Bribery and corruption at work…
My second promo CD! How terribly exciting. I’ve always said in doing this blog that I want to make sure that music is something I buy and crave for (ie like a punter), rather than something I’m swamped in and have to deal with/ dismiss (ie like a hack). Still, I’m so pathetically grateful for anyone actually taking the effort to read this and then think I’m worth sending a CD to, that I feel duty bound to be as polite as possible. (this, I should add is not a covert plea for more freebies…should the novelty wear off, I’ll simply become cynical and twisted, and we wouldn’t like that, would we?).
Anyway, it comes from the Mod Lang label in Berkeley California (because, I’m like just sooooo global); although it’s by a guy who’s actually from Birmingham (as in home of Jasper Carrot and the Bull Ring, not as in Alabama). His name is Dave Kusworth accompanied by The Tenderhooks, and it’s called Like “Wonderland Avenue” In A Cold Climate.
His previous career includes TV. Eye. ; The Hawks (with Stephen Tin Tin Duffy), and most recently, The Jacobites, a partnership with Nikki Sudden.
Thanks to the wonder of Google, I can tell you that the title refers - I assume - to the book, Wonderland Avenue by Danny Sugerman, manager to The Doors and Iggy Pop. It’s a tale of Sex, drugs and rock and roll in early 70s LA, and, was either made or nearly made, into a film. Which gives you a pretty good idea of their cultural reference points.
The press release proudly nods to the Faces and The Only Ones. They wear velvet jackets and shades. They have hair cuts like Ronnie Wood. You get the idea.
It’s been recommended by Mojo, which I have to say is something of a problem for me; as the last time I flicked through a copy of Mojo it did look like the in-house journal for the Royal Society of Aged Rockers; and I’d no more take a musical recommendation from Mojo than I would from Mike Smash. Still, they sent it, so I listened.
So, is it any good? You know what, it’s not bad in a sort of loloping, bottle of brandy in the hand, early 70s kind of way. I have to say, it’s a bit too straight up and down rawk-and-roll for me, but I sense I’ll grow to quite like it. Could well work in the states (where they’re based).
See, I think that whole early 70s English rock thing all looked better than it sounded. As opposed to, say Whitesnake and all that spandex rock, that sounded better than it looked. And on that epigrammatic, but fundamentally flawed theory, I’ll leave you. You can buy it direct here.