Monthly Archives: August 2023

Aug 17 2023
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reissue, vinyl

General Public • All the Rage, Hand to Mouth [LP]

Being that Dave Wakeling is still touring as both (or either) The English Beat and (or) GENERAL PUBLIC, it certainly makes sense that the latter’s two original albums, All the Rage and Hand to Mouth, are getting a vinyl reissue.

Wakeling and his English Beat cohort Ranking Roger started the group after their former band called it a day. Coming just after The Beat (as they are known nearly everywhere else) had just made solid inroads to the US charts with their 1982 release, Special Beat Service – and a couple of minor hits, “Save It for Later” and “I Confess” – it was anyone’s guess if the momentum could be capitalized on. Apparently, Dave and Rog had some ideas about how to do that. Beef up the dance beat and production values, keep some of the ska ingredients and melodies, bingo. You have to admit there’s something about General Public’s  swing that makes you wanna move around. And it’s kinda hard not to get tunes like “Come Again,” “Tenderness” and “General Public” out of your head. (And these three charted much higher in the US than any of The Beat’s singles.) Regardless, I preferred (and still do prefer) the scruffiness of The Beat. Always the rebel.

For most of the last couple of decades the two friends kept touring, eventually even doing shows that featured both “bands” – as in, the two lead singers doing songs from both General Public and The Beat. Sadly, Ranking Roger passed away in 2019 so it was up to Dave to keep the fire burning. He has, and this summer The English Beat toured the US and at the time of this writing are playing UK dates. I missed my chance to see them this time but I DO have my original Beat albums and these two snazzy General Public reissues to ease the pain. – Marsh Gooch

3/5 (BMG 538889351 and 538889361, 2023)

 

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Aug 16 2023
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book

Peter Blecha • Stomp and Shout: R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll [Book]

Published all the way back in February, PETER BLECHA’s Stomp and Shout: R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll is a captivating read that any fan – or nascent scholar – of the region’s popular music history should lay their eyes on. I certainly have no excuses for taking this long to read and review it.

Blecha himself already has a track record of knowing what he’s talking about when it comes to Northwest Rock. He has written numerous articles on it for the website HistoryLink.org, wrote a long-running column in Seattle’s The Rocket* called “Northwest Music Archives,” and has authored a handful of great books – including Sonic Boom: The History of Northwest Rock, from “Louie Louie” to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Backbeat Books, 2009). With Stomp and Shout it was one of Peter’s goals to expand greatly on what he was only able to surface-scrape in Sonic Boom, which he most certainly does. This book, though, goes back much further in time, beginning roughly in the 1940s (with flashbacks to earlier times when necessary) and wrapping up at the dawn of the ’70s. Did you know that both Ray Charles AND Quincy Jones got their start in Seattle? Or the convoluted story of how “Louie Louie” became so ubiquitous in the Pacific Northwest? How about that Jimi Hendrix once spelled his name the same way most people spell “Jimmy”? (Okay, I’ll bet you suspected that.)

What Blecha achieves most successfully in this book is communicating the raw, visceral excitement Northwest musicians craved and delivered to their ravenous audiences. If you think listening to the Sonics today is a thrill, you will absolutely go ape over how it must have been at one of their raucous shows in 1966! And they aren’t the only band detailed in this book. Besides the dozens of musicians and groups he goes in depth on, he also names a thousand more. With The Kingsmen, The Ventures, The Wailers, Sonics, Merrilee Rush, Paul Revere & The Raiders, and on and on, you’d think he couldn’t have missed one. (I therefore have to assume the reason The Bandits from Mercer Island aren’t covered is because, aside from their real cool version of “Little Sally Walker” [released in ’65 on Jerden], that they recorded nothing else worthy of noting.) Anyway… If you want to know who the bands were, who the local DJs, promoters and record label owners were, and the way things were way back when, it’s all here for ya.

Stomp and Shout may very well go down as the last word on the primal music that oozed out of the Pacific Northwest’s primordial muck, covering the world in some of the most despicable, evil, exciting music ever perpetrated. Peter Blecha is probably the only person who could have written the story. Here it is – have at it. – Marsh Gooch

4/5 (University of Washington Press, 2023)

*(FULL TRANSPARENCY DEPT.: Pete and I both wrote for The Rocket, and we worked for the same great guy, Robert Jenniker, back in the late ’80s via Park Avenue Records. RIP, Bob.)

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Aug 08 2023
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10" vinyl, colored vinyl, Limited Edition, reissue, vinyl

Nick Lowe • Dig My Mood (25th Anniv. Ed.) [LP+10″]

Twenty-five years ago when NICK LOWE’s Dig My Mood was first released, I was twenty-five years younger. I mean, duh!, but my point is: I was not ready for a mature record. Of any sort. Still in my mid-thirties, I was in thrall to harder-edged music, still thinking that my alliance was with the punks, new wavers, and college rockers. Nick Lowe had been a member of that group, at least in terms of the “new wave” label given his music up until then. By 1997 I had been a college radio DJ, a writer for Seattle’s local music paper, The Rocket, and played in rock bands – not to mention “slaving” away at my day job, putting together music programming for restaurants and retail establishments. What had not occurred yet was, as Nick’s friend John Hiatt may have termed it, that slow turning indicating I had graduated into adulthood. But, being a longtime Lowe fan, I duly picked up Dig My Mood when it came out. And I didn’t really dig it.

Oh, sure, I could appreciate the musicianship, since Nick Lowe had always surrounded himself with top-notch players. Some of the guys on Dig My Mood had even played on some of his previous releases. But I just couldn’t get into the songs. “Faithless Lover,” “Man That I’ve Become,” all the rest, they were not “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass” or “Cruel to Be Kind” or even “Raging Eyes.” Nick had grown up (well, jeez, he was in his mid-40s by then) and I hadn’t. Now, a song’s title doesn’t necessarily mean its lyrics are going to be youthful or mature, but there’s not a title here that sounds like “Crackin’ Up” or “Shake That Rat.” Alright, I think you get my point: I have grown up. Nick Lowe continues to be grown up (though he does employ his youthful wit on occasion), and his records – in an adult way – get better and better. (See my previous reviews of Nick’s stuff here.)

It’s a treat to hear Dig My Mood on this new vinyl reissue. Limited to 1500 copies, you get the original album with its dozen songs including Nick’s renditions of his own tunes (as mentioned above) as well as stellar covers of Henry McCullough’s “Failed Christian” and Ivory Joe Hunter’s “Cold Grey Light of Dawn.” As a bonus there’s a five-song 10″ EP that includes one studio recording (the great “I’ll Give You All Night to Stop”) and four live cuts, including “Cruel to Be Kind,” “Half a Boy and Half a Man,” and a nice solo rendition of the aforementioned John Hiatt’s “She Don’t Love Nobody.” All five tracks appeared on a fabulous box set, The Doings, back in 1999. (The live tracks also appeared on the 1997 CD single of Dig My Mood’s “You Inspire Me.”)

If you’ve been a Nick fan for awhile then this is a worthy addition to your collection, with real nice colored vinyl (blue for the LP, yellow for the 10″) and a great mastering job. I love the sound of Dig My Mood… now that I’m old enough to appreciate it. – Marsh Gooch

3.5/5 (YepRoc YEP-2635, 1997/2023)

#nicklowe #nudiscnet

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