Clang & Clatter

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Something’s Always Wrong” (P.S. (A Toad Retrospective), 1999)
One of my favorite Toad songs. I also like the versions Glen would do as a “duet” with the audience as part of his live acoustic shows early in his solo career.

Armored Saint - “Terror” (Raising Fear, 1987)
It’s hard to beat these early Armored Saint tunes, even with a clueless label like Chrysalis at the helm (they actually forced the band to include the horrid cover of Skynyrd’s “Saturday Night Special”). John Bush had such a great voice for the band. Too bad Chrysalis didn’t know what to do with the Saint, didn’t know the potential they had, or just didn’t care. I can’t decide which is worse.

King’s X - “Julie” (XV, 2008)
Great Jerry Gaskill tune dedicated to his long-time girlfriend (now wife). As with most of Jerry’s songs, this one has a shiny coat of Beatles inspiration all over it. His voice melds perfectly with Ty’s and dUg’s when they break out the three-part harmonies, but I wish Jerry had more of an opportunity to sing lead like he does here.

Superchunk - “Learned to Surf” (Majesty Shredding, 2010)
A certain Rock ‘n’ Roll Snob turned me onto this, and boy am I glad he did. This is my favorite from the album. I love the rhythm, the melody, and all the guitar parts battling for my attention in the stereo separation. And I swear if I ever start a band, I’m going to have a female bass player.

P.O.D. - “Three in the Power of One” (Snuff the Punk, 1994)
From the indie-label remaster of P.O.D.’s even idie-er first release, this song shows a young P.O.D. cutting its teeth on the hardcore rap-metal sound it would master and become identified with only two albums later. As such, much of the material on this album lacks the direction, maturity, and diversity that fueled the band’s success on The Fundamental Elements of Southtown or Satellite.

Rush - “Limbo” (Test for Echo, 1996)
Looks like I’m going to open this month-closing Five with … yes, you guessed it … more Rush. Can’t say that’s a bad thing, though. This time it’s the great instrumental from Test for Echo. As much as I love actual Rush songs, I really wish they did more instrumentals.

Spock’s Beard - “Beware of Darkness” (Beware of Darkness, 1996)
Rush had been out of its progressive rock period for more than a decade when Spock’s Beard came onto the 90’s music scene to become the official prog-rock flag-bearers. I had heard their name bandied about in music snob circles for some time before I finally checked them out, and am I ever glad I did. I was blown away by the excellent musicianship, stellar vocal harmonies, and most importantly, strong songwriting, even amidst the prog-rock wankery and excess. Ultimately, strong songs always win me over whatever the genre, and while this particular cut is not a favorite, it’s still great.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Brother” (All You Want, 2011)
This is turning out to be a great Five so far. Up next is a re-recording of a Toad classic for their first reunion album, a best of collection released on their own Abe’s Records label meant to recapture publishing and licensing rights to some of their biggest Columbia hits. Sounds as fresh as it ever did.

King’s X - “Shoes” (Dogman, 1994)
When King’s X teamed up with Pearl Jam and STP knob-twiddler Brendan O’Brien to produce their redefining, transitional album Dogman, they were accused by just about everyone of chasing the mainstream success grunge had afforded other bands in the early 90s. What they didn’t realize is that O’Brien had sought out the trio to work with them (rather than the other way around) and that most of the grunge forefathers had actually acknowledged King’s X’s late 80s drop-D riffage as a huge influence on their sound. A new set of ears in the control room, a change in gear for guitarist Ty Tabor, and darker lyrics from bassist Doug Pinnick (who was growing more frustrated with organized religion and would eventually walk away from it completely), combined to create an album that is widely regarded as one of their best works despite its being quite different from anything else in their catalog. If you don’t own this album, you should.

C’mon Five, one more song. Don’t fail me now.

Def Leppard - “When the Walls Came Tumbling Down” (Live BBC Studio Sessions, 1979)
And … this Five came tumbling down. Not really—this just isn’t my favorite NWOBHM-era Leppard song. Elliot’s vocals are a bit pitchy (don’t you just love American Idol for bringing that term to the forefront of music critiquing?!), and you can tell the young band were still trying to hone their sound. Still not bad, and quite a bit better than much of the dreck they have produced in the last decade.

Hope everyone has a great no-labor Labor Day Weekend!

