DAN REED NETWORK WERE HUNTING A TIGER IN A DRESS

About time for a blast from the 80's past on here i thought, but because i want to be kind to my readers i didn't think i should touch on MOTLEY CRUE or CULTURE CLUB (laugh), instead i thought i would dredge up something relatively obscure but still very commercial sounding with a radio friendly melody, and a song and album which immediately come to mind is TIGER IN A DRESS off the DAN REED NETWORK album SLAM.

From what i heard some weeks ago, DAN REED NETWORK recently reformed, recent as in the last year or two, and have been touring across Europe in recent times, possibly elsewhere too. The band originally formed back in 1984, and recorded three critically well recieved but commercially unsuccessful albums between 1987 and 1991. DAN REED NETWORK effortlessly combined funk, rock, pop and a hint of metal.

The self titled debut is the funkiest of them all, but in many fan's opinion was tweaked too much by producer BRUCE FAIRBAIRN, who also produced SLIPPERY WHEN WET, the 1986 breakthrough album for BON JOVI, thus losing some of the guitar power which the band was famous for creating on stage.

After the commercial failure of the still very excellent debut, the band turned to NILE RODGERS to produce their next set SLAM, who was much more accustomed to working with obscure funk acts as opposed to Fairbairn whose expertise was more in the pop metal field.

SLAM is a bit patchy and less funky, but heavier with much more guitar power on show. The best song on the album is unprocurable on the internet, tried many times before to track down DOIN' THE LOVE THING but for some crazy reason not one DAN REED NETWORK fan the world over has downloaded the song onto You Tube or Videomotion. About time i learn to do so myself i can hear you mumbling (laugh).

DOIN' THE LOVE THING is a classic piece of heavy rock guitar, guitarist BRION JAMES never come up with a better riff in his life, with the title track SLAM being the heaviest one on the album, a good, meaty piece of bludgeoning funk rock bordering on heavy metal.

The single off the album TIGER IN A DRESS is probaly one which re-captures the pure funk of the debut album the most, same kind of groove like the song ROCK YOU ALL NIGHT LONG or COME BACK BABY off the debut, but with Nile Rodger's less sterile production probaly a lot more rootsy sounding. I have never heard the third album THE HEAT or the very obscure LIVE AT LAST from 1997, RITUAL off the debut and DOIN THE LOVE THING off SLAM is the best stuff the DAN REED NETWORK ever cooked up which i have heard.

Guitarist Brion James, an african-american, was a great guitarist who should have got a lot more recognition than he did from his peers, guys like PRINCE and RICHIE SAMBORA could have certainly used their star status a lot more than they did around the late 80's to help these guys out. As it turned out a botched record deal with MERCURY and a promotion snub in favour of DEF LEPPARD lost the band desperately needed momentum at a time when record companies were already under the spell of Seattle.