 UNDER APPRECIATED ROCK BAND OF THE MONTH FOR DECEMBER 2015: AMANDA JONES  It is probably impossible to imagine how many rock bands there are and have been over the past decades. That came home to me one time when I was inspecting a property near Ocean Springs for an appraisal. The owners had set up an apartment in a barn in the back of the property for their daughter. There was a drum set in one bedroom in that apartment, and the father told me rather proudly: “My daughter is in three rock bands, and her boyfriend is in two bands.” I saw her car parked there on a different day, and sure enough, I noticed three small stickers across the back window that would be those three rock bands. Across the street from our home in the Woolmarket section of Biloxi, a garage rock band set up and played (or practiced, more like, since they weren’t really looking for an audience). They were out there regularly, though not particularly often (maybe a dozen or so times during the two years we lived there). In any decent sized city or town, there are a lot or a few nightclubs, restaurants, bars, and other venues where rock bands and other musicians perform live – in a tradition that extends back to the mists of pre-history. As a tourist area, the Mississippi Gulf Coast region has more than its share I imagine. Our weekly “Marquee” insert in the local newspaper SunHerald has a full page or more devoted just to the bars and nightclubs that mostly feature local bands. One of those bars, The Inn Zone was and still is on Highway 90 around the corner from where I lived in Ocean Springs from 1999 to 2002; and a local band that is still active called Rhythm & Rain was on their marquee in that time period nearly every weekend. I imagine that the bandmembers have day jobs, but this goes to show that musicians can have some measure of renown, not to mention an income stream entirely on a local level. One of our local TV news anchors until recently, Rebecca Powers released a CD about 15 years ago under her maiden name, Rebecca Allen called I Don’t Care while she was a DJ at a local radio station, WCPR-FM. It is quite good, and I still play it once in a while. She currently performs with a local band called the Myles Sharp Band (Mr. Sharp is a member of the Gulfport City Council). * * *  One local band that is a personal favorite, the Rochelle Harper Band has a little more prominence than most, and they have been active on the Coast the whole time I have lived here (more than 15 years). I have two of their CD’s that were released about 6 years apart, Live at Castaways (Castaways is another long-lived nightclub in Ocean Springs) and Mississippi Hippie Blues (the title song “Mississippi Hippie Blues” is also called “The Shed Song”, after the popular barbecue and blues joint near Ocean Springs called The Shed – they won a national competition on Live with Regis and Kelly several years ago and achieved some odd measure of fame when their website was hacked last year by a Jihadi terrorist group). * * *  Mississippi Hippie Blues (a great title for sure) has a “Peace Note” emblem that Rochelle Harper designed, and the CD came in a proprietary CD package that she also designed called “All-n-One” that folds beautifully around the CD. Her first national release, called Lilt came out earlier this year. * * *  Nearly all rock bands start out as local bands; hardly any musicians just burst on the scene out of the blue. There are music scouts everywhere (amateur and professional), and anyone with any talent at all is usually under contract before any records come out. Lisa Loeb is still the only recording artist to have a #1 song, “Stay (I Missed You)” (1994) before being signed to a recording contract; the song was part of the soundtrack for the film Reality Bites. She is a major talent, and I have her first three albums: Tails (actually by Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories), Firecracker and Cake and Pie. * * *  The biggest rock band to come out of our area, 3 Doors Down (from the community of Escatawpa near Pascagoula) had a #3 hit song “Kryptonite” and a hit album The Better Life in 2000. The song was a radio hit here for years before that though, and I have already told the story of how much I loved the song and how hard I worked to at last find that early demo CD, 3 Doors Down. They are still going strong: Their fifth album Time of My Life (2011) debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 charts; and their two previous albums, Seventeen Days (2005) and 3 Doors Down (2008) hit #1. Next year, the band celebrates the 20th year since its founding, and 3 Doors Down has sold 20 million albums. * * *  I bought a CD by another local rock band at about the same time as 3 Doors Down; it was Super Feinds by Level with the Ground. It is an excellent album, and everyone thought that they might hit the big time also. I read on the Internet years later that the album sold an amazing 5,000 copies; I have never heard how many copies of the 3 Doors Down demo CD were sold. Level with the Ground began performing with another hot local band, Stereo Crisis; and later the two bands merged to form Seven Left. * * *  I have never seen any of these local CD’s anywhere except at the place where I bought them. But lesser known and unknown albums accumulate with the hit albums, and record stores offering both new and used albums try to sell them also. I guess I first learned of this when I would go into a record store and start flipping through the stacks. Many stores have separate sections set up