Records

I spent last weekend celebrating, and then celebrating some more. I made it out to see a fantastic show at The Earl on Saturday night. I was entirely too loaded to analyze or do anything other than just enjoy it. Suffice it to say this: if you get the chance to see Brownout or Lloyd's Rocksteady Revue, buy the ticket and go. No questions asked and you can thank me later.

Brownout is a side project of several members of the marvelous Grupo Fantasma. Brownout is similar, but I would describe it as being more guitar-driven than Grupo. I would also say it more closely resembles Funk music than Grupo, but it's still very diverse and loads of fun. Your also more likely to catch this in a small venue, and it's just a lot of damn fun to watch nine guys with instruments packed onto a little stage.

Lloyd's Rocksteady Revue is led by Cadillac Jones frontman Jonathan Lloyd. It's a 9-piece or 12-piece (12 fuckin' people on stage at once!), depending on whether or not the backup singers are around at the time. The revue consists of a set of covers of classic Ska, Reggae, and Rocksteady stuff. It was nothing short of mindblowing. Just keep an eye out for it and go see it.

I attended a tremendous wedding on Sunday (and of course the bachelor party on Friday, and pre-wedding celebration on Saturday), and fortunately, I had the foresight to take Monday off. This of course led to an impromptu 'day-after-wedding' celebration between myself and a couple of the other folks who took Monday off. Needless to say, I wound up getting drunk and popping into a record store.


New York Dolls
in Too Much Too Soon
Mercury Records
LP









This is an easy album to forget about. The Dolls' eponymous record is one of the most amazing and influential recordings of all time. This one really isn't that far from it. Shadow Morton produced this one, and while doesn't quite do as good of a job with this as Todd Rundgren did with the first one, he throws every dirty studio trick in the book at you. You might think that doesn't sound appetizing, but it definitely works. If I were to draw a parallel, I would say the finished product is similar to what Phil Spector did with the Ramones on End of the Century. Too Much Too Soon is not as good as New York Dolls. But really, what is? If the first one is Babe Ruth, this one is Lou Gehrig; not quite as good, but still a hall-of-famer.


The Robustos
The New Authentic
Beatville Records
LP









The aforementioned show I attended on Saturday, Lloyd's Rocksteady Revue, left me wanting more. As far as what's on wax, this is the closest thing available to me. The bandleader for the Revue, Jonathan Lloyd, was in the Robustos, as were apparently a couple of other people who were on the stage. The Robustos started out as a ska band, but on this, their second album, they incorporated more elements of jazz and soul. The singer, Tonya Abernathy, has a wonderful voice with lots of soul. This band broke up ten years ago; five years before I even moved to Atlanta. I wish I could have seen this the first time around. But alas, the record will have to suffice, and it's a damn good one. Pick it up if you see it in a store somewhere.