Galactic Cowboys - “Arrow” (Machine Fish, 1996)

I’ve been wise to their manipulation
So I’ll just plant my feet and never leave

Machine Fish ushered in a simpler, more straight-ahead metal style for the Cowboys after the switch to a new label and the introduction of a new guitarist. Even with so much change, the album has lots of great songs on it. Unfortunately this isn’t among them. Long and drawn-out, this closing track serves only to drag down what otherwise is a fairly heavy and high-energy album. Too bad, because it has some very heartfelt lyrics, and I think it could have been a much stronger song had it been handled a bit differently.

Jars of Clay - “Weighed Down” (Stringtown, 1999)

Our hearts: a bubble maker’s dream

One of my favorite Jars songs from what was originally a fan club exclusive release of a collection of songs recorded live over three separate tours, one of them being a show at the renown Ryman Auditorium featuring The Nashville String Machine.

Toad the Wet Sprocekt - “Nanci” (Dulcinea, 1994)

You bend your words like Uri Geller’s spoons

Jars and Toad were two of my favorite bands in the 90s, so it’s interesting that they appear here back-to-back in this Five. Again, another favorite of mine, especially the acoustic version that appears on the Acoustic Dance Party EP.

Dokken - “Don’t Close Your Eyes” (Tooth and Nail, 1984)

Somebody’s watching me
Is it just a crazy dream?

Not much to say about this one. Typical high-energy “rockin’ with Dokken” tune. I spent more than my fair share of time as a teenager playing air guitar with George Lynch.

Devin Townsend Project - “Hyperdrive!” (Music in Progress, Vol. 2, 2010)

Hooray for love
Hey, I’m only…
Trying to find a new way

Addicted was my first real introduction to Devin Townsend’s music, this song in particular being one of the first I heard when I picked up this Inside Out Music free sampler. I had been barely familiar with him before then due to his association with Steve Vai and an appearance on a Rush tribute album. “Hyperdrive!,” like most of Addicted, is both poppy and heavy with the wall-of-sound production Townsend has become known for, and it features the soaring vocals of the beautiful Anneke van Giersbergen. Nice way to end the week.

Check out my Friday Five gone bad at Popdose.

Sixpence None the Richer - “I Can’t Explain” (This Beautiful Mess, 1999)
Closing track from my favorite Sixpence album back when they were an indie rock CCM outfit struggling with their record label and not FM pop radio darlings.

Jughead - “Yesterday I Found Myself” (Jughead, 2002)
When Platypus, the prog-rock supergroup side project featuring King’s X guitarist Ty Tabor, Dream Theater bassist John Myung, Dixie Dregs drummer Rod Morgenstein, and former Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian, disbanded after only two albums (both excellent by the way), Tabor and Sherinian teamed up with brothers Matt and Gregg Bissonette to form the more straight-ahead pop/rock project Jughead. However, their self-titled debut, the only album the project has released to date, does have its progressive moments on a few of the songs, such as this cut with its spacey droning verses, Beatles-esque bridge section, and harmony-laden, sugary-sweet, pure power pop chorus.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Stories I Tell” (Fear, 1991)
I played Fear so often back in the ’90s that there were times I just couldn’t stand to listen to it again. But “Stories I Tell” has always held this strange draw for me with its dark weightiness and mysterious lyrics.

Van Halen - “Girl Gone Bad” (1984, 1984)
Probably one of the best and most underrated songs on this Van Halen classic that saw the band moving in a new direction.

Alice in Chains - “LOVE SONG” (Sap, 1995)
The Sap EP’s closing nonsense track complete with grunting, screaming, bullhorn vocals, fart noises, and piano-based thrashing is a strange way the end what up to this point was another excellent Five. Oh well. “Kiss the midget!”

As the title suggests, Riff Raf’s interview with Glen Phillips is a fairly in-depth look into the artist’s thoughts about his own songwriting and the craft in general, but he also discusses other topics, among them the challenges of making a living as an artist, choosing satisfaction over money, and not having to cook dinner for his Toad the Wet Sprocket bandmates. Make sure you also click through to read part 2.

Enjoy!

Foo Fighters - “But Honestly” (Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, 2007)
Dave Grohl has to be one of the hardest-working people in rock music today, and say what you will, I like most everything he’s ever done on one level or another. “But Honestly” is no different. I love the simplicity of first half of the song with just Dave’s voice and acoustic guitar and how it builds into this whole other stadium rock anthem thing.

