So. For the first time in 14 years as a band and 27 years as a band with David Lee Roth in it, Van Halen is releasing an album of all new material. When I first heard this news, I shrugged it off and went about my life confident I’d not think about Van Halen again until one of them does another stint in rehab. Then a funny thing happened. My twitter and facebook feeds started blowing up with folks talking about how good this new Van Halen album was. In the end, I couldn’t resist giving it a listen and decided, in the process, to give my opinion track by track on twitter as I listened for the first time.

Now, to be fair, you need to know that I was never a huge Van Halen fan. If you walked up and said, “Quick, name as many Van Halen songs as you can in 5 seconds!”, “Jump” is gonna be the only track I come up with. Peeking at Wikipedia it’s obvious I know many more, but that’s the only one that comes to mind and it brings back memories of me being 11 years old and sitting in front of a little single speaker cassette player/radio in my backyard. I think that’s worth keeping in mind as you read this break down.

Van Halen – A Different Kind Of Truth (in 140 or less characters at a time):

Tattoo: musically, okay. Lyrically, not so okay.

She’s The Woman: Sounds like it came right out of the heyday of hair metal. Think 1991 Arena Rock and you’ve nailed it’s sound.

You and Your Blues: I only need 1 word for this song: boring.

China Town: not bad. not bad at all. Rocks harder than any other 60 year old’s music. I’ll thumbs up this track considering.

Blood and Fire: This is the first time on the album they’ve felt like old men trying to rock instead of just rocking.

Bullethead: not bad. Fave from the cd so far.

As Is: This one has that classic David Lee Roth feel/swagger to it.

Honeybabysweetiedoll: ugh. bad song. 2 minutes in I had to press the skip button. First time I’ve done that on the album though.

The Trouble With Never: Another one right out of the 90′s arena rock sound.

Outta Space: Starts off promising but I didn’t even notice it end. Tried to listen twice. Same result.

Stay Frosy: The title says, “bad song”. The opening guitar says, “maybe not”. The title was honest & honestly, Dave ruins this song.

Big River: musically, you totally could have sold me that this was a George Lynch song. Honestly, this one is pretty good.

Beats Workin’: Despite the promising musical opening, this song fell flat on me. Again, I blame David Lee Roth for fucking it up.

And that concludes the Van Halen 140 character review. In the end, not horrific but I’ll never listen to it again…

Dear Sister is Raven Shields and Bri Salmena playing on vocal harmonies and guitars, joined by multi-instrumentalist Aaron Comeau from multi-cities Canada. Their debut album, Dear Sisters, was orginally recorded and released in early 2010, managing to catch a little fire at the time. Despite selling out multiple Canadian venues, life took over and the band seemingly lost its momentum. Well, it seems the band has refocused and decided to give it another go with repackaging and re-releasing Dear Sister here in 2012.

I’ll be honest, I had to put in a little work to like this album. There were a few songs that jumped out at me right away but there were more that just came and went with little response. Normally that would result in moving the songs that jumped out into a directory I have set for that sort of thing with the rest getting the delete treatment, but something wouldn’t let me. So I saved it and came back to the album from time to time, and man am I glad I did. The singers harness that same vocally deadpan delivery you find with Gillian Welch, while musically they feel very similar to The Waifs or to me.

Admittedly, there are still a few tracks on the album I skip but if you’re willing to let an album incubate with you for a few listens, Dear Sister might, ultimately, reward your patience. Hopefully the band will maintain momentum this time around, I’d like to see what their sophomore effort might sound like.

Dear Sister – Con Man
Dear Sister – Coyote
Dear Sister – Hey Oh!

Dear Sister on Bandcamp, Dear Sister on Facebook, Buy Dear Sister

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was that I’d parse through my entire “incoming” directory that that has been growing for the past few months and I’d get through it by the end of January. Low Cut Connie was one of the bands hanging out in said directory who I managed to come across this morning. The reviews on NPR and Rolling Stone show that they’re in no need of any mention from ninebullets, but the album is just too much fun for me not to.

Low Cut Connie was founded by a fella from New Jersey and a fella from Birmingham…UK, not Bama, and the moment you hear their sound, it makes perfect sense. Listening to the album, Sean’s words from his John Moreland review keep coming to mind, “rock ‘n roll. really it’s a simple concept. guitar. bass. drums. honesty. yet it is constantly fucked up.” Well, Low Cut Connie add some Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano to the recipe, but they aren’t fucking it up.

Had the British invasion had started in the South….Get Out The Lotion might have been what it sounded like.