for major artists like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Pat Benatar, the Band, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, the B-52’s, etc. Then at the end would be a section simply marked B; here would be found albums by other artists whose names start with B. Some would be well known – a stray Boston or Blind Faith or Jack Bruce album might be found there, say – but most were utterly unknown to me. I would kind of flip through them, but I rarely bought anything. If anything, the proliferation of rock bands and new rock genres and subgenres has made the problem worse (if that is the right word). When the Sound Shop record store at our local Edgewater Mall went out of business several years ago, I went through the CD’s that were left over a week or so before they closed for good. They had been pretty well picked over, and nearly all of them did not ring even a little bell. I did pick up a few records, among them an anthology album by the Stone Roses and a get-out-the-vote collaboration by Chris Stamey and Yo La Tengo called V.O.T.E. (it has the same cover as Stamey’s album that came out at about the same time called A Question of Temperature). I knew Chris Stamey as a co-founder of the dB’s, while the store clerk knew the alternative rock band Yo La Tengo that he was playing with and also knew how good that particular record was. * * *  I was at a variety store somewhere ages ago and saw a rack of marked-down albums. They were priced at only 4 for a dollar, so I couldn’t lose there. One was an album by Meri Wilson called First Take; the songs on the record were marked as to which were recorded on the “first take”, and that was true of about half of them. Like the other three, I had no clue who she was. But Meri Wilson had recorded a catchy, bawdy novelty song called “Telephone Man” in 1977 that I had heard numerous times – “My heart began a-thumpin’ and my mind began to fly / And I knew I wasn’t dealin’ with no ordinary guy / So while he was a-talking I was thinkin’ up my plan / Then my fingers did the walkin’ on the telephone man” – which made it to #6 on the UK charts and #18 on the US charts. And “Telephone Man” was there about halfway through the first side of First Take. I could not have been more surprised. It made me wonder what other goodies could be hiding on those albums that I had never heard of, and I started buying more of them. I started looking for record companies where I had had some success with good albums, and sidemen and producers I was familiar with – often though, I just liked the cover. I started delighted in finding albums of cool music by people I had never heard of before. Not all of these albums were great, but hardly any of them were bad; and I have bought a lot of lousy albums by major rock stars. Now when I go into a record store that has major artists in their own marked sections, I usually pass those by and go straight to the plain “B”! * * *  Still, buying a box of albums even at a good price is something that I rarely do. I like to see what I am buying and make individual decisions. I was once at a flea market down here years ago where a guy was about to close down his stand. I had picked out a handful of CD’s already – two by the Cruzados, Terence Trent d’Arby, Shakespear’s Sister (pictured), Blues Traveler, David Cassidy (I had heard that this teen idol used to sing R&B songs during breaks in the filming of The Partridge Family, so I was going to see if any of that made it to disc) – when the man said, “I’ll sell you the whole rack for $35”. I figure that I had already picked out over $20 worth, so I said yes. Over a period of several months, I played my way through that box of CD’s. Who knows how long he had had this rack of CD’s that had boiled down to this particular group of albums that he had up until then been unable to sell. I was amazed at how good they were; there were rock CD’s of all types, heavy metal CD’s, country-flavored CD’s, R&B CD’s, a hip hop CD, a Christian contemporary CD, an Atlanta radio station CD – on and on and on. Not one single album did I set aside after only one play; I have played them all many times. It still has been just that one box that I bought basically sight unseen (the way Greg Shaw used to buy records, for one); but the next time I get an opportunity like that, I am definitely going to jump on it. This was quite a while back – pre-Katrina for sure, and probably close to 15 years ago – but I mail-order most of the CD’s that I buy (usually it is vinyl all the way when I am in record stores), so I can still pick out with some degree of certainty which CD’s I got in that box. I might be wrong about some of them (Terence Trent d’Arby and Blues Traveler might have been different purchases), but it still makes a good story with the CD’s that I have laid out in the following sections. Maybe some of my readers will be less afraid to take a chance on a purchase also after seeing what I found that day. * * *  Jimmy Barnes, I’m Still on Your Side (single) – Jimmy Barnes is a singer-songwriter who fronted the Australian hard rock band Cold Chisel and then mounted a successful solo career. “I’m Still on Your Side” has more of a country sound; Allmusic calls it “blue-collar rock” in their 4½ star review of the album where this song can be found, Freight Train Heart (1987).  Blues Traveler, Four – Front man John Popper has the vocal and harmonica chops to put this blues-rock jam band into the charts over a 25-year period. This 1994 album had slow sales at first until the opening track “Run-Around” became the band’s biggest hit song, peaking at #8. The song also won a Grammy in 1995.  