  One day, he was singing “Shittily, Shittily, La La La” in public again.  He must have been overheard, because the next thing that happened was a Jehovah’s Witness approached him.  She handed him a Watchtower magazine, and told him, “I think you really need this.”  But I digress.  You can imagine how the hair battles in our house ended.  Usually with us not speaking to each other for the next three days.

Eric Brittingham

Eric Brittingham

That’s not due to my dad, mind you.  It’s due to me being a stubborn little shit.  To be fair, I learned the “stop speaking to your parents” schtick from my best friend Bob who frequently stopped speaking to his mother.  Bob too was attempting to grow long hair.  His goal at that time was to be a redhead version of Eric Brittingham from Cinderella during the Long Cold Winter era.  He thought that would have looked awesome.  It probably would have, but eventually he had to get a job and cut it.  He went with a classic crew cut, and a little bit of a fringe on the back:  the mullet.  This is what I ended up with as well, because instead of growing over my ears, my hair simply began curling and going back up again!  My dad hated this but more importantly, wanted me to be employable.  One day he came home to tell me that the manager of the nearby grocery store wanted to speak with me about a job opportunity.  This I was not going to be stubborn about, so I went to the barber, cut it all off, and went in for a brief interview.  I started that week.

The teasing at school was inevitable.  Most of those kids had never seen me without some form of attempted mullet.  The drastic sudden change also made my ears look (in my eyes) freaking huge.  To me, I looked like another kid in our school named “Trophy”.  Trophy was called that because his ears stuck out so far they made his head look like a big trophy.  I was hideous!  I was Samson without his locks.  I had nothing.  I attempted to grow a moustache.  This was abandoned in less than a week when a girl at the grocery store that I liked named Kathleen recommended that I lose the ‘stache.  It was hopeless.  I felt…naked.

When grunge hit the ground running in the early 90’s, rockers one by one began to shed their locks.  Many ladies of the 80’s fainted when Jon Bon Jovi went short in 1993 for Keep the Faith.  Three years later, some thrash acolytes nearly had heart failure when not one, not two, not three, but all four members of Metallica included James Fucking Hetfield cut their hair short!  The game was over.  While many rockers such as Ozzy, Alice, and Nikki elected to keep their hair, they were overshadowed by the folks who let it go:  David Lee Roth, Edward Van Halen, Tommy Lee, Paul Stanley (notably for Phantom of the Opera), pretty much all of Aerosmith except for Tyler and Perry….There were no magazine headlines that said “Alice Cooper Keeps His Hair Long”.  But there were headlines to the effect of “The World is Ending — Jon Bon Has Cut His Curls!”

As rockers age, so do our styles.  I thought Jon Lord looked very distinguished, with his silvery hair in a ponytail when he got older.  Some of us have cut our hair, some of us have lost our hair.  Some of us dye it and some of us shave it.  In this day and age, it is very difficult to tell one’s musical affiliation by hairstyle alone.  You can have long hair and be a DJ spinning samples on a laptop.  A guy shredding lead electric guitar is just as likely to have short hair as long.  Over there, that metal band has a bunch of people with dreadlocks, and that rap group does too!  Mohawk with dreadlocks?  Hello Doug Pinnick from King’s X!  Sub-cultures continue to clash in ways both new and retro, and as with any style, music will always have a part in it.

1993, return of the long hair.

 

#487: All Apologies

GETTING MORE TALE #487: All Apologies

People screw up!  It’s in our nature as human beings.

The human brain has its own “autocorrect”.   Have you ever seen something like this?

The quick brown fox jumped over the
the lazy dog.

Or this?

I cdn’uolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

See how you read both sentences easily regardless of the mistakes within?  The brain makes little corrections to our perceptions on a second by second basis.  Think about the human eye, how it darts around, but what you perceive is a clear static picture.

Given that the human brain makes its own “corrections” every second of every day, it’s bound to also make mistakes in doing so, either by missing a correction, or making one where it wasn’t necessary.  Either way – we fuck up!  Add in a fast-paced environment, and mistakes are not a question of if, but when and how many.

