Ripple Road Trip: Drivin' N' Cryin' Live At 3rd And Lindsley, Nashville TN 123012

How much more appropriate can it be to end the year to finally getting to see a band I have followed since 1991? Got hooked on Drivin' N' Cryin' the year Fly Me Courageous was released but for whatever reasons I never got around to catch them live until now. Better late then never huh...yes indeed because this was a magic night!

At 9pm sharp the band casually walks out on stage, plugs in their instruments and kick things into gear with a short instrumental piece. It's followed by the beautiful Honeysuckle Blue and this long-time favourite of mine sets the standard throughout the rest of the night. Whether the band goes all out rocking or seduces the crowd with slower more mellow songs they can't do wrong at all.
Hot Wheels from their current EP Songs About Cars, Space And The Ramones is next and apart from getting the crowd rocking what stands out the most to me is guitarist Sadler Vaden. He is extremely versatile and plays a blistering solo on this great song. Not only that, during the entire set whether he is playing lead, rhythm, slide or solo guitar he does it with such ease and elegance. It looks so effortlessly and easy but he is doing some very intricate things. What an addition for the band!

Another old favourite is then aired, With The People, and it's still a very current song speaking about the people having to rise and stand against the injustices made towards them. Positive change won't happen until then and that's where we are right now more than ever.

Drivin' N' Cryin' are in the midst of promoting two EPs released in 2012, Songs From The Laundromat and the aforementioned Songs About Cars, Space And The Ramones. They are parts 1 & 2 in a series of four to be released within 12 months, where part 3 is due in March 2013 and REM from Songs From The Laundromat follows With The People. It's a mid-tempo song with really nice vocal harmonies and it's a cool tribute to fellow Georgians R.E.M.

Further on Cheetah Chrome of The Dead Boys joins the band on stage for Out Here In The Middle Of Nowhere, a song from Songs About Cars, Space And The Ramones that he actual recorded with them. Fast and furious in true punk spirit it's over in about 2 minutes but man it rocks...awesome indeed!

After 27 years in the business Drivin' N' Cryin' know how to work a crowd. They know how to mix old songs with new to keep it interesting and they do it with such ease. Many a times bands barely play new songs when promoting their current album, Drivin' N' Cryin' on the other hand played 5-6 out of a total 11 on the 2 new EPs and that's great and how it should be. You couldn't really ask for more. However the icing on the cake for me occurs when they launch into Fly Me Courageous, the song that introduced me to these Georgians. It simply doesn't get any better than this!

The first hour of the show was recorded for a local radio station but as soon as that is over the band has everyone singing along in Straight To Hell. It's one of their most popular songs if you ask me and the crowd just loved it.

Cheetah Chrome returns to the stage and they go all out punk playing The Dead Boys' song Sonic Reducer. Actually from the moment the radio recording was over the band got rowdier, in every good sense of the word, with Kevn Kinney climbing speaker stacks and jumping from them! The frontman and founder of the band should consider a side career as a stand-up comedian. Because apart from being a great singer and guitarist he is extremely funny and really makes the crowd feel relaxed and at home. His interaction with co-founder and bass player Tim Nielsen is bar to none and their drive to keep Drivin' N' Cryin' rolling and still current is so visible on stage.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and what an end it was. They launched into a Kevn solo song, Blues On Top Of Blues and are joined by guitarist Audley Freed. This guy has played with Cry Of Love, Black Crowes, Jimmy Page, Dixie Chicks amongst many others and what a fantastic string slinger he is. The band were on fire jamming real good with Vaden and Freed trading solos back and forth. Amazing!

Kevn and Tim has assembled a great band around them and I can only hope this line-up stays intact because they have something going on here. Drummer Dave V. Johnson is solid and versatile and alert to any changes/jams going on and never miss anything. And I have already spoken about new guitarist Sadler Vaden and all I can add to that is....check him out!

All in all this was a great show and subsequently a great night. I couldn't have asked for a better occasion to see Drivin' N' Cryin' for the first time and my affection for the band from listening to them all these years increased a thousandfold.