Bobby Brown, Don’t be Cruel – When we went to see Tina Turner not long after her hit solo album, Private Dancer came out, someone was giving away a poster as we were leaving that had Tina on one side and New Edition, the opening act on the other side. Anyone who hung onto that poster had quite a collectible I imagine, because New Edition became one of the leading teen pop musical groups not long after that, as well as a template for numerous other groups that have come along since that time – black and white, male and female. Bobby Brown was the lead singer of New Edition, and the remaining members also had success in their later incarnation as Bell Biv DeVoe. Now infamous as the troubled husband of Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown deserves to be known as a fine performer as well, and a leader in the musical scene called new jack swing that his earlier band New Edition had pioneered. Don’t be Cruel (1988) includes the powerful hit single that I still hear on the radio a lot, “My Prerogative”; Allmusic gives the album a 5 star rating.  Hiram Bullock, Give it What U Got – Hiram Bullock is a longtime New York session guitarist who played on some of the finest pop albums of the 1970’s, such as Billy Joel’s The Stranger and Steely Dan’s Aja (both released in 1977). He was also one of the bandmembers in the original incarnation of the World’s Most Dangerous Band that Paul Shaffer assembled when Late Night with David Letterman first went on the air in 1982. Beginning in 1986, Hiram Bullock released more than a dozen albums as a solo artist. Give it What U Got (1987), his second album is an enjoyable blend of jazz, rock and funk that he would perfect even further over time. The final track is an instrumental treatment of a Steely Dan song, “Pretzel Logic”, the title song to their third album, Pretzel Logic; “Pretzel Logic” was the follow-up single to their major hit “Rikki Don’t Lose that Number”.  David Cassidy, David Cassidy – This 1990 CD is actually former teen idol David Cassidy’s 10th album; it is a pop album that has several choice cuts, such as his recording of the oft-covered “Hi-Heel Sneakers” (the closest he gets to R&B here).  Chosin Few, Chosin Few – This is the only release from an obscure heavy metal band and came out in 1988 on the equally obscure Statue Records label. I had to go to the second page of Google results before I found out much; the website Rob’s Metal Shop says of the album: “This is a quality release from an indie band. Definitely worth picking up if you can find it for a reasonable price. To me they sound a lot like Holy Soldier when Steven Patrick was the vocalist.” (Not that I know who Holy Soldier is either).  The Cruzados, The Cruzados – The bandmembers in the Cruzados were previously in the Plugz, the first Latino L.A. punk rock band and one of the best L.A. punk bands, period. They showed up on New Wave Theatre more than once and also performed the score of the 1984 cult classic film, Repo Man. The Cruzados were more of a pure rock band that were being, er, plugged as the “next big thing”. I had heard of them already, and these two albums were what drew me to that CD rack at the flea market in the first place. The first track on this album is called “Wasted Years”; it is a good opening track on a good CD, but I have never been able to shake the feeling that this song was a comment on the band’s years as the Plugz, and that ruins the effect for me.  The Cruzados, After Dark – As it turns out, this is the only other album that the band made. I do not like it as much as the first album; Allmusic on the other hand gives this album 4 stars and the first album only 2.  Terence Trent d’Arby, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent d’Arby – I remember there being a huge amount of hype associated with this album; the title alone promises more than almost anyone would be able to deliver. There was a lot of that going around in the 1980’s, and VH1 mocked the era’s self-importance by naming one of their oldies shows The Big 80’s. Allmusic reminded me of a quote from d’Arby himself that his was the most important album since Sgt. Pepper. There were two hit singles from the album in the US called “Wishing Well” and “Sign Your Name”, both excellent (so were the music videos for these songs); and US album sales hit two million. Another song from the album, “If You Let Me Stay” was a major #1 hit in the UK that stayed in the top half of the charts for over a year. Allmusic tells what happened next: “All of the success – both commercial and critical – had d’Arby poised as a major act, artistically and popularly. d’Arby’s mix of soul, rock, pop, and R&B recalled Prince in its scope and sound, yet his sensibility was grittier and earthier. At least they were at first. By the time of his second album, 1989’s Neither Fish nor Flesh, his ambitions were more nakedly pretentious. The record carried the weighty subtitle ‘A Soundtrack of Love, Faith, Hope & Destruction’ and attacked many self-consciously important themes, including homophobia and environmental destruction. In addition to the self import of the lyrics, the music added a variety of new textures, from Indian drones to straight-ahead ’50s R&B. All of the added baggage was too much for his audience, and Neither Fish nor Flesh dropped off the charts quickly, without so much as one hit single. It took d’Arby a full four years to record a new album.” Terence Trent d’Arby has released several more good albums and has carved out a niche as a cult act, but it wasn’t what might have been.  