In customer service, a screw up can be a critical moment.  Mistakes can make or break the decision for a customer coming back or not.  Whether you ring in something wrong, give the customer the wrong item, mis-charge a credit card, or give the customer incorrect information, sometimes you owe them an apology.  So why not turn lemons into lemonade?

Since money speaks louder than words, the owner at the Record Store had a cool method of keeping the customer, even after a screw up that might have them fuming.  It was actually a genius idea.  We used something we called “apology letters”.

Let’s say we screwed something up, unambiguously.  The best example of this would be forgetting to put the CD in the case, or putting the wrong disc inside.  This was a lot easier to screw up than you might assume.  Maybe the CD was supposed to be in slot #132, but you grabbed the disc in #123.  Sometimes you don’t even notice it’s the wrong CD because after a while, they do all look the same.  I had myself convinced that I was actually dyslexic.  That’s how bad it got on some days.

Sometimes you’d catch the mistake before the customer left, and all would be well.  The rest of the time, there was a chance they’d be pissed off that they had to make a return trip to get the right CD.  Returning something that is defective doesn’t count towards an apology letter; that’s not necessarily down to staff mistakes.  An apology letter was only issued when it was clear that we screwed up and in doing so, inconvenienced the customer.  We didn’t use them to blame staff, or tally up numbers of them, but damn, I sure issued plenty over the years.

When a mistake such as this was discovered, we would prepare an apology letter.  Staff would sign the letter and give it to the customer with their apologies, and the correct CD!  The letter entitled the customer to $3 off their next purchase.  We discovered that this small token often defused situations quickly and easily.  Very few customers refused to return after receiving an apology letter worth $3.  Many in fact were impressed to the point that we started seeing them more often.

It was a smart idea:  one of many that I learned during my years in retail.
SORRY

#486: Dream Music

Welcome to another theme week at mikeladano.com. This week: Getting MORE Getting More Tale. Instead of reviews, we have lined up five days of music stories in the Getting More Tale series. Hope you enjoy.

 

dream music

Have you ever heard music in your dreams?

Steve Vai has.  When he was a young musician, he experimented with lucid dreaming.  When you’re in a lucid dream, you can control your own actions.  Vai’s lucid dreams were very sexual, and musical.  Eventually his album Passion & Warfare emerged from these experiences.  The opening track “Liberty” is directly inspired by one of his dreams where he was standing saluting a flag (“a different kind of flag,” said Steve).  His song “Liberty” was meant to approximate what he heard in the dream, but what he was able to write versus what he actually heard in his head were very different.  He was unable to capture the fullness and grandeur of his dream.

Terence Trent D’Arby too has heard music in his dreams.  In his case, Marvin Gaye approached him in a dream, and asked if he’d be interested in a song Gaye had written.  Perhaps as an expression of his own ego, D’Arby answered, “If I like it.”  He must have, because D’Arby recorded the song as “To Know Someone Deeply is to Know Someone Softly” on 1989’s Neither Fish Nor Flesh.  Much like Vai, D’Arby found it impossible to translate the beauty of his dream music accurately into the real world.

As for me?  I’m no musician; I wish I was.  Maybe if I was, I could do something with the music constantly cruising around in my unconscious LeBrain!*

I don’t know why it is, but music does exist in dreams, and vividly so.  Bringing that music into the auditory realm is so damn hard no matter how hard you try to remember.  I like to write songs – little riffs and melodies that fit together into ditties that I can hum, but not really perform on an instrument.  Some of the music I have heard in my dreams would have been the best songs in the world, had they been real!

It’s impossible to describe anything specifically, except to say the music I heard in my dreams was heavy, symphonic, grand and complex.  If I wanted to, I could focus in on any specific part.  I could dive into the strings and hear the individual parts.   I could even manipulate the music once immersed.  As if I was playing the guitar myself, I could make the guitar solo go any way I wanted it to.  I could control the music like I was a conductor.   The only thing I couldn’t do was remember it when I woke up.

I’d wake up, and even though I could remember dreaming of an amazing piece of music, I couldn’t get it out of my head and onto tape or paper.  I could hum a melody or two, but nothing more.  The grandness and power was all gone.  Who knows if the melody I was humming was even anything like what I heard.  Either way, the melodies I would hum after would be tiny snippets, special in no way at all.