Low Cut Connie – Rio
Low Cut Connie – Johnny Cool Man
Low Cut Connie – Big Thighs, NJ

Low Cut Connie’s Official Site, Low Cut Connie on Facebook, Low Cut Connie on Spotify, Buy Get Out The Lotion

They say music soothes the savage beast, but I’d beg to differ when it comes to one Col. J.D. Wilkes. And I’d venture a guess that anyone who’s been to a Legendary Shackshakers show and seen him go from pre-show cordial, mild-mannered J.D. to snot launchin’, pube tossin’ J.D. once the music starts is likely to agree.

So, what do you do when it’s the music that feeds your inner beast?
Go lo-fi, young man. Go lo-fi.

The Dirt Daubers are Col. J.D. Wilkes, wife Jessica Wilkes and LSS bassist Mark Robinson. Their latest release, Wake Up Sinners!, offers JD a perfect chance to play Dr. Jekyll to his Shackshaker Mr. Hyde. Thirteen songs that would, if music had an instagram app, have the scratchy sepia filter all over them. And you’d need the filter, not for lack of authenticity, but for lack of it having being recorded 70 years ago like it should have been. Unlike their debut, Wake Up Sinners! skates a thin line between being a sound all their own and being LSS minus electricity, and Mr. Robinson joining them for this album has made that line ever thinner. That said, for every “The Devil Gets His Due” moment where you could be convinced this is the Shackshakers performing an acoustic show in someone’s backyard, there’s an “Angel Along The Track” moment where J.D. and crew emerge from under the LSS shadow. The standout track on this cd has to be their cover of the old Lulu Belle and Scotty single, “Single Girl”, as it just fits this sound so perfectly.

I offer no hesitation in labeling this cd as Essential Listening, as I think it takes the classic country sound and adds enough modernization and gloss to it to make it attractive to the average passerby without spoiling any of its integrity.

The Dirt Daubers – The Devil Gets His Due
The Dirt Daubers – Angel Along The Tracks
The Dirt Daubers – Single Girl

The Dirt Daubers’ Official Site, The Dirt Daubers on Facebook, The Dirt Daubers on Spotify, Buy Wake Up Sinners! (for $5.00)

Vancouver-based The Pack a.d. is Becky Black on guitar and vocals and Maya Miller on drums. They share a blues backbone with other well-known guitar-drums duos, such as The Black Keys, White Stripes, and Left Lane Cruiser–but the Pack also has the muscle to bring its ruckus closer to melodic Stooges and X territory. I was going to say they pack more of a punch, but I waited until the next sentence.

Unpersons is their fourth album. They’re already getting their deserved accolades in Canada, but they’re still translating in America. The Pack has grown from a band that gets by mostly on energy, like Two Cow (or most young people), into a confident, harnessed train wreck. Between Black’s vocals and Miller’s beats, the music emerges as a sludgy mix of ghost rock and droid funk. If The Pack a.d. played the cantina band in Star Wars, it would’ve actually been a menacing scene. Picture it set to:

“I know your pain and share your pain,
let’s have soup together.
I’ll lift a rock and kill the world,
then we’ll have lunch.”
~ from the song “8″

Unpersons has been out for a few months, but if you’re just getting it now, it’ll make a great companion listen to the new Black Keys album. That’s not fair, though–the album stands on its own, the Pack is not just another garage-blues duo, it’s one of the best, it’s pushing that loose sound in its own direction. It’s a feat to make hard-driving rock feel desolate, simultaneously woodsy and industrial. They’re also like The Who.

The Pack A.D. – Positronic
The Pack A.D. – 8
The Pack A.D. – Seasick

Buy Unpersons from the mighty Mint Records on vinyl, CD, or digital. American distribution here. Buy it on iTunes. On Amazon. The Pack a.d.’s website. The Pack on Spotify. The Pack on Facebook.

The list of records I’d like to review for 9b is so long that if I stare at it for too long I get discouraged, pour a tumbler of whiskey and give up for the night. Then there is this other list, the list of albums I like enough to want to cover, but can’t really thing of anything to say about them. So I thought I’d revive the old “Two Sentence Review” segment and cover some of them.

Great American Taxi – Paradise Lost
Lazy americana that’s really good when you listen to it. Problem is, the album seems all too eager to fade into the background.

Great American Taxi – Blair Mountain

Chris Cornell – Songbook
Absolutely adored this album the first 5 times I listened to it. Have like it less every time since then.