Glen Phillips - “Cleareyed” (Winter Pays for Summer, 2005)
Fingers crossed that iTunes continues to serve up a good Friday Five. Glen Phillips is one of my favorite songwriters, and again, there’s not much he does that I don’t like. Winter Pays for Summer should have been a breakthrough album for the former Toad the Wet Sprocket singer, but I’m beginning to realize that I just don’t understand the music industry. At all.

Victor - “Victor” (Victor, 1996)
Uh-oh, here’s where iTunes goes wonky on me. This comes from a solo album Rush’s Alex Lifeson released under the project name Victor. The title track bears absolutely no resemblance to anything Rush has ever released, and if you didn’t already know this was Lifeson, you wouldn’t believe it. While most of the album features former I Mother Earth singer Edwin on vocals, “Victor” is a spoken-word track of sorts with Lifeson handling the “vocals.” Victor is mostly made up of heavier, post-modern alterna-rock-styled tunes, but this one is just plain strange.

The Scooters - “Throw Your Arms Around Me (Live)” (Peepshow, 2000)
I’m not sure how I came across the Scooters, but given the catchy pop tunes and sweet vocal harmonies, I’m guessing it was probably from my favorite rock ‘n’ roll snob Jay. This particular song is a live cover of a tune from the Australian band Hunters & Collectors, and while it strips away the decidedly 80s feel of the original, it is so unlike the rest of the Peepshow EP that you can’t use it as the measuring stick to judge whether you would like the rest of the album.

Thin Lizzy - “Romeo and the Lonely Girl” (Jailbreak, 1976)
This is not my favorite Thin Lizzy tune, but the more I listen to Phil Lynott’s work, the more I find to like. This is a good way to close out today’s Friday Five.

iTunes, you did alright by me this week.

It’s Friday. IckMusic. Friday Five. You know the drill.

At the Drive-In - “Skips on the Record” (Acrobat Tenement, 1996)
At the Drive-In. Love the attitude. Hate the out-of-tune guitars on their debut. And you can’t blame it on the usual culprit Omar Rodríguez-López since he was playing bass at the time.

I Mother Earth - “Three Days Old” (Scenery and Fish, 1996)
iTunes is at it again. This week it’s a another selection from I Mother Earth’s second release. This particular tune has too many thematic shifts for me to really get into. Your mileage may vary.

Switchfoot - “Twenty-four” (The Best Yet, 2008)
Switchfoot is one of those CCM bands that I really used to like (around the New Way to be Human era) but is becoming much harder to stomach of late since becoming so popular. I purchased this “best of” collection for my pre-teen son who began to listen to some of their songs a couple of years ago. “Twenty-four” comes from the fourth release The Beautiful Letdown, which was the last major release from the band that I purchased, and is the band’s typical radio-friendly ballad, not that that’s a bad thing. Had I known at the time that The Best Yet was the usual last-ditch effort to cash in on the band by the record company after Switchfoot ended contract relations with Columbia/Sony, I would have refused to buy it.

King’s X - “Prisoner” (King’s X, 1992)
One of my all-time favorite King’s X tunes from their often-overlooked—though at one point most popular and best-selling—self-titled fourth release. This was the last album on which the band would work with manager/producer Sam Taylor, citing the usual creative differences reason. Seeing as the band’s next release was the stripped-down, grunge-ish Dogman, and hindsight being what it is, it’s not hard to believe that now. King’s X retains that classic King’s X sound from the first three albums, but introduces a bit of a darker side, both sonically and lyrically. Guitarist Ty Tabor’s playing is excellent throughout the entire album as it is here on “Prisoner,” making the album worth checking out if for that reason alone.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Scenes from a Vinyl Recliner” (Bread and Circus, 1989)
I first heard this song on a live bootleg of a Glen Phillips solo concert, and I much prefer that stripped-down acoustic version to the one on the TTWS debut album. That being said, I love the song, and in typical Glen Phillips fashion, the lyrics and song title become deep and weighty as you dig into them, with the allusions to the “circus” portion of the album title (itself a phrase that has come to mean to placate the masses) and the hint of comfortably and safely watching the misfortunes of others from the outside. Deep.

Hey, no Rush or Geoff Tate this time. I guess that’s something.

