Screaming Blue Messiahs, 'Totally Religious' (1989).
The last of their four stone classics, marred only by a very heavy/nearly metallic mix, that actually sounds better the louder you play it. This band is the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Hendrix, CCR, Clash for our times: can't figure out how Bill Carter was so prescient and timeless with his songwriting. Oh - and that guitar...
Hello,
I was just listening to this tonight during my workout. SBM's are really solid guitar rock with a sound of their own. I wonder what Bill Carter is doing these days. I know of the Killer B's Love is a Cadillac Death is a Ford - anything else by anyone from the SBM's?
Sorry fam, this is actually a good record. A muddy garage punk near-classic. If this was the only record the Dead ever released, it would some kinda Sundazed reissue gem. Instead, obviously, they went in a different direction. It's telling that most deadheads are dismissive of this record and David Hassinger's production, which clipped back the extended jamming and tried to turn them into an American Rolling Stones. It didn't really work, but the results are a lot of fun. Even the jammier stuff here - the album ends with a 10 minute version of Viola Lee Blues - is more enjoyable than the kind of spacey stuff that would come later. The 50th anniversary reissue drops the studio bonus tracks that came with earlier CD releases in favor of some pretty good sets from the band from 1966 - again, when the band was a bit more tolerable live.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead
Sorry fam, this is actually a good record. A muddy garage punk near-classic. If this was the only record the Dead ever released, it would some kinda Sundazed reissue gem. Instead, obviously, they went in a different direction. It's telling that most deadheads are dismissive of this record and David Hassinger's production, which clipped back the extended jamming and tried to turn them into an American Rolling Stones. It didn't really work, but the results are a lot of fun. Even the jammier stuff here - the album ends with a 10 minute version of Viola Lee Blues - is more enjoyable than the kind of spacey stuff that would come later. The 50th anniversary reissue drops the studio bonus tracks that came with earlier CD releases in favor of some pretty good sets from the band from 1966 - again, when the band was a bit more tolerable live.
I agree with Flex.
Forces have been looting
My humanity
Curfews have been curbing
The end of liberty
We're the flowers in the dustbin...
No fuchsias for you.
Sorry fam, this is actually a good record. A muddy garage punk near-classic. If this was the only record the Dead ever released, it would some kinda Sundazed reissue gem. Instead, obviously, they went in a different direction. It's telling that most deadheads are dismissive of this record and David Hassinger's production, which clipped back the extended jamming and tried to turn them into an American Rolling Stones. It didn't really work, but the results are a lot of fun. Even the jammier stuff here - the album ends with a 10 minute version of Viola Lee Blues - is more enjoyable than the kind of spacey stuff that would come later. The 50th anniversary reissue drops the studio bonus tracks that came with earlier CD releases in favor of some pretty good sets from the band from 1966 - again, when the band was a bit more tolerable live.
I agree with Flex.
I'll admit to also liking Workingman's Dead and American Beauty.
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do." - Oscar Gamble
Another solid tho not eye-popping album. "Hi Hello," tho, has a number of obvious Smiths echoes in it. Funny that Marr's decent guy reputation contrasted with Morrissey's Oswald Mosley unveiling does make me want to like this album beyond its strict merits.
"Grab some wood, bub.'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