Chris Cornell – Call Me A Dog

Uncle Bengine and the Restraining Orders – Comes In Nines
Wanted to review this album properly but could only come up with one sentence. If the Dead Milkmen had formed a country band, Uncle Bengine is what they probably would have sounded like.

Uncle Bengine and the Restraining Orders – Bootleggers

Childish Gambino – Camp
Did you know Troy from Community had a rap album out? It’s a surprisingly lucid album with an indie hiphop feel.

Childish Gambino – Outside
Childish Gambino – Fire Fly

I am under no illusions with this review. A good chunk of the 9b readership is not gonna like this album at all. Matter of fact, I’d venture to say that if the words, “I just don’t get the whole Bob Log thing,” or anything like that have ever crossed your lips, then stop reading and come back on Monday. Molly Gene is not for you.

Molly Gene isn’t some dour ass coffee shop girl strumming an acoustic whilst warbling her shitty poetry to a sleepy tempo. Nope, Molly Gene is attitude, piss, vinegar, some bottleneck slide guitar and a fuck load of growls. If you were to take Bob Log III and early nineties Courtney Love and smash them into a single entity, you end up with……well, you’d end up with a bloody mess. But if you did that in a sonic sense, you end up with Molly Gene. A one whoaman band out of Warrensburg, Missouri who fucking dares you to listen to her album. If you have the guts…

Well. Punk. Do you?

Molly Gene One Whoaman Band – Smells Like Low Tide
Molly Gene One Whoaman Band – Country Lover
Molly Gene One Whoaman Band – Kings and Queens

Molly Gene One Whoaman Band’s Official Site, Molly Gene One Whoaman Band on Facebook, Molly Gene One Whoaman Band on Spotify, Buy Folk, Blues and Booze

Outlaw country is all about doing the best you can with what you were dealt in life. No excuses. No regrets. In that way Hellbound Glory and their self-described “scumbag country” are the archetype of the modern (upper-case) Outlaw movement. Compared to the current crop of Nashville (lower-case) “outlaws”, Hellbound Glory has a look and sound that makes you believe that, even if they may have not personally lived the life in their songs, they very likely have been close to someone who has. They describe the life of those on the lower end of the economic spectrum with intimate detail without resorting to cliches and stereotypes (cough…BrantleyAldean…cough).

From start to finish, the characters in Damaged Goods are people that are easy to relate to. Like many of us, they are trying their best to make the most of their lives, but despite their efforts they seem destined to fail. At times they fight the inevitable to their last breath (“Knocked off That Horse”), other times they accept it and enjoy the ride (“Bastard Child”, “Till the Lights Go Out”). But in the end, they realize that no matter the situation you were born in to, what you do with it is your own choice and within your own control (“You Better Hope You Die Young”).

As with Hellbound Glory’s previous releases, musically they are once again very solid. They let their musicianship shine on the more lighthearted, uptempo romps, but keep it subdued on the ballads. Lyrically, they paint such vivid portraits you can almost smell the stale beer and burnt crack. Not to mention they wrote one of my favorite lines of the year: “If your gone I’ll be a goner/I’m gonna hit the ground like a shot down B-2 bomber” (“Gonna Be a Goner”)

This isn’t the type of country you’re gonna hear on your urban, soccer mom listening, mini van driving, corporate controlled, mega-Clear Cumulus radio station.  And that’s a good thing.  Listening to country-lite helps keep the masses off the Valium. Keep the real stuff for those of us that can handle it.

Definitely Essential Listening.

Hellbound Glory – Bastard Child
Hellbound Glory – Gonna Be A Goner
Hellbound Glory – Knocked Off The Horse

Hellbound Glory’s website (via Rusty Knuckles), Hellbound Glory on Facebook, Hellbound Glory on Reverbnation, Hellbound Glory on Spotify, Hellbound Glory music and swag

Let me tell you a little story about a band from Kansas City, which is also the story of my youth and the strange ways the world works. Please get yourself a beer and settle down in a comfortable chair, because this is going to take a few minutes.

Way back in the olden days in Kansas City, Missouri there was a band called “Steve, Bob & Rich”. They consisted of Steve Phillips on guitar and vocals, Bob Walkenhorst on drums and main vocals and Richard Ruth on bass and vocals. Formed in 1983, they did their groundwork by playing a lot of gigs, and the band had some success in the midwest. The word “fun” was often used about their live appearances. Along with the word “energetic”. Soon drummer Pat Tomek joined the band, allowing Bob Walkenhorst to focus on being the frontman and rhythm guitar player.

