Still doing the gentleman’s twist more than 30 years on, The Fleshtone’s Take A Good Look is ready for its close-up. Stardom’s eluded the ‘Tones so long, there are books written about it. Maybe Keith Streng’s “Shiney Hiney” gives a clue as to how they can keep rocking year in and year out – as far as the Fleshtones are concerned, the world can kiss it. One might take the album title as a warning that we’re not going to have the Fleshtones to kick around forever, but based on the evidence, they’re still having a ball, Peter Zaremba’s never sounded better, and the road to Hitsville, USA continues.
Archive for December, 2008
6th Best Album of 2008, The Fleshtones’ “Take A Good Look”
Posted in Music with tags John Buckley, The Fleshtones, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List on December 8, 2008 by johnbuckley1007th Best Album of 2008, Black Mountain’s “In The Future”
Posted in Music with tags Black Mountain, Blood Meridian, John Buckley, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List on December 8, 2008 by johnbuckley100Surely the title was ironic, because “In The Future” sounds like the album made secretly by the engineer when the musicians from Cactus left the studio in, oh, January 1970. Lacking the Sly and The Family Stone call-and-response dynamic between Stephen McBean and Amber Weber that was so delightful on “Drugonaut,” this is as heavy as a 3:00 a.m. nodfest in a Gastown loft. Now if only Black Mountain would give Matthew Camirand and Joshua Wells enough time off to record the ultimate Blood Meridian album, fans of Vancouver bands would have the musical equivalent of Whistler-Blackcomb.
8th Best Album of 2008, The Duke Spirit’s “Neptune”
Posted in Music with tags John Buckley, The Duke Spirit, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List on December 8, 2008 by johnbuckley100The world has far too few coiled, strutting British bands with female singers and a chassis formed from the Jaguar Noel Gallagher bought when (What’s The Story) Morning Glory went triple platinum. Neptune is not as three dimensional as Cuts Across The Land, but it is a fine album indeed, filled with radio rockers like “Send A Little Love Token” and Anglo delicacies — no, we’re not talking about kippered herring — like “Wooden Heart.” Liela Moss may as well be Kate Moss on “The Step And The Walk,” the sexiest song of 2008, and the most infectious.
9th Best Album of 2008, Thenewno2’s “You Are Here”
Posted in Music with tags dhani harrison, george harrison, John Buckley, thenewno2, Tulip Frenzy Top 10 List on December 8, 2008 by johnbuckley100Maybe Tulip Frenzy hangs out in the wrong places, but the gang here would have figured a bluesy, trippy, eminently interesting album by the soundalike, lookalike son of George Harrison would have caused a bigger stir. Rainy day music, and maybe a little claustrophobic for a record made in sunny California, Thenewno2’s debut has stopped work in Tulip Frenzy World HQ every time we’ve listened to it. Completely contemporary, and yet a throwback, one might almost begin believing in reincarnation.
10th Best Album of 2008: Ry Cooder’ s “I, Flathead”
Posted in Music with tags John Buckley, Ry Cooder, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List on December 8, 2008 by johnbuckley100Late in the year, Ry Cooder released the dandy I, Flathead, in which, by God, he plays certified rock’n’roll music, or something close to it. He’s come full circle, if you think about it, in that his mature singing voice sounds like Don Van Vliet’s, and damned if Cooder wasn’t one of the guitarists on Captain Beefheart’s Safe As Milk more than 40 years ago. If American roots music has shifted with the population from the Mississippi River watershed to the Colorado’s — Calexico is the 21st century American soul band — then Cooder’s California desert rock reveals new truths about the nation, sounds great, and is a welcome reminder of how delightful a virtuoso he is, whether jamming with Indian sitarists, Cuban bar bands, or what sounds like John Hiatt and Los Lobos.
Tulip Frenzy 