Album of the Week - Opinion/Samples

Okay ... giving CPR to my own thread, my second AOW is the greatest hits compilation from my previously nominated underestimated artist/group - NRBQ. Yes - I have more of their albums:

NRBQ: Peek-a-Boo: The Best of NRBQ (1969-1989). The five tracks in the music sampler are some of their early works

You can listen most of the tracks from the second disk and some more of the first at the folowing MSN Link (the third album down) Note that the play list given on the web application is actually mixed up/wrong/repeats itself. Actual play order as you listen is as follows:

Me and The Boys / You Can't Hide/ Never Take The Place of You / Feel You Around Me / Cap'n Lou / Things To You / That's Alright / Rain at the Drive-in / Ridin' In My Car / Still In School / Crazy Like a Fox (live) / Here Comes Terry (live) / Every Boy, Every Girl / Whistle While You Work / Wild Weekend / If I Don't Have You / Little Floater / (repeats - MATB, YCH, NTTPY, FYAM, CL, TTY) /12 Bar Blues / (repeats RATD) / A Girl Like That / How Can I Make You Love (repeats HCT, EBEG, WWYW, WW, IIDHY, LF)

Unfortunately - Looks like this may no longer be in print, but it's well worth seeking out. I have several other of their albums (NRBQ, Message for the Mess Age, Boppin' the Blues with Carl Perkins) - but this compilation is as good as it gets.

Okay - what to say about NRBQ. One - as you can see, they've been around a LONG time. A few minor line-up changes, and one big one - when guitarist extrordinaire "Big" Al Anderson left. As noted in another thread - they play hard and tour hard (I'd guess at least 100 gigs a year STILL), have a rabid grassroots fan base, are probably the best "bar band" going, have all sorts of critical acclaim and peer musician respect - but have never reached the critical mass to turn that into top-40/major label sales. They are - above all - great and versatile musicians.

A little bit blues/R&B (hence their name - New Rhythm and Blues Quartet), little bit rock-a-billy/gras-roots rock, little bit power pop and pure pop, and a whole lot of fun (had a professional wrestler as a manager for a while!).

NRBQ has MASTERED the art of the 3 minute pop song - each one of the tracks on this greatest hits album is a short, hooky gem. For the "power" tracks, check out "me and the boys" and "wild weekend". And they're also capable of producing simple, knock-you-off your feet love songs. No fancy lyrics - just straight-ahead sweet declarations of love (listen to "feel you around me", "never take the place of you", or "if I don't have you"). Great driving in a car on a summer day music, too -

What else - they've got a great sense of humor (some songs are positively juvenile - like "Girl Scout Cookies" or "I Want My Mommy" or "Howard Johnson's (got his HoJo working)" - Great to see a band that doesn't take itself too seriously, despite its abundance of talent.

If you've heard OF them, but not TO them - give them a try. They're just one of those groups - like the B-52's - that can drive away a funk and make you glad to be alive.

JVC XRCD Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. Couldn't believe the improvements over the original Warner Brothers or even the better sounding Vertigo disks.

Album of the Week, 3rd selection

Okay - a more recent release

The Wondermints - Mind If We Make Love To You

First exposure to this group was from a friend-made mix tape, with the great song "Tracy Hide" on it. Took me five or six years before I bought their self-titled debut. Far too long!

The Wondermints might best be known for backing up the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson (they appear on Pet Sounds Live and Brian Wilson live at the Roxy Theater), but I assume he approached them based on comparisons of aforementioned "Tracy Hide" to the gorgeous harmonies of the Beach Boys.

Brian Wilson sings back-up on two songs of "Mind If We Make Love to You" ("Ride" and "So Nice"), and you can't help but listen to "So Nice" and hear the Beach Boys influence.

Yes - the Wondermints come off as a group that are 20-30 years too late, but their obvious affection for 70's pop is refreshing. Nothing wrong with gorgeous harmonies and sharp melodic hooks by any means.

Besides the Beach Boys, another influence that comes to my mind is Todd Rundgren (think "I Saw The Light", "Love Is The Answer") in such songs as "If I Were You".

Perhaps the favorite track is the more stripped down sound of "Time Has You" - reminds me of the Allman's "Melissa" more than anything - soaring guitar, with a little orchestration in the backround. Worth the price of admission for this song alone. The sort of track you hit the "back" button on (well - for those of us who are into the digital thing). Not like anything else on the album, but great.

Side Note - wow. The interesting thing about listening to music on the internet is that you can actually play two tracks simultaneously - a little disconcerting, but playing "Melissa" and "Time Has You" at the same time cements the comparison for me.

About the only semi-lame track on the album is "Something I Knew" - which comes across as a too-lite pop confection.

Anyway - if you sometimes wish that they still made 'em like they used to, give The Wondermints a try. Excellent stuff -

Other two albums (debut - "Wondermints", and second or third "Bali" are also terrific. Bali has more late 60's/early 70's pyschedlic influences. Hidden Bonus track at the end of Bali is an apparently rejected demo for a Coors Lite jingle (Tap The Rockies ... Coors Lite). Weird snippet.

Back by popular demand :) - Album 4 from the stacks:

Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Concert Program

First stumbled across them in college - bought "Broadcasting from Home" because of the cool cover and the salesperson said "they're kind of weird". Admit it - we've all done that at one time or another. Didn't buy any more of them until this "live concert" (not that you'd notice) retrospective that was released in 94/95ish. I think the creative force (Simon Jeffes) has since passsed away.

They're not easy to characterize - they'd probably be lumped under "New Age" in your local record store ... but if anything, they're "Old Age".

They are mini-orchestral (instrumentation includes cello, clarinet, viola, trombone, oboe, violin, piano, harmonium, cor anglais, string bass, as well as some guitar and piano). An occasional modern touch (the telephone as instrument). No vocals -

The music itself is seductive/hypnotic (or totally boring, depending on your POV). PCO seizes on a repetitive, simple melody in most of their songs - and although meandering hither and thither a bit, you can hear the same melodic undercurrents layered throughout. An orchestral rondo of sorts.

It's soothing in a - for lack of better words - primal sense. I think we all have an innate sense of pattern and rhythm, and can find it incredibly comforting and soothing. Well - that's the Jungian nerve that PCO hits - a melodic archetype that we all share; being taken back to the collective musical womb, as it were. (okay, so I'm spouting some new age mumbo jumbo myself, but I still wouldn't put the band in the bin with Yanni)...

Although the samples are mere 30-second snippets, you can get a sense of what I mean - especially from Air A Danser, Numbers 1-4, Air, and Perpetuum Mobile.

Not the sort of music that you pull out every day, but when you're in the mood for a musical "retreat" - for some pastoral melodies in a harried world, PCO may fit the bill.

Tom Ovans "Tombstone Boys, Graveyard Girls"