In 1986 they got signed to Polygram and changed their name to The Rainmakers. Remember, this was in the days when getting a record contract was the only road to success – and success seemed obtainable after write-ups in Newsweek and Rolling Stone, back when magazines really meant something. Being called “America’s next great band” by Newsday couldn’t have done any harm either.

And success followed.

Newsweek called their self entitled debut album “the most auspicious debut album of the year”, and it peaked at #87 on Billboard. Europe also loved The Rainmakers, with their single “Let My People Go Go” getting airplay and a place on UKs Top20. They got invited to play Top Of The Pops, and also visited the strange place that is Norway on their tour through Scandinavia.

Critics loved them. Both at home and especially in the far away countries like Norway and England. In a time of commercial drivel hogging the airwaves and MTV, Bob Walkenhorst’s lyrics proved a welcome transition from the stuff being poured out by the gallon from artists going through the motions.
Even Stephen King loved them. So much he quoted their lyrics both in “The Tommyknockers” and “Gerald’s Game”.

Let’s fast forward, letting The Rainmakers record and tour on their own…

Three albums later, we’re suddenly in 1990, and the band had secured a unique position in Norway. The US and rest of Europe had for strange reasons lost interest, even though the material on the albums just got better. Over this period the band kept giving legendary concerts in Norway, for larger and larger and more enthusiastic audiences who never seemed to tire of their new found heroes from Kansas City.

Then the band suddenly took a break. For four long years. Also, keep in mind that this is before the Internet (yes, that’s right – the Internet hasn’t always been around, kids), and it was virtually impossible (pun intended) to get information on our favorite band. But in 1994 they re-emerged with the album Flirting With The Universe, giving us some of the best songs of their entire career as well as a legendary tour of Norway. After playing their albums into oblivion this was my first live meeting with that fantastic band. The raw energy they had on stage was phenomenal, and the way they captured their audience was unique. Bob Walkenhorst is born to be a rock’n’roll frontman, and fills a room with his presence alone.

The success during their tour of Norway spawned the album Skin, where Walkenhorst took his songwriting to a new level – looking at the impact of pornography in modern society. Back on the road supporting Skin, Rich Ruth (now a part of Webb Wilders band) was replaced by Michael Bliss – and The Rainmakers once again toured Norway. Again I got to see them live, in a small venue where we stood practically ON stage with the band, the front row being asked to link their arms together to keep the audience off the stage. Everyone sweating almost as much as that hard-hitting drummer Pat Tomek in the back.

And almost as suddenly as they had re-emerged, they were gone yet again. Life returned to normal. Bob Walkenhorst didn’t touch his guitar for years, focusing on a “real” job making and editing videos. Steve Phillips joined the band The Elders, and Pat Tomek focused on recording and producing music for others while being a web designer. And the world as a whole forgot about The Rainmakers and their fantastic music.

But Norway never forgot. Over here they got and maintained a totally unique status that almost no other band has ever seen the like of. Their songs kept being played on the radio, at parties and was still being covered by other bands. Tribute bands and cover bands kept their music alive. Numerous youths spent many of their evenings perfecting guitar parts on Rainmakers songs, and girls were picked up by that guy at the party with an acoustic guitar – because he knew “Small Circles” by heart…

For me, the Rainmakers held a position as a band as big as any. I have no problems mentioning The Rainmakers in the same breath as any of the bands and artists of that era, like The Georgia Satellites, Jason & The Scorchers, Mellencamp, Aerosmith, The Pretenders or R.E.M. The main difference is that many of these bands got that ONE big hit, made it big and kept on playing…

The Rainmakers make up a large portion of the soundtrack to my youth, and in Norway they were as big as The Rolling Stones in the 60s and Whitesnake in the 70s.

Far away in Kansas City, Bob Walkenhorst had started playing regular, acoustic duo gigs and releasing a solo album in the process. In Norway he had a good friend named Stian Omland who regularly kept in touch and kept hoping for the Rainmakers to see the light of day again.

And when Bob enlisted Jeff Porter to play with him on his regular Wednesday gigs, followed by the album No Abandon – that guy in Norway did the only right thing, and went from being friend to becoming Bob & Jeffs tour-manager.

Before leaving for Norway, Bob had considered reuniting The Rainmakers. I like to imagine that he was the spitting image of Dan Aykroyd from The Blues Brothers when he picked up the phone, called Steve, Pat and Rich and said “I’m putting the band back together”. Pat and Rich said “YES!”. Steve had obligations with The Elders and had to say no. The Rainmakers were back on hold, but in the back of Bob’s mind a reunion still was a definite maybe.