An Emotional Fish, An Emotional Fish – Here is the story on this Irish band according to Allmusic; I knew nothing about them myself at the time: “Since they come from Dublin, are righteously political and their first two singles were on U2’s Mother record label, An Emotional Fish is frequently written off as a blatant U2 imitator; and there is no denying that they owe a large debt to those Irish superstars. While their music has the same droning guitar of U2, there are more Celtic touches than U2 at a similar stage, along with straighter pop hooks. Unfortunately, they were involved in a nasty scandal in the U.K. involving Radio 1. After that, their debut album was massacred by the critics; and the band essentially vanished, releasing records like 1993’s Junk Puppets and 1996’s Sloper to little notice.” What I have is their debut album, An Emotional Fish; the article on that album, with a rating of 4½ stars, has a different story: “The disappearance of An Emotional Fish was one of the great disappointments of the 1990s. Released in September of 1990, An Emotional Fish likely was a victim of the Rattle and Hum era U2 backlash.” Since Allmusic is written by a host of writers, there are sometimes different points of view shown. In any case, despite the odd name (hardly any band names start with “a” or “an”, other than A Flock of Seagulls – perhaps they got the idea from the 1988 hit film A Fish Called Wanda?), this is probably the best album that I got that day.  French Kiss (movie soundtrack) – The soundtrack for French Kiss, the Meg Ryan/Kevin Klein vehicle from 1995 has a lot of the sort of Paris-themed music that one expects from Hollywood (including two different treatments of Cole Porter’s “I Love Paris”, no less). The album starts off with a bang – “Someone like You” by Van Morrison and a lovely rendition of the Edith Piaf classic “La Vie en Rose” by Louis Armstrong – but the album has too much score and not enough songs for my taste.  Jon Pierre Gee & Touch, The Time is Now – This 1995 album has smooth soul sounds with funk touches and is a delight to the ears. I haven’t been able to find much about him on the Internet, so I have to go with his own website; this is a nice summary of what I hear on the record (italics in the original): “Jon Pierre Gee (born May 14th Greenwood, MS) is an example of an old school artist who has stayed current while remaining true to the heart, soul and messages of classic, gospel, jazz, blues, he was born listening to.”  Get Real! (CD from the 1998 Alabama Youth Evangelism Conference) – I was listening to a lot of Christian contemporary music in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s; in fact, I was doing considerable right-of-way appraisal work in northwest Alabama at that time, and one property owner who had a professional recording studio in his house gave me close to a dozen CD’s of very good CCM music that he had masterminded for local people. I don’t know enough about the scene to really say whether these artists are all as prominent as BeBe Winans, Steven Curtis Chapman, DC Talk, and Newsboys; but there are lovely and lively songs alike on this record, starting with the standout opening cut “God” by Rebecca St. James.  Good 2 Go, Good 2 Go – This is a fun record from an all-female R&B/dance group that came out in 1992. According to their short Wikipedia article, they had a minor hit called “Never Satisfied” that is included on this album.  Grant Lee Buffalo, Fuzzy (single) – Led by singer-songwriter and guitarist Grant Lee Phillips, the alternative rock band Grant Lee Buffalo was a fave of critics and fellow musicians alike that never broke into the mainstream. Their music is an infectious blend of roots rock, psychedelia and country; and I sure wish I had more of their music. “Fuzzy” is the title track of the band’s debut album, Fuzzy (1993). Michael Stipe, the lead singer of R.E.M. called Fuzzy “the best album of the year hands down”. This single CD only has two versions of the same song, but I have pushed the “Play” button a second time on more than one occasion.  Bruce Hornsby and the Range, A Night on the Town – I signed up for one of those Internet music services at about the time I got these CD’s (Pandora probably); I guess I was supposed to buy a lot of songs and albums through the website, but I never even got around to downloading the 20 free songs that they offered me. I’m just too old-school I guess! In any case, it was an easier way to play CD’s than what I have on my computer at work now; and one bonus was that I could easily call up a short review of whatever CD I was playing rather than having to pull one up on Wikipedia or Allmusic. The review for this 1990 CD called it their “rock album”; it definitely does rock harder than the hits by the piano-driven Bruce Hornsby and the Range that I have heard over the years, like “The Way it Is”. I have little doubt that I have the right Bruce Hornsby album. Allmusic provides the details: John Mellencamp producer Don Gehman is on hand, and guest artists include Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, Shawn Colvin (early in her career), banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and jazz bassist Charlie Haden.  