It’s a rare, bizarre, beautiful, frustrating experience.  Has this ever happened to you?

 

 

*Thanks to Mr. Books for perfecting that sentence for me.

#485: Cry for the Indians

GETTING MORE TALE #485: Cry for the Indians

We rarely get political here at LeBrain’s Record Store Tales and Reviews.  We try to keep the discussions light.  The topics are mostly focused on music, tech, retail and work place stories.  With that in mind, here’s a good work place tale from 2006.

Without getting into the nitty gritty details, back in 2006, a group of Six Nations on a reserve near Caledonia held an armed standoff over Aboriginal land claims.  In question was a 40 hectare parcel of land that was being prepared for development into subdivisions.  They occupied a large patch of land and wouldn’t budge, stating that historically they never gave up this land.  There is a very complex history as to the ownership of land in Caledonia, going back to 1784.  The police arrested occupiers, and in return the Six Nations set up roadblocks.  This went on for weeks, highlighted by violence and anger on both sides.  Local radio covered all the news, which made national headlines.   It was an ugly scene all around, but also a very serious issue that remains unresolved today (the last blockade happened in 2014).

During the months this was going down in 2006, I was working in a small data entry office with two ladies a little older than myself.  The radio was tuned to the local news.  During an update on the situation, one of the two ladies blurted out, quite offensively, “Why don’t those Indians just pack up and go home and stop causing trouble?  I’m sick of them!  I don’t even understand what they want!”  She ranted for a bit and then things went quiet.  The other lady didn’t answer, so I chimed in.

“They’re arguing for their rights to use their traditional lands,” I explained.

“What land?!” she answered incredulously.

“In Caledonia, but really this was all their land,” I informed her.  “When the Europeans like us came to this country, we pushed them off their land and took it for ourselves.  Now all they have left are these little crummy reservations.  But they were here first.”

Her response was something I’ll never forget:

“What?!  I never heard of that!”

 

Come again?  Did you somehow miss grades 1 through 12?  Canada often prides itself in our great education system.  There’s proof right there that it certainly has its flaws.  Highschool is free, people!  I had to explain this to a lady who was old enough to know where all the white people in North America came from.  I had to convince her this was real history and not a “theory”.  She didn’t have to like these facts, but how can you go through life without even knowing them?

And that is the story of one of the most ignorant comments I’ve ever heard inside or outside the work place.  In the words of Anthrax:

We all see black and white,
When it comes to someone else’s fight,
No one ever gets involved,
Apathy can never solve.

Forced out – brave and mighty,
Stolen land – they can’t fight it,
Hold on – to pride and tradition,
Even though they know how much their lives are really missin’,
We’re dissin’ them.
On reservations,
A hopeless situation.

Cry for the Indians,
Die for the Indians,
Cry for the Indians,
Cry, cry, cry for the Indians.

Respect is something that you earn,
Our Indian brothers’ getting burned,
Original American,
Turned into second class citizen.

Love the land and fellow man,
Peace is what we strive to have,
Some folks have none of this,
Hatred and prejudice.

Territory –  It’s just the body of the nation,
The people that inhabit it make its configuration.
Prejudice – Something we all can do without,
Cause a flag of many colors is what this land’s all about.

REVIEW: Brian Byrne – Tuesdays, Thursdays, and if it Rains… (2006)

Scan_20160505 (2)BRIAN BYRNE – Tuesdays, Thursdays, and if it Rains… (2006 Kindling Music)

Strangely, I first heard Brian Byrne’s solo single debut, “Far From Good”, on a local lite-rock radio station that I usually try to avoid.  The song caught my ear for its upbeat, country-rock sound, with bouncy violin and piano on top.  A neat mix.  When they said it was by Brian Byrne, I stopped myself.  Couldn’t be the I Mother Earth singer getting played on a lite-rock station, could it?  But it was.  I promptly ordered the CD from the Record Store at which I formerly worked.  The disc arrived in a few days, great condition, except for the promo-cut jewel case.  They normally should have replaced the case before the CD shipped, but somebody missed it.  I didn’t want to ask for a new case, because I just left the place six months before and I didn’t want to become “that” customer!

