twenty-stone-blatt

Memphis-born Tav Falco has been drawing inspiration from a deep musical well of swamp blues, soul and psychedelia since the early ‘80s. “Command Performance” is his first LP for five years. 

Even though there aren’t many places he hasn’t toured, much of the world is yet to catch up with his music so “Command Performance” is another chip at that wall of mainstream indifference.

This band goes back to 1983. They split up and re-animated themselves in 2005. The album itself dropped in 2010, and is worth moving heaven and earth to procure. If someone told you a tough rock and roll band with swagger to rival the New Christs came from Glasgow, would you believe them? Och, aye. Wake up and smell the thistles.

Never paid The Wildhearts much attention so the fact The Main Grains bassist and mainman Danny McCormack played in ‘em didn’t mean much to me. A couple of spins of his new band’s debut EP on CD, however, made me a believer.

The Main Grains formed in Newcastle-0n-Tyne, Northern England, in 2015 and occupy the same punk rock-pop territory as The Wildhearts. They bring a bunch of songs to this EP that are catchier than a heavy cold in what passes for an English summer. 

The bio will tell you the band is McCormack and guitarists JJ Watt (Spill 16/Whiskey Haze) and Ben Marsden (Modern Day Dukes), and drummer Ginna Rhodes (Psychobabylon/Phluid), and that they fuse the sounds of the Ramones, The Wildhearts, Yo-Yo's and Blondie. They call it Northern Punk.

Flamin' Groovy? The verdict is that it is indeed - and why wouldn’t it be? The singer for the most enduring (and some might say best) Flamin’ Groovies pop line-up re-surfaces with a solo album and ropes in Cyril Jordan, George Alexander, Mike Wilhelm - and even original line-up vocalist Roy Loney - from that same storied band. 

By the time you reach the chorus off opening song "Way Beyond Tore Up" you'll cross the line or stay on the other side. Primevals are Scotland's coolest band. They play irrepressible garage-blues rock and roll. There's no halfway point for them and neither should there be for you.

Glad you asked. It's sharp and urgent rock ’n’ roll played by four old heads from Central Scotland who sound like they mean it. If Cheap Trick wore kilts, ate haggis and were hard to understand after 10 pints they’d be The Media Whores.

Beware reformations. Nostalgia is huge so trying to recapture past glories looks tempting on paper, but the reality often falls well short. Not so this 2012 re-assembly of Chocolate Watchband with four pieces of their 1966-67 line-ups in place on a redoubtable Scottish label. The band does sound markedly different to its original recorded persona. Drop the preconceptions and prejudices, however, judge this on its merits, and it works just fine.