Hunters & Collectors, Ghost Nation – I liked this 1989 album so much (their sixth) that I have picked up another couple of albums by this fine Australian band that came along when movies and rock bands alike from Australia were finding audiences around the world. Hunters & Collectors were opening for Midnight Oil at one point but were struggling to find success in this country. Allmusic was not impressed, giving the album only 2 stars; but Australian music journalist Ian McFarlane called Ghost Nation “perhaps the band’s finest album to date”, and Rolling Stone Australia named them Australian Band of the Year in 1990.  Kings of the Sun, Kings of the Sun – This Australian hard rock band grew out of the dissolution of the Young Lions and released their debut album in 1988. From Allmusic: “Hard rock and a bad attitude fueled the bad boys from Australian band Kings of the Sun.” Their biggest hit, the Australian Top 20 hit “Bottom of My Heart” b/w “Bad Love” comes in toward the end of this album. There is a lot more in Wikipedia than in Allmusic this time; Kings of the Sun released three more albums and spawned two spinoff bands, the Rich & Famous and Clifford Hoad’s Kings of the Sun, with the latter band still around.  LL Cool J, Mr. Smith – I will have more to say about this gentleman, one of the founding fathers of rap, in a later post when I try to do an overview of the hip hop scene (wish me luck!). This album came out in 1995, a decade after his 1985 debut Radio; it was a #1 album for LL Cool J and represented something of a comeback for the artist (4 years after he famously started off one of his best known hits, “Mama Said Knock You Out” with the lyrics, “Don’t call it a comeback / I’ve been here for years”).  Looters, Flashpoint – My copy of this 1990 CD has a sticker on it with a list of the dates in their U.S. tour, so it might have been a promotional album of some kind. Allmusic gives this album 4 stars and says this about their incongruous beginnings and fan base: “Formed in San Francisco in 1982 at the peak of the city’s hardcore punk movement, Looters were embraced by the local punk rock scene even though the style of music the multi-racial, multi-ethnic band played couldn’t have had its roots further from Gilmore Street. The Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra was an early fan of the band, however, which led to the release of a self-titled EP on his Alternative Tentacles label. As legend would have it, Island Records head honcho Chris Blackwell heard the disc playing in a record store during a trip to the Bay area and subsequently signed the band to Island.” This is their debut album on Island but actually their second album (Jericho Down came out in 1984). The album has a host of influences and is rife with a compelling world-music vibe. The opening track, “War Drums” naturally is drum-based but also has fine harmony vocals. But the killer track for me is “Manzanar”, with its recurring call of “how far . . . is Manzanar”. From Wikipedia: “Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945.”  New Marines, Bonfire – There is virtually nothing about this 1998 album on the Internet. I remember it as a fine rock album, though I haven’t played it lately. The Discogs website describes New Marines as a post punk band; Bonfire is their second album.  Night Ranger, Dawn Patrol – This California rock band became 1980’s superstars that included a Top 5 hit, “Sister Christian”. This 1982 disc is their first album and got 4 stars from Allmusic and this comment: “Unlike many of their pop-metal contemporaries, Night Ranger’s early work has aged quite well, and this excellent 1982 debut is a well-kept secret of the genre.”  Paul Overstreet, Sowin’ Love – Paul Overstreet is a highly successful country music songwriter, penning 27 Top 10 hits including two #1 songs. From what I can tell, most do not fall into the crossover category with one major exception, the Randy Travis hit “Forever and Ever, Amen”. This is his second album, from 1989, and it is a gentle and highly enjoyable album that is loaded with fine songwriting.  Peach Jam I (CD collection assembled by Power 96 radio, WWPW-FM of Atlanta) – Radio station albums can be of-the-moment collections of major hits that don’t necessarily sound all that great years later, but in my limited experience, some can be a great way to get material that is a little out of the mainstream. I was not familiar with any of these bands when I got this 1990 CD, though I really enjoy playing this album.  Riverdogs, Riverdogs – This is the quite good self-titled 1989 debut album of the California rock band described in Wikipedia as being a hard rock and glam-metal band. The bandmembers still play together periodically, though they are also involved with other rock bands and/or have solo careers.  Shakespear’s Sister, Hormonally Yours – Shakespear’s Sister (note the missing “e”) is composed of Siobhan Fahey, a former member of Bananarama, and Marcella Detroit, who was the backing vocalist for Eric Clapton in the late 1970’s. When I was living in New York, there was a channel on our local cable TV network called Video Jukebox. There was a number that you could call and order your video, for which you were charged a dollar or so. While you punched in the numbers on your telephone to order the video, those numbers would show up on the TV screen if you had that channel on, and that sure was cool. Video Jukebox showed a lot of videos not available on MTV or VH1; after awhile, it was mostly rap and hip hop videos, but there were a lot of rock numbers early on. That channel is where I frequently saw the video of their hit song “Stay”, a Top 5 hit on both sides of the Atlantic; the first half features tender singing from Marcella Detroit followed by unexpectedly menacing vocals by Siobhan Fahey. This, their second album (from 1991) includes that song and numerous other engaging performances.  