Swedebeast

Ripple Library - Cheetah Chrome: A Dead Boy's Tale: From the Front Lines of Punk Roc

The fact that this book even exists should motivate you to buy a copy. If you know who Cheetah Chrome is, then you know that he’s a true rock & roll wildman who’s lived a lot harder than you ever will. He’s survived drugs, alcohol, Stiv Bators, Cleveland, New York City and then some. The dude deserves the happy life and family he’s created for himself in Nashville.

Cheetah was born Eugene O’Connor in Cleveland, 1955 and became a rock & roll fan, guitarist and pot smoker at an early age. His musical course was forever changed when his mother bought him the first Stooges album by accident. Young Cheetah’s mind was blown and it put him on a path that eventually led to meeting up with other weirdos in the mythical proto-punk band Rocket From The Tombs. Once that band splintered into Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys, Cheetah and his blood brother Stiv Bators went on to create one of the most full-on high energy punk rock bands of all time.

Cheetah pulls no punches in his autobiography. He’s very forthcoming about all the horrible things he’s done to himself and to others. The chapters on his years as a junkie are harrowing and an excellent deterrent for anyone considering dabbling in that area. So many of his friends and collaborators are dead and gone – Stiv, Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, Dee Dee Ramone, John Belushi, Nico, etc and there’s no real reason why Cheetah’s still around other than being a tough mother fucker.

But the best parts of the book are the hilarious situations he’s gotten into over the years. Even as a kid in the audience he managed to make an impact. For instance, he once gave his hero Iggy Pop a bunch of free downers before a Stooges show only for Iggy to turn into an incoherent mess onstage. There are plenty of sex, drugs and rock & roll stories from the 1977 ground zero days at CBGB and tours with fellow mental patients The Damned. As debauched as some of the tales are, you definitely get the feeling that a lot of the gory details have been left out.

Even if you’re not a fan of the Dead Boys or punk rock in general, this book is a must read for any music fanatic. I was lucky enough to witness most of the Dead Boys reunion shows at the Ritz in NYC and his band the Ghetto Dogs a few times. Cheetah was always a completely inspiring lunatic on the stage. On a more personal note, as a young dipshit coming into NYC on the weekends to see shows and buy records I used to see the street walking Cheetah all the time in the early to mid-80’s. He was usually nice enough to stop and talk to me and answer all my moronic questions about the Dead Boys or which MC5 albums I should track down (“all of them” he told me). Some days Cheetah didn’t look so good and I knew to stay the fuck away. Long live Cheetah!

 --Woody

Buy here: Cheetah Chrome: A Dead Boy's Tale: From the Front Lines of Punk Rock

A Tsumani of Ripple Bursts – Featuring The Living Wrecks, Balance and Composure/Tigers Jaw, Moth Circus, Batusis, and The Candy Snatchers

Different format for this post.  Tons of great music, so little time.  Quick tidal shots of some of the highlights.

The Living Wrecks – Cheap Heat

Forget Green Day.  This is punk.  This is what it’s supposed to sound like, directly descended from the loins of the Sex Pistols, fertilized by the dirty seed of Richard Hell and the Voidoids, spat out from the womb of The Germs.  This is true “blank generation” punk, a whirling dervish of buzzing guitars, snotty vocals, self-destructing sneers, and generous gobs of hooks and gangland chants.  With song titles like “Midnight Disaster,” (a fucking killer tune), “Living Hell,” “Getting Sick” “Outta Control,” Self-Destruct” and “Worst Enemy,” it’s clear these guys live it as hard as they play it.  No Gilman Street posturing here, the Living Wrecks are the real fucking deal.  Or as they say in their ballsy blitz of punk mania, “Living Hell,” this place is a living hell/no better place to be/this place is a living hell/it’s the only place for me.”  I agree.  Buy it.  It’s perfect in all of it’s intentional imperfections.