Gettin’ my Friday Five shuffle on over at IckMusic…

Let me start by saying that I’m loving participating in The Friday Five. It’s giving me an opportunity to listen to music in my library that I either have forgotten about, haven’t heard in ages, gloss over, or totally ignore.

Dokken - “Lightnin’ Strikes Again” (Under Lock and Key, 1985)
Typical Dokken fare from the 80s. I like pretty much everything about this one except the goofy low bass vocal delivery on the first line of every verse section. George Lynch was one of my favorite guitarists for a long time, and he somehow manages to redeem even the worst Dokken song.

Queens of the Stone Age - “I Was a Teenage Hand Model” (Queens of the Stone Age, 1998)
These guys really are hit or miss with me. I loved virtually everything off Songs for the Deaf, but for some reason I have a really hard time getting into their earlier stuff. This one is the typical album closer from QoTSA and really seems to drag on and on. I really wish they would end an album on a high note for once.

Neal Morse - “The Angels Will Remember” (It’s Not Too Late, 2001)
Solo album track from former Spock’s Beard frontman that recalls a musical theme similar to that band’s “Can’t Get It Wrong” from Day for Night. Morse is an excellent songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, and he has had a large hand in the progressive rock revival of the 90s and 00s. This song, however, is a straight-ahead, ballad-y, sugary-sweet, piano-based pop tune. But if you’re a prog-rock fan and haven’t heard his material, do yourself a favor and check out Spock’s Beard’s catalog up through 2002’s Snow. Then go listen to Transatlantic, the prog supergroup he formed with members of Dream Theater, Marillion, and The Flower Kings.

The Goo Goo Dolls - “Iris” (Dizzy Up the Girl, 1998)
I used to absolutely love this song, but then City of Angels, FM radio, and MTV went and completely ruined it for me. Thanks a lot. I don’t particularly like the direction these guys have gone in the past few years, but I love the material from their albums A Boy Named Goo through Gutterflower (not to say I don’t like their earlier efforts). Rzeznik’s pop sensibilities combine with Takac’s power pop punk edge to create just the right mix for my tastes. I just wish I could still listen to this song and hear it for what it is rather than all the imagery that it now conjures.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Hey Bulldog” (I Know What You Did Last Summer, 1997)
Excellent execution by one of my favorite bands covering one of my favorite bands . ‘Nuff said.

Friday. Five songs. On shuffle. Here we go…

I’m beginning to get the impression that maybe I have different musical tastes than most in these here parts and that there’s the possibility that some of the IckMusic regulars may not have heard some of the songs that I post here. So beginning with this Friday Five, I plan to include links to the tracks that exist in Spotify for any of the more curious among us. I hope that’s OK.

Collective Soul - “Giving” (Disciplined Breakdown, 1997)
There was a period where I was absolutely infatuated with anything Collective Soul put out. The band’s third album may not have produced as many hits—only two—or as many instantly familiar tunes as some of its other albums, but I actually like it better than most of the others. Maybe it’s because it was born in the midst of management difficulties, money troubles, and lawsuits. Or maybe it’s simply that Ed Roland knows how to write a good song.

Joe Satriani - “Hands in the Air” (Is There Love in Space?, 2004)
One of the things I have always liked about Joe Satriani is that he doesn’t just noodle around on the guitar just for the sake of noodling. The man can shred with the best of them, but he always seems to be more concerned with creating a real song with a real melody and a groove. Give me that over guitar wankery any day.

Yes - “Changes” (Yesyears, 1991)
A live version of one of my favorite songs off 90125. Not much else to say.

KISS - “Black Diamond” (KISS, 1974)
Klassic Kiss. And while the first album did not capture the spirit or the energy of the band’s live performances, I will always have a soft spot for it in my heart. I love the unpolishedness of Peter Criss’ vocals, and it contains some of my favorite guitar work from Ace Frehley. That being said, I really could do without the outro effect of the tape slowing down.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Comes a Time” (Coil sessions outtake, 1996)
I have had this song in my collection for so long, and since Glen Phillips has performed it live so often and recorded versions of it for other projects, I have become so familiar with it to the point that I forget it’s not an official TTWS release. Beautiful mostly acoustic tune with electric embellishments underneath and even a solo, and it contains Phillips’ typical poetic lyrics and themes.