BURNING TREE COOKS UP A RETRO-ROCK FIRE STORM
At the end of the 80`s, the only music which was considered to be cool was sugary over produced pop and hair band stuff like Motley Crue and Poison. I was a bit too critical of the latter back in 1989 when I was in my last year of high school, in retrospect Poison, and particularly lead singer Bret Michaels, had some real songwriting talent buried beneath all the makeup and lip gloss which they caked on to fit in with the LA glam image.
Just like Kiss in the 1970`s, such pretentious presentation won over the fickle fans for a while for Poison, but the novelty soon wore off.
At least Poison had some substance, I never
did like Motley Crue. If it weren`t for over production not even the band's opus `Dr. Feelgood`, would pass as a good heavy rockalbum. Motley Crue just gets away with it with this particular album, but the tacky predecessors, `Girls Girls Girls` and `Shout
at the Devil`, are very unconvincing when compared say to the debut Poison album `Look What the Cat Dragged In`.
Motley Crue are just crap if you want my honest opinion, even if they supposedly had the best drummer in the land. The only thing
that Tommy Lee was good for was making a home stick video with Pamela Anderson.
that Tommy Lee was good for was making a home stick video with Pamela Anderson.
Crue fans will be aghast at my critical
brickbats appraisal of their beloved sissies. Anyhow, it has to be said that by the end of the 80`s everyone was getting a bit tired of listening to cock rock and synth pop and there was momentum happening for a new revolution of back to basics rock music, which unfortunately for the most part got hijacked by Subpop and a lot of sub-standard garage music dressed up as grunge after 1992.
brickbats appraisal of their beloved sissies. Anyhow, it has to be said that by the end of the 80`s everyone was getting a bit tired of listening to cock rock and synth pop and there was momentum happening for a new revolution of back to basics rock music, which unfortunately for the most part got hijacked by Subpop and a lot of sub-standard garage music dressed up as grunge after 1992.
One band which never got the recognition
it thoroughly deserved when glam was in vogue was Burning Tree. They made one album which went absolutely nowhere
commercially in 1990.
Burning Tree was a three piece, Marc Ford was the guitarist, Mark `Muddy` Dutton was the bass guitarist and Doni Gray played drums.
The band formed in 1987 and they had become a resident house band at the Coconut Teaser club in Hollywood in the two years before the band recorded its one and only album.
The music on the album could be described as being psychedelically influenced power rock, a cross between Led Zeppelin`s Physical Graffiti and the Black Crowe`s Shake Your Moneymaker` is the description I would give it.
That is kind of ironic, because after Burning Tree disbanded Marc Ford became a member of the Black Crowes from their second album onwards.
The album is a retro-masterpiece, even if a little underproduced when compared to the Black Crowes debut. Both bands were
certainly cut from the same musical cloth, Burning Tree was the more heavy and gutso of the two, Marc Ford had a preference for playing Jimmy Page flavoured riffs instead of the more soulful ones associated with early stuff from the Black Crowes. Like Black Sabbath, Burning Tree was named after a song bearing the same name, `Burning Tree` the song is a stunning opening number which sets the tune for the rest of this very eclectic album.
`Crush`, `Masquerade` and `Playing in the Wind` are just a few other songs which have taken my fancy on it. The best song on the album is a very plaintiff soulful one with beautiful singing called `Bakers Song`.
It has just the right amount of guitar and drums and it probably is the best produced song on the album. Fortunately for the sake of retro-rock, the album as a whole wasn`t over produced to the point where a fake drum kit and 100 tracks of recording took
the place of real substance and soul. Burning Tree will live on.
I actually wouldn't have made the comparrison with Zeppelin, Burning Tree are a trio of well rounded muso's who are tight, but they have some big differences to LZ in that they all sing, and they all bring songs to the band.
ReplyDeleteUsing the example of Bakers song, even though some are more based in Blues than it, there is a close comparison with GnR especially in Guitar tone which is Les Paul into JCM800 ( even though I think he's using Gretch through a matchless)
Pages tone is more full and it's said he used a tele with overwound P/U's on a lot of Graffitti and others through a modded Bluesbraker style (KT88's) 200 watt marshall.
LZ were distinctly a Guitar driven band with their roots in Blues and a rhythm section that pumped the song but didn't interfear with either melody, guitar or singer, BT is definately a Bass driven band, the guitar is a subsiduary except for solos and the drums just keep the groove.
Nice job, BT are one of the most underrated bands out there, they'd easily make a comeback and if they still have it in them to get a new album out it would sell to boomers as would their gigs.