Robert Tepper, Modern Madness – This Bayonne, NJ native began his musical career as a songwriter and bass guitarist for Benny Mardones; he co-wrote Mardones’ hit song “Into the Night”, a #11 hit on its original release in 1980 that also made the charts again a decade later. Sylvester Stallone selected the title song from Robert Tepper’s debut album No Easy Way Out, “No Easy Way Out” for the soundtrack of the 1985 film Rocky IV. This was the most successful of the Rocky films and, in fact, was the biggest selling sports movie of all time until overtaken by The Blind Side (2009), the hit movie that gave Sandra Bullock her Oscar. While “No Easy Way Out” made it to the Top 30, Robert Tepper’s album was not a big seller. His follow-up album that I have, Modern Madness (1988) is a good rocking album that is well written and performed. I have seen the record show up on the Internet in a few slots, since it features Tori Amos among the background singers. Her under-rated debut effort Y Kant Tori Read – technically an album by the rock band Y Kant Tori Read rather than an album by Tori Amos individually like all of her later records – came out in the same year.  Ugly Kid Joe, America’s Least Wanted – Allmusic describes Ugly Kid Joe as a “fun-loving hard rock/funk/alt-metal group from Southern California”. To find the fun, you don’t have to go any further than the band name (a takeoff on “Pretty Boy Floyd” – actually a band by that name, Pretty Boy Floyd, not the Depression-era outlaw) or their album names that have similar word play, such as this one plus Menace to Sobriety, Motel California, and Stairway to Hell (with the latter album released just two years ago). This 1992 album is their first and includes their biggest hit song, a faithful but slightly quirky remake of the Harry Chapin classic, “Cats in the Cradle” that made the Top Ten. Of this album, Allmusic says: “Listeners who are too far removed from their adolescence to remember the joys of spitballs and Saturday schools won’t find America’s Least Wanted engaging in the least, but it wasn’t designed for them. Ugly Kid Joe rocks for the average high school kid, the one that doesn’t think about anything except girls, partying, and metal.” Like many of the CD’s that I got that day, my copy of America’s Least Wanted is missing the jewel-box booklet, so I hadn’t seen the album cover until just now: a cartoon drawing of a spiky-haired kid standing in for the Statue of Liberty, holding a porno magazine called Skin and flipping the bird, with the band’s name rendered in Green Jellö-style dripping letters. Additionally, Ugly Kid Joe had previously released an EP called As Ugly as They Wanna Be (1991) that includes another Top Ten song, “Everything About You” (this song is also included on America’s Least Wanted). The band went into the record books since As Ugly as They Wanna Be became the first short-form album to go multi-platinum.  Paul Young, Between Two Fires – Paul Young is a leading blue-eyed soul singer from England who is best known for his #1 hit in 1985 “Every Time You Go Away” (written by Daryl Hall and included on the 1980 Daryl Hall and John Oates album Voices but never released as a single). The album that I have, Between Two Fires garners only 2 stars from Allmusic, but I like hearing it. Paul Young is also known for singing the opening lines in the 1984 UK Band Aid song, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”. Not a bad haul at all, I’d say! * * *  The Under Appreciated Rock Band of the Month for December 2015 is AMANDA JONES, a punk/pop quartet from Los Angeles that is best known for their song “The First Time”. As far as I know, it was not actually released as a single; but the song was included on the two-CD retrospective album, Straight Outta Burbank, that was released on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Bomp! Records. As is true of the UARB from a few years back, Hollis Brown, Amanda Jones is a band, not a woman, though the lead singer is named Amanda Brix. Also, like Crystal Mansion, the UARB from last time, the musicians have some experience and are not just starting out. * * *  My segue to the discussion of the UARB was going to be, “I was first introduced to Amanda Jones on the compilation album Peach Jam I” that I described above. That would not have been entirely true; I had not realized until recently that Amanda Jones was one of the artists on Peach Jam I. Actually, after I replayed that CD, the song by Amanda Jones didn’t sound like the LA band much at all. I looked up Peach Jam I on Discogs, and they have the song “You Were Wrong” as being by Amanda Cole, who was using the alias Amanda Jones. Actually, the website has 10 artists named Amanda Jones in its database (and three Amanda Cole’s for that matter), and evidently none of them are the UARB. * * *  The name of Hollis Brown is taken from a Bob Dylan song “Ballad of Hollis Brown”. (Did I mention that I have a cover version of “Ballad of Hollis Brown” by Iggy and the Stooges? Quite good also). Like “Ruby Tuesday” (which became the name of a major American restaurant chain) and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (Jumpin’ Jack Flash is also the name of a Whoopi Goldberg film, and as I remember, the song lyrics figure into the story also), Amanda Jones is a character in a Rolling Stones song, “Miss Amanda Jones”. The song