buy here: Cheap Heat
or www.zodiackillerrecords.com/releases



Balance and Composure/Tigers Jaw – Split Album


Two bands familiar to waveriders and two bands on the rise.  Emo, post-rock, indy.  I don’t know what to call it.  Loud, pounding, intricate, sincere.  It’s earnest rock, free of pretense, full of passion.   Balance and Composure launch the set with their emotionally bare, angst-rock outpouring.  Guitars layer like slightly misfitting bricks, all edges and jagged outcroppings.  Jon Simmons voice braces on the verge of destruction as he vents his emotional soul through their five cuts.  Tigers Jaw take over side two, bringing a bit more finesse and post-punk charm to their tracks of tension and release.  Guitars build and interlock, bass percolates like a bubbling lava pit, drums lay down the foundation.  A bit more mature in approach than Balance and Composure, Tigers Jaw aren’t afraid to experiment with textures, melodies and that all important silence.  Dual vocals top it all off, like a hint of light eking through the darkness.  Both sides deliver.  The potential evident for the future.


buy here: Split

Moth Circus -  Sideshow Sweetheart

Building on the momentum of their Ripple-loved EP last year, Norway’s Moth Circus come rampaging back on the metallic shoulders of a whole heap of 80’s and 90’s metal influences.  Living as if they’d been marinating in early Crue, nascent Metallica, some 90’s nu-metal crunch, and whatever came to them in their worst nightmares, Moth Circus take those influences, toss them into a blender and hit frappe.  “Dreamland,” simply rocks, no other way to describe it.  Massive guitars and a killer, sing-along-til-you’re-hoarse chorus anchors this baby.  “M.I.A” lassos some definitely cool guitar textures on top of the metallic guitar crunch.  Title cut “Sideshow Sweetheart,” brings in a stunning acoustic, neo-Arabic guitar part that could’ve come from System of a Down.  Metal for the thinking man who still wants to pummel his grey matter within an inch of its existence.  Seems these cats just keep getting better.

www.myspace.com/mothcircus




Batusis – S/T EP


Ok, what happens when you take a couple of punk rock legends, plug their amps back in and give em free reign to re-explore the insanity of their youth?  Batusis results.  Named after the clumsy dance Adam West did on the old Batman television show, Batusis unites legendary surviviors, Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys with Sylain Sylvain of the New York Dolls and all sorts of punky, classic rock mayhem results.  This 4 song EP is their debut, but judging by the weighty balls these guys can still drop into their music, a full-length album can’t be too far behind.  Forget aging,  these guys found the fountain of punk-youth and blast out four bluesy, punky, rockabilly nasties.  “Blues Theme,” is just that, the blues as filtered through the Cramps or Tiger Army.  “What you Lack in Brains” is a bonafide barnstorming ode to every airheaded vixen the guys ever met, featuring the classic lines “What you lack in brains/you got in looks/a grown up doll, she never picked up a book.” “Bury You Alive,” picks up the ferocity, tearing off with barely contained abandon of classic, crunchy guitars and nastiness, while “Big Cat Stomp,” is about a cool an instrumental piece of punk rave up as one can get with some simply inspired, gritty guitar.  Age is meaningless.  Rock knows no time limits.  Everyone, dance the Batusis.

buy here: Batusis

 The Candy Snatchers – Down at Deliah’s

Ugly, dirty, and mighty unclean.  The Candy Snatchers were infected with some horribly contagious, disease of poor hygiene and they wanted nothing more than for you to wallow in their sickness.  This album almost didn't make it.  When their guitarist died of an overdose in 2008, the band shelved this album and sadly disbanded.  But thanks to the folks at Drug Front Records, the album was resurrected and we're all a little better because of it.  Dripping with phlegm, sputum, and other bodily fluids, the Candy Snatchers belch out another bucketful of dirty, filthy, speed punk, and somehow everything’s right with the world.  Forget the nation’s failing medical system, these germ-infested outbursts of noise pollution are enough to drive the stake of illness into the hearts of the weak.  You really can’t go wrong with songs like “The World is Wrong,” and “Huffer.”  And how can you ever question the brilliance of titles like “Run Jive Turkey, Run!” “You’re So Beige,” and “She’s a Real Asshole.”  RIP Matthew Odietus, your swan song was a master stroke.  Anger, snot, and things coughed up from tobacco-stained, mucous crusted orifices, to this day there still is no cure for the Candy Snatchers..  Dive in.  Catch the disease.

www.myspace.com/thecandysnatchersofficial