Last of the Big Game Hunters

REVIEW: Barstool Prophets – Last of the Big Game Hunters (1997)

STRAT

Welcome back to Canadian Rawk Week!

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Scan_20160223BARSTOOL PROPHETS – Last of the Big Game Hunters (1997 Mercury)

This album, the third and final by the Barstool Prophets, was the one that got me into the band.  You can blame T-Rev for that.  Unfortunately this album was also the last for the Prophets.  They never really hit the big time, even though it was certainly deserved.  Their biggest claim to fame is that they had to change their name from their original, The Wallflowers.  Some guy named Jakob Dylan owned that one.  Therefore, their first album was called Deflowered!

Barstool Prophets is a better name anyway.  It’s more descriptive of this band.  Picture solid Canadian bar rock, with the poetic lyrics to rival the Tragically Hip.  Both bands are similar, and fans of one should definitely check out the other.  For this CD, they got Joe Hardy (ZZ Top) to produce, and the result is a stellar collection of great sounding, upbeat yet rocking tunes.

I have a promo CD of this with a white cover.  I also have the correct cover art for the retail version.  The reason for this is, when I was living with T-Rev in our shitty apartment, some assholes stole his CD changer out of his Jeep, including his copy of this CD.  The cover art was safely inside the apartment, but without a CD to go with it, it was a kind of useless thing.  He gave the cover to me to augment my fairly plain promo CD.

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The brief title track sets the stage perfectly.  Witty words, guitars panned hard to the right and left, and an understated groove.  That’s all you need, baby.  According to the liner notes, “Barstool Prophets wrote the songs, Graham Greer wrote the words, and they slapped them all together.”  The album and songs sound much more cohesive than that implies.  “Last of the Big Game Hunters” is hooky, radio ready, tough and smart.    It’s also short and to the point, as is the following song “Upside Down”.  From experience, I can tell you that these songs work great on the road.  I have done many, many cottage road trips with this CD in the deck.  The first half of the disc is mostly rockin’ with some mellowness creeping in on the second.  It all seems to work brilliantly.

My favourite song has always been the bulletproof “Vigilante”.  This is about as intense as the Prophets get both musically and lyrically.  Edgy but low-key spoken verses give way to the blistering chorus.  Most people will have to research Bernard Goetz (I did),  who is named in the incendiary bridge:

“I am prepared to carry out, without hesitation,
A cold and calculated act of intense dedication.
I am the store clerk forced once too often to his knees,
I am the few disgruntled Postal Service employees,
I am the widowed wife, left alone to carry on,
The grieving father, I, whose one and only child is gone.
I am the hand of Justice, with finger poised to test,
I am a bigger badder better bane than Bernard Goetz.”

It’s a powerful song.

Graham Greer shares one specific interest with me, which is UFOlogy. There are two songs on the album referencing them. The first is “Weird and Wonderful”, which musically is as fast as metal. The reference is vaguely to Betty and Barney Hill, one of the first documented UFO abduction cases:

“A family driving on a lonely stretch of highway,
Returning sadly from a very pleasant holiday.
Just then the starry night is filled with blinding light,
They’d later testify they’d never seen a greater sight.”

The gist of the song is that some things are just weird and wonderful; futile to explain. I prefer searching for the answers, but perhaps the Barstool Prophets have it right.

“Running Out” mellows things down a bit, with a melodic mid-tempo groove.  It’s the radio hit “Friend of Mine” that you might remember though.  What a great song.  Shall we call it a ballad?  I guess?  Whatever — it doesn’t matter.  It’s a blunt song anyone can relate to, about what true friendship means.  “My views and dreams and favourite songs will shift and turn with the passing of time, but one thing for certain is you’d always be a friend of mine.”  Even on the ballad (?), their knack for rhythm shines through.  This is a great band — just the rhythm section players alone are interesting to isolate and listen to.  The also goes for “Tangled Up”, an acoustic song that follows.  Weaving words and rhythms seems to be this band’s forté.  And they do it with an uncanny ability to write melodies too.  Just astounding.  How did these guys not become the biggest thing ever?  Maybe it’s because it’s just too easy to compare them to The Tragically Hip.  I daresay, Barstool Prophets wrote songs that were just as edgy and just as smart, but twice as catchy in the melody department.

