Yeah... not really sure where they were trying to take that...
It has a bit of that Pink Floyd like sound from the mid 70's... but misses on that... as amusical...
But what it most reminds me of is an attempt at NRBQ...
And, I can't really do a really great job of showing you why... because the most easily accessible NRBQ recordings... are studio work that cleans up all the NRBQ right out of NRBQ... trying to convert them into Pop hit purveyors... when they're not that... and are best because they're not... And, the live performances I see, aren't the best of them... but maybe capture some of what I'm talking about... if not what they brought to in the 70's...
Ruby, My Dear
You really have to see them live to appreciate them... and then, what you get is four guys on stage all sort of doing their own thing, each doing it very well... but, at their best, it all holds together only by the thinnest of threads... but, hold together it does... even while feeling as if its constantly on the cusp of failure...
The feel is raw R&B... very raw... driven by the bass and percussion... and live it tends to be pretty high gain and noisy... raw guitar, raw vocals... but, then, in packaging it for sale that aspect seems it gets cleaned up in studio... making the quality of it not really translate to vinyl... at all...
You can see that even in the profile... the background music they set it to... versus the snippets of live performances that they show... then, look at those same songs on the albums ? They sound better playing on the bus than they do with "production" removing what's good about it...
I had them play a gig in, maybe 1977... the Kick Me Hard era... and it was spectacular... I think probably one of their best shows ever... I was good at my job, too, and knew how to make that happen... But Kick Me Hard, the album ? Meh. Soulless. You're supposed to put the music on the vinyl... not the vinyl in the music. They're still that "your favorite band's favorite band" kind of thing... known for that... and, yet, in trying to sell them, they keep trying to turn them into Todd Rundgren... which just does not work.
I think maybe Keith Richards could produce them and make it work... not sure anyone else can...
|