appears on one of my favorite Rolling Stones albums, Between the Buttons – “Ruby Tuesday” also appears on that album, at least the US version. I don’t think it a coincidence that the UARB shares its name with this song, though I suppose it is possible. * * *  According to the promotional material by Bomp! Records for the band’s EP, Amanda Jones, Amanda Jones was born in March 1995 as a collaboration of Amanda (Mandy) Brix and Jeff Drake, previously in the punk rock band the Joneses. The combination of her first name and his former band name clearly brought about the band name Amanda Jones, but they were almost certainly mindful of the Rolling Stones connection also: Their sound has the same kind of playful spirit as early mid-period Stones albums like Between the Buttons (released in January 1967); besides “Miss Amanda Jones” and “Ruby Tuesday”, the album also includes the song “Let’s Spend the Night Together” that got the band into so much trouble with The Ed Sullivan Show – Mick Jagger sung the title lyric as “let’s spend some time together” as Ed Sullivan insisted, though he and bassist Bill Wyman were rolling their eyes at the time. A few months back, I discussed the controversial lyrics in their first big hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”; the Rolling Stones were able to sing that number on The Ed Sullivan Show with no censorship. * * *  Other fun songs that the Rolling Stones put out in the same period include “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” (the photo of the band in drag that was on the 45 cover has to be seen to be believed) and “Mother’s Little Helper” – this song was a reminder that it wasn’t just the kids who were often on drugs. Speaking of which, Between the Buttons ends with a song called “Something Happened to Me Yesterday”; from Wikipedia: “At the time of the song’s release, [Mick Jagger] said: ‘I leave it to the individual imagination as to what happened.’ Matthew Greenwald calls it ‘one [of] the most accurate songs about LSD’.” * * *   Amanda Brix had been in an all-female band called the Lame Flames that was active in the Los Angeles area in the 1980’s. They are described variously on the Internet as a rap trio and a heavy metal act (with Amanda Brix called a “sex goddess”). Though the band has a Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/The-Lame-Flames-137156196321030/ – they apparently did not release any records, and I am not sure that there are any YouTube videos out there either. There are oodles of photos and posters on the Facebook site and elsewhere on the Internet though. * * *  Jeff Drake was the lead singer for a punk rock band called the Joneses; another of their bandmembers was Paul Mars Black, who was a bandmember in the past UARB Dead Hippie. This is not the same band as the 1970’s Boston hard rock band called the Joneses or the Pittsburgh R&B band also called the Joneses that was part of the Philly Soul scene of the 1970’s. This band called the Joneses was formed in 1981 and was active in LA through the end of the decade. They have a Wikipedia article but no notice in Allmusic, while the Boston and Pittsburgh bands have Allmusic write-ups but nothing in Wikipedia. The Joneses released several singles and EP’s but only one full-length LP, Keeping up with the Joneses (not surprisingly I suppose, the Pittsburgh band also released an album called Keepin’ up with the Joneses). * * *  Amanda Brix and Jeff Drake rounded out Amanda Jones by adding the rhythm section from the early LA punk rock band called the Skulls – their first release, “Victims” was on only the third single from What Records? – Keith Michael on bass (who had been a good friend of Jeff Drake from Huntington Beach) and Sean Antillon on drums and percussion. In an interview for SugarbuzzMagazine.com, Jeff Drake mentions that Brian Walsh was also a sometime drummer for Amanda Jones; he was previously in teen heart-throb Leif Garrett’s band and was also in Slow Motorcade, who recorded a cover of one of my favorite New York Dolls songs, “Vietnamese Baby”. The Slow Motorcade version of “Vietnamese Baby” was included on a New York Dolls tribute album called Jetboys of Babylon (2005). Jeff Drake also mentioned that Greg Shaw of Bomp! Records signed Amanda Jones after he saw their first show at Coconut Teazser, a Hollywood rock and roll club located at the eastern end of the Sunset Strip, where they became the house band for a while. * * *  Amanda Jones’ sole album Amanda Jones came out on Bomp! Records in 1996, with the five songs being a delight from end to end. The opening cut is “The First Time”, about a girl bringing a boy home to her place. With lyrics like “It’s my first time / Please be kind / It’s my first time / Don’t hurt me” interspersed with “oh . . . oh oh oh . . .”, the song focuses more on the angst rather than the sexiness of the coming-of-age event; unlike the way that, say, Rod Stewart did in his hit song “Tonight’s the Night”. And in a nice twist, it turns out that the boy admits with tears in his eyes that it is also his “first time”. “The Back & Forth” is a lively song about an imaginary dance craze of that name that also sounds like a stand-in for sex. “Kathy’s Kiss” and “Put You on Hold” are also fun songs, with both bringing up jealous feelings: “I can taste her on your lips . . . Kathy’s kiss is poisonous . . . gonna clean her up with turpentine” and “I left you hanging on / I put you on hold and you were gone . . . I called my favorite number, Star-69”. The final song, “Private Enemy No. 1” has the