About the only lull in the proceedings is “Five Wheel Highway”, a low-key slow grind on the pavement.  It’s also the second longest song.  It’s loaded with a harmonica hook, but it’s not enough to keep me interested.  “More” brings us back to center, with a solid album quality track.  It’s upbeat and it has those guitar jangles that I dig.  “Hungry Joe” is amusing, a man who “lived in a dream, where he was a ladies man supreme.”  Joe seems to get what he deserves, but the song is just another catchy one that probably sounded great live.  “Get Along” then is a stomping body slam.  It’s interesting lyrically and dramatic musically.  Good mixture for cerebral rock and roll.

Back to UFOs one last time for “Thrusters”.  Slow picking leads to quavering vocals:  “I have spent many nights, staring at the sky…”  It’s an unorthodox song, with no real chorus.  “I know they’re coming back for me, but how much longer will they be?”  I think it’s a haunting song, and it builds beautifully.

Last of the Big Game Hunters is still a fine album indeed.  I’d put it on my top records of 1997 easily.  Thanks T-Rev for getting me into it!

4.5/5 stars

Part 303: Marking Your Discs

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RECORD STORE TALES Part 303:  Marking Your Discs

In the 1990’s, stealing CDs and selling them to a pawn shop or a used CD store was a fairly common way for thieves to make some money.  Today I doubt it happens at the levels I saw in the 1990’s.  You just can’t get as much for a CD today, not even close.

I had seen too many people lose valuable music to theft, and never get the discs back.  I received many visits and phone calls from upset customers, hoping that someone had sold their stolen discs to me.  But a lot of thieves were too smart to sell them in town.  They’d go somewhere else to sell them, assuming that they’d be harder to catch then.   When somebody lost dozens of CDs in a break-in, they would call all the used stores in town.  “If you see a guy bringing in a huge collection of Jazz box sets, including about a dozen Miles Davis remasters, call me.”

It was always best if you could somehow identify your collection.  Jazz box sets and Miles remasters (for example) would be easy to spot.  If somebody else called and said, “Somebody stole all my rock CDs…I had Stone Temple Pilots, Korn, Creed, Days of the New…” well, there wasn’t much hope.  These are titles that we often saw, probably every single day.  If you could somehow mark the discs as your property, however…

Different people used different methods.  In 1995, I got a call from a guy who worked at the downtown Dr. Disc.  His collection had been stolen.  He marked his discs in a unique way.  He placed a strip of tinfoil underneath the CD tray.  If somebody came in to sell a hundred CDs and they all had tinfoil under the tray, there’s your guilty party.

Most people, who didn’t care about the packaging or condition of their discs so much, would just write their name inside.  Either on the booklet, the inner tray, or the front cover.  I could never deface my music like that, and neither could T-Rev.  He came up with his own method.  Rather than mark the CD packaging itself, he wrote his initials on a tiny red sticker, and placed that somewhere unobtrusively on the CD.  If he ever wanted to remove it, he could do so without wrecking anything.

Tom didn’t share our “no permanent marks” philosophy. He embossed the front covers of his discs with a press that imprinted his initials on the front cover.  Tom gave me a couple CDs once – his initials always bothered me.  When I had the chance to swap covers with a copy that was in better condition, I did.  Tom tells me he doesn’t emboss his CDs anymore.  I’m glad he came to his senses.

T-Rev and I both have had CDs stolen, unfortunately.  Both of us had our vehicles broken into.  T-Rev never recovered the handful of discs that were in his Jeep. (I remember that one was the excellent Barstool Prophets albums Last of the Big Game Hunters.)  They never showed up, anywhere in town.  As for me, I only lost one disc – Fish’s 1998 compilation Kettle of Fish, which was inside my Discman (also stolen).  They didn’t take the CD case.  I imagine they probably threw out the CD; chances are these thieves would not enjoy the subtle sounds of Derek William Dick.  At that time, the album was not available in Canada, and I believe I had to order it directly from the official Fish site in the UK to replace it.  That cost me about $30, to replace a CD that I originally paid $7.99 for.  That was not a good day.