7 Day Binge: Bluesy Metal

Sometimes the promo review copies pile up and I feel like I am on a factory treadmill, to be frank. Yet each one has behind it a musician or group of musicians that put (one assumes) much time and effort to get to the point where I can hold the plastic jewel case in my hand. I take my somewhat humble role seriously. If something deserves to be heard I cannot let myself become blase.

So if I listen and review a CD by a group called 7 Day Binge, in fact a self-titled album of that description (Rock Ridge 61265), it behooves me to pay attention and not come forth with some kind of blithe horse manure designed to flatter my own notion of self-worth.

This is a band that draws upon and builds upon the bluesier elements of hard rock/metal. To suggest a group like Free or Led Zep has some relation to this music is not at all a stretch. There's also a Southern rock aspect to them. Yet they pull together with songs that do not sound as if they were cloned from the parental stock.

This is a now sort of venerable way to proceed: blazing guitar, punchy bass, hard, organic drumming and soulful rock vocals. It's not so much formula as style.

Seven Day Binge do a good job of it.

A band like this merits the attention of those who dig this kind of music.

Have No Fear, Anthrophobia's Metal is Here

Originally posted on December 30, 2008

If you like your rock dense and rather angry, perhaps you would like Anthrophobia’s Framework (Mausoleum), an EP I found as a cutout some time ago. It falls into the category of (you name the adjective) metal. Not death, not heavy, not doom, not grindcore, I dunno. It’s a guitar bass-drums-vocal setup and has some nice riffs and a bit of a flair.

Motorhead's "Inferno" Blazes Forth

Originally posted on September 16, 2008

Motorhead to me is one of the best extreme metal bands. Lemmy Kilmister plays a very full electric bass and his vocals have the perfect hoarse shout and punch for the music. The trio brings power to new heights. That blues quality and the very amplified, ordered chaos pack a terrific jolt. They still thrive. I’ve got their not quite newest CD in my listening cycle—Inferno (Sanctuary). It is more of the same but that’s good if you like it. They show no sign of slowing down, so you’ll have to speed up a little to catch them. Seriously, though, this is music my mother would have hated. A cut from this CD would have brought her to the stairs, to yell “turn that music down!” and embarrass me in front of my friends. I suppose that has something to recommend it to you? But of course I jest about my Mom. I never wanted to put her through unpleasant changes, regardless of my teen thrashings and grapplings to get a grip on the modern world back in the eons of the last century.

[Eds note: this posting was written on the morning of the "crash."] Glad I’m not a stockbroker this morning. Here’s to what is totally uncool and I hope isn’t coming back. Unmediated greed, ride'em cowboy investing styles. As Muddy Waters sang, “you can’t lose what you ain’t never had.” That applies to many of us. The old Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" seems apt.

Korn and Alternate Guitar Tunings

Originally posted on November 27, 2007

Ever thought of tuning your guitar differently? Guitarists that use the slide usually tune to a chord. There are all kinds of other options. Tuning down a few steps or even more has become an option especially popular with some Metal groups. That’s what I like about Korn. Their Life is Peachy album (Immortal/Epic), released in 1996, is as good an example as any. The lyrics are punky and adult, which is fine if you like that.

But the dense lower end sound they get when riffing and power chording can be a kicker, especially when the drummer tunes his snare drum high or uses a piccolo model (not sure which). It leaves drums and vocals at mid and top, then a massive lower end of strings. You generally need an excellent intonation set up (great tuners and quality bridge-tailpiece assembly) to hold the tuning in those instances. You may also need to raise the action on the guitar/bass a bit, to stop buzzing. Experiment! I have to go back to the studio and finish what I started earlier on my CD. There I use lower tuning, baritone set ups and the like for a bottom end that cuts through. Well, that’s me right now. I must get back to it once the holiday season is over.

Big Jay McNeely's R and B, Motorhead's Metal

Originally posted on November 6 and 7, 2007

By now, if you've been following my blog you may have gathered that I listen to all kinds of music. What about rhythm & blues from 1957? When I was a kid the local 5 & 10 was still selling 78 rpm records that were remaindered—for 9 cents each! At that price I could afford two. One day they had something by Big Jay McNeely & Band on Swingin’ Records. I grabbed it, thinking anything on a label called Swingin’ had to be cool. I took it home and listened. I was flabbergasted. It was high-energy r & b, proto-funk and it really was very cool. Years went by before I figured who Big Jay was. McNeely was a proto-rock big deal in the very early ‘50s as a kind of madman, a bar walking, bend-over-backwards tenor sax player with a screaming and honking thing happening that had some relation to Illinois Jacquet and his playing. But Big Jay was just wild. By 1957 he had a band with two saxes, electric guitar, bass guitar and drums. On the vocals was Little Sonny. McNeely still did the rabble-rousing, wild instrumental numbers, but with Little Sonny (almost a proto-James-Brown) he could expand into more of the Soul bag.

He made an album’s worth of material for Swingin’ which eventually popped up on the Collectibles CD label. And right before that he recorded a session live (Live at Birdland) which never saw the light of day until Collectibles put it out a while ago. That’s the one I’m listening to now and it is very cool. The tune that hit me on the 78 I bought for nine cents is here in its live incarnation: “Back…Shack…Track.” Funny, turns out that was the “B” side, but for me it rules. You have nifty sax lines, early funk drumming and an interlocking guitar and bass riff. And the vocals—electric!! If you can find this one, you might want to get it. It has all the table walking crazy sax stuff and this proto-funk too. Little Sonny was a gas!!

For contrast, what about Motorhead? They had been together for ages when they recorded Everything Louder than Anyone Else live at a concert in Hamburg in 1998 (2CD SPV). Man, they exhaust me just listening. There may never have been a rock group that had so much power in their playing. It’s a guitar-bass-drums trio with electricity coming out of their toes. Metal with a punk and thrash influence, death rock without much of the death or the exorcist vocals, that’s what it all sounds like. The group kicks into overdrive from the very first cut and does not let loose until the final zonk. These guys you either love or hate, there can be little indifference. I am in awe.