It`s been a long time between drinks for all my longsuffering fans
of my six pack of rockers you never hear on the radio series. This
is the first volume to ever feature on Lost Treasures Music Review,
the first four volumes feature somewhere on Badrick Unadulterated.
I haven`t really drunk enough alchohol to be doing this, when i done
the other ones i had knocked off a couple of wines and was a bit mis-
chievious, but tonight we`ll just have to see if the chicory kicks as
much as the booze does. I`m an aussie, so i thought i better kick
off this evening with a classic old aussie rocker from 1988. Daryl
Braithwaite starting out life as the lead singer in aussie glam rock
band Sherbet in the 70`s, but by the mid 80`s Sherbet may as
well have been sugary powder because they didn`t make it in-
to the power ballad age of the 80`s. Braithwaite by then was
singing in RSL clubs in front of a dozen old women, but then
out of the blue, with the help of a couple of good managers,
he stormed to prominence on the australian rock charts
with a well polished album called `Edge`. The song which
takes my fancy enough to make it onto Six Pack No. 5 is
`As The Days Go By`, a startling, electric sounding rock
story about facing up to getting older. There are a heap
of good songs off `Edge` and his 1990 follow up `Rise`.
In the late 70`s, Warren Zevon was the best friend of
a horror movie soundtrack. Of course he is best known
as the crazy dude who recorded the classic `Werewolves
of London`. Zevin really was the king of satire rock, and
i guess having a satirical sense of humour myself i have
always derived some enjoyment from his pisstake style
of songwriting. It doesn`t leave much to the imagination,
one of my favourite tunes of Zevin besides Werewolves in
London would have to be `Excitable Boy`. It`s not rocket
science, and it doesn`t sound like Pink Floyd, but for all its
simplicity and buffoonery, this song is just a good hearted
little rocker if i may say so. Listen to a live version of the
song at the end of this blog. Going back to the mid 80`s,
Peter Gabriel was in full swing as far as releasing music
which was a classic amalgam of progressive rock & 80`s
pop. Often one who complicated his music with too much
self indulgence and abstract lyrics in the years before and
after this classic period, Gabriel produced an absolute gem
in 1989 called `Shaking The Tree`, which was a collobera-
tion with little known West African artist Yousou N`dour.
It`s No. 3 in the Six Pack of Rockers No 5. The song has a
real world music feel to it, which was probaly brought on
by Gabriel`s then prevailing endeavours to promote a lot
of world music, just ask Yousou N`Dour from Senegal if
he would have got anywhere were it not for Gabriel`s ef-
forts to get him a recording contract. `Shaking The Tree`
is just a beautiful song, great rhythm with a real African
feel, and it`s my favourite Peter Gabriel song. Now i`ve
got a song from the year 2000 for you to make it num-
ber 4 on the Six Pack Vol. 5 countdown, it`s a swampy
blues tune off the `O Brother, Where Art Thou` sound-
track. It`s called `I am A Man Of Constant Sorry`, yes
it does sound a bit morbid but if you have seen the mo-
vie you really know that it fits in perfectly with the sto-
ryline. The movie features none other than lady killer
George Clooney, no i dont mean literally George. Man
i just wish i could have one hundreth of the luck which
you have with the girls dude, i might even get a bit of
pussy for christmas and on my birthday if that were
the case. The song is performed by the Soggy Bottom
Boys, featuring guest member Dan Tyminski. I really
love this movie and i love the soundtrack too, the mo-
vie itself is probaly one of the best pieces of parody &
dark satirical humour you will ever find. Alrighty then,
where are we up to? We are up to number 5 in the Six
Pack No. 5 of rockers you never hear on the radio hey.
OK, here is a real obscurity. I have always liked an al-
bum from the late 80`s from a christian inspired rock
band from Katy, Texas called Kings X. They never did
make an album as good as their debut `Out Of The Si-
lent Planet`, they followed it up with the stupid and in-
comprehensible `Gretchen Goes To Nebraska`, which
notably does contain one guitar epic called `Pleiades`,
and the even more instrumentally insipid and convo-
luted `Faith, Hope, Love`. They did get better again
from their number 4 album onwards, but they never
matched the debut. The closest that Ty Tabor came
to matching his guitar heroics of Kings X in 1987 was
on his solo album `Rock Garden` in 2006. The Kings
X guitarist plays some really meaty riffs on the album,
my favourite, probaly because of its straightforward-
ness more than anything, is the good natured rocker
`She`s A Tree`. This song makes it to number five
on my Six Pack of Rockers number 5. To finish the
collection off, i have for you one of the best jams in
the history of rock. Remember the one off and one
album supergroup in the very late 60`s featuring
Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, the mercurial drum-
mer Ginger Baker and Rick Grech. Chances are you
dont because you weren`t even born yet. The album
sees Winwood and Baker at their finest especially, if
you want to hear some great improvised power per-
cussion, then look no further than the multi-minute
long instrumental break in the song `Do What You
Like`, the last song on Blind Faith`s one and only
recording. Clapton is off on some way off tangent,
Winwood sounds like he is as high as a proverbial
kite, and Baker wallops those drums ferociously
and without mercy. No band these days knows
the art of improvisation like these guys did, as
well as Led Zeppelin and all the other rockers
from the flower power era. Anyway, sorry for
taking so long to give you this six pack, i know
you must be thirsty, the next six pack will be
coming to you hopefully sooner next time OK.
YouTube - Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy
No comments:
Post a Comment