It was during those shows in Norway in 2010 that Bob Walkenhorst realized that The Rainmakers would have to return. Playing the old songs in front of ecstatic audiences made him see that these songs had withstood the test of time, and the fact that they still sang along made it obvious that the songs still meant a great deal to a large number of people.

After returning to Kansas City, the idea of reuniting the band was once again a subject – and good friend Jeff Porter was a natural replacement for Steve Phillips. And The Rainmakers were a band again.

A new album was recorded, and a tour of Norway was booked in the spring of 2011. Their return visited old haunts and new venues alike. Old friends were reunited, and new friends were made.

After pestering their tour-manager of Norway for months I was lucky enough to be allowed to tag along on the tour, to cover it for my Norwegian music blog. And let me tell you, it is the thrill of a lifetime to suddenly spend time with heroes from your youth. People you always had admired for their song writing and stage presence. The same people that created the songs that make up the soundtrack to important moments of my life. It is impossible to put into words what that means to a simple guy from rural Norway. Seeing The Rainmakers rock once again, with the same energy I had felt back in the early nineties was special. When the guys in the band at the same time turned out to be the nicest group of people you’ll ever have the pleasure to meet – the experience turned out to be nothing short of magic.

The tour was a success, and The Rainmakers once again filled concert halls all over Norway, playing to ecstatic audiences – finally getting to see the legends live. I have never seen so many smiling faces at concerts as I did that spring. Both before. during and after the shows. Everyone hanging around after the shows to get an autograph or a picture with the band they had waited so long to see…

Back to the reason I’m writing this: The new album is called 25 ON – marking the bands 25 year anniversary and this article was meant to be a review of that album. In the process I decided that a story of the Rainmakers and their position in Norway was just as good as me going through the motions with a review. The strange things that can happen when a band makes it big in a small place like Norway, while being overlooked in their own home country makes this a different and hopefully interesting read.

One day you can watch you favorite band playing the concert of your life, after hearing them on albums for so many years – the next moment they are sitting in your living room talking about life, the universe and everything… For me that signifies that the world has become a smaller one, but also that anything can happen – as long as you keep hold of your dreams.

I highly recommend their new album to anyone who likes real rock’n'roll with energy and great lyrics, as it contains some of the best songs Bob Walkenhorst has ever written. The production is slightly hasty, and the sound is too compressed for my preference – but the songs, man! The SONGS! They are brilliantly fantastic.

“Given Time” is a great recognition of how time passes, “Missouri Girl” with it’s great twist on sounding like “Misery” but actually is a lovesong giving us the story on how Bob met his wife – his Missouri Girl, the lovely ballad “My Own Bed”, the impressive storytelling in “These Hills” and off course “Like Dogs”… “If you don’t like dogs, what’s our f***** problem?“.

Sound wise the songs could have fit on any of the old Rainmakers-album, but at the same time the lyrics are so much more mature – and shows off all the wisdom Bob Walkenhorst has accumulated over the years.

I love it! I love this band, and I wish America as a whole would love this band as much as we do here in Norway. You really could do a lot worse than lending your ear to any of these songs.

When I’m writing this, The Rainmakers are still a band, have played a fair number of gigs in and around Kansas City, and are scheduled for another tour of Norway in late January.

All albums can be bought at Village Records, they are all freshly remastered with bonus tracks – and you can hear a few of them on Spotify.

Listen to some songs (click the album title to open that album on Spotify):

From “25 ON” (2011)
Given Time
Missouri Girl

Then check out some goodies from the old albums:

From “The Rainmakers” (1986):
Let My People Go Go

From “Tornado” (1987):
Rainmaker

From “Good News And The Bad News” (1989):
Spend It On Love

From “Flirting With The Universe” (1994):
Another Guitar

From “Skin” (1996):
The Eclipse Has Begun

The Rainmakers Official Site, The Rainmakers on Facebook, The Rainmakers on Spotify, Buy 25 On

If an Americana band forms in Portland will it get mentioned on ninebullets.net? If past performances are indicative of future results then I’d say they have a better chance than most. I’m not sure what it is about that city but it has found my sonic pleasure vein and keeps tapping it with new bands.

Introduce Sassparilla.

Sassparilla gets filed under Americana but it’s a lot more New Orleans than West Kentucky, and the bulk of its 8 tracks are better fitted for a Wes Anderson film than the latest episode of Justified. “Same Old Blues” just explodes out of the speakers with a 30’s speakeasy feel that immediately brings Gill Landry to mind. The songs on the album possess a lazy, deliberate pace that gives the album an