singer in the thrall of a bad boy: “He’s my private enemy number one / held my heart for ransom / private enemy number one / he’s so f--kin’ handsome” – not “hot” or “sexy” or something like that, but the old-fashioned “handsome”. The album ends with the comment “oh, yes, he is” after the final chorus that always makes my smile. * * *  Before Amanda Jones was formed, Amanda Brix and fellow Lame Flame Iris Berry started a band called Pink Sabbath. A website called www.theeyeshadows.com says that they are not a Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath cover band; that might be true of another band called Pink Sabbath that is still active. Other bandmembers were James McCrone (guitar), Dawn Laureen (bass), and Eric Blitz (drums). They were one of the performers at the Hollygrove Orphanage Benefit at the Roxy, where they shared the stage with Henry Rollins and with River Phoenix (in his last acoustic performance before his untimely death). * * *  Mandy Brix of Amanda Jones shows up in a lot of Internet searches because in 1988, she married bass guitarist Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses. She is now happily married to a recording industry executive named Steven Toland; Jeff Drake says that Mandy is “[j]ust being a very glamorous housewife . . . with a couple of kids.” * * * STORY OF THE MONTH: The Beatles’ Early American Singles (from January 2013)  One widely held theory about the success of Beatlemania is that the timing was just right; America was still in mourning from the assassination of President John Kennedy 50 years ago this November, and four extraordinarily talented long-haired Englishmen were just starting to get their records released over here. The Fab Four’s American success is most often tied these days to their appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, but the story is much more complicated than that actually. One fascinating view of the whole story is the history of the British Invasion as told from a musician/fan’s perspective – Cyril Jordan, a founding member of the Flamin’ Groovies (whose roots go all the way back to 1965) – which is the cover story of the current issue of Ugly Things magazine that also includes my own article on Milan the Leather Boy. Here are some fun facts that Jordan didn’t talk about. * * * The Beatles’ debut album Please Please Me was released in England on EMI/Parlophone Records in March 1963, under the direction of Sir George Martin, who turned 87 earlier this month. Martin had joined EMI in 1950 and oversaw the Parlophone label, which released the early Beatles albums in the UK. The label also featured several other major acts, including the Hollies, Cilla Black, and Billy J. Kramer. However, Capitol Records was slow to lock up the Beatles’ recordings in this country – apparently learning nothing from Decca Records’ disastrous decision in 1962 not to give the band a recording contract in the UK, giving as their reason the boneheaded prediction that “guitar bands were on their way out”. This allowed small American labels to release many of the band’s early singles, notably “She Loves You” b/w “I’ll Get You” on Swan Records, but also including “Please Please Me” b/w “From Me to You” and “Do You Want to Know a Secret” b/w “Thank You Girl” on Vee Jay Records, plus “Love Me Do” b/w “P.S. I Love You” and “Twist and Shout” b/w “There’s a Place” on Vee Jay’s subsidiary Tollie Records. In fact, during that remarkable week in April 1964 when all of the top 5 songs on the Billboard singles chart were Beatles songs – in order, they were “Can’t Buy Me Love”, “Twist and Shout”, “She Loves You”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, and “Please Please Me” – just 2 were Capitol releases (#1 and #4). Vee Jay was even able to get their million-selling Introducing . . . the Beatles album released 10 days before Capitol’s Meet the Beatles (though it was originally scheduled for a July 1963 release). Needless to say, considerable lawsuits were both brought and threatened over that period. Over the ensuing years, the Beatles’ financial entanglements only worsened. This occurred, in part, because of the somewhat bitter and highly public break-up of the band; but for the most part, it was simply ill-advised business practices as I understand it. Continued standoffs by the band and the other representatives in charge of their recordings – whose owners by then included Michael Jackson – kept the Beatles canon from being available via online sales until 2010. With the acquisition of EMI by Universal Music Group in 2012 and the subsequent creation of a new Capitol Records subsidiary to oversee the Beatles catalogue, perhaps the matter is finally settled. The Beatles’ somewhat anti-capitalist stance over this period is hardly driven by some sort of Marxist-Leninist tendencies as the band’s detractors might imagine, but it is rather a natural reaction to the scandalously brutal plundering of royalties from even top recording artists that had become routine among recording industry practitioners for decades. As one of the most egregious examples, one of the Rolling Stones’ managers, Allen B. Klein tricked the band into signing over the rights to all of the music that they had recorded (through 1971) with Decca Records. (The Stones were Decca’s lucrative consolation prize when they passed on signing the Beatles). Klein’s label, ABKCO Records is frequently encountered on Stones records, including one of their rarest albums, Metamorphosis. |
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