But enough about me, what about Byrne?  Here he worked with near-legendary Canadian producer Tim Thorney, as well as former Killer Dwarfs guitarist Gerry Finn.  (Byrne and Finn both hail from Newfoundland.)  I Mother Earth were deactivated, and Byrne honed Tuesdays, Thursdays and if it Rains… into a pleasing acoustic rock album, very “singer-songwriter” in sound.

“Far From Good” is the highlight, being the most immediate and lively.  The album is diverse.  The opening track “Days Go On” has elements of country, funk, classic rock and soul.  The juicy organ parts really suck you in.  “Jen’s Song” is one of many ballads, this one reminding me of 80’s Phil Collins for some reason.  Byrne gets to let his voice speak more than he does in the louder I Mother Earth.  Then there’s a big chorus on “Sweet Love”, a better light country rock tune than Bon Jovi’s ever written.  This is like country-Jovi, but with integrity and feelings, and not a lot of flash.  “Nova Dashboard” is a lovely, bluesy country ballad along the lines of Blue Rodeo’s dusky favourites.  The guitars (by Thorney) get right under your skin.

I could go on and on, but all the songs have a quiet, smouldering power to them.  The light and shade of the album sounds quintessentially Canadian to me, and the calibre of the musicianship is above reproach.  Expect an album of diverse music crossing several genres, but do not expect I Mother Earth.  Byrne almost went as far in another direction as you could imagine.  And that is really cool, because he does it so well.

3.5/5 stars

Scan_20160505 (3)

REVIEW: Brant Bjork – Punk Rock Guilt (2008)

Purchased for $7.99 at Vertigo Records in Ottawa.

Scan_20160415BRANT BJORK – Punk Rock Guilt (2008 Dine Alone Records)

Brant Bjork is one prolific mo-fo.  Whether it’s solo or with bands such as the Bros, the Operators, or Ché, Bjork always maintains a high level of quality. Punk Rock Guilt is undoubtedly a solo album. All music was written and performed entirely by Bjork. He’s a talented multi-instrumentalist with a wide variety of influences from all over the music spectrum. When they collide in the grooves of the wax, it’s audio ecstasy.

What’s surprising is that an album called Punk Rock Guilt is loaded with both short songs and long bombers.  Maybe that’s the guilt part?  Sitar commences the album on an Indian note with “Lion One”, the first of the lengthy tracks.  At over 10 minutes, the challenge is to keep things interesting, and Bjork does.  When the song settles into a slow bass-heavy groove, I’m immediately reminded of his first excellent solo album Jalamanta.  The vocals don’t even kick in until the 3:00 mark, and then with a semi-spoken Lou Reed direction.  As a long song of this nature should, it picks up speed come solo time.  “Lion One” is outstanding rock as it rises and falls in waves.

The next is the shortest song, “Dr. Special”, and already much rock ground has been covered.  “Dr. Special” has a funky 70’s porn soundtrack vibe but heavy and sparse.  (This sounds like it’s a lot of fun to play.)  Over to “Punk Rock Guilt”, which is surprisingly classic rock.  The melodic riffs and catchy vocals give it something in common with Boston, but without leaving the Bjork sound behind.

“This Place (Just Ain’t Our Place)” returns to the Bjork groove, laid back, heavy and probably stoned.  There is no lyric sheet included but I’m pretty sure Bjork has returned to one of my favourite lyrical subjects:  UFOs!  The guitar solo has a spacey sound.  On vinyl (a double record set for its total 46 minute length), this closes LP 1.  The second record commences with a riff and “Shocked by the Static”.  Even though the copy here is a CD, you can hear this is a natural spot for a side break.  Lacking any major hooks, the way to enjoy “Shocked by the Static” is to focus on the groove and just air drum along.

The surprise of the album is “Born to Rock”, starting light and airy like some U2 outtake.  Clean guitars and Lynott-like vocals do the trick:  this is a killer.  Contrasting this is “Plant Your Seed” which has Sabbathy guitar tones and a singular groove.  Finally it’s another 10 minute tune, “Locked and Loaded”, to finish the album.  “It’s a hijack groove, electric boogaloo, and bloodshot eyes are watching you.”  Not sure what that means, but the groove is ZZ Top’s from “I Thank You”.  Cool vibe on which to end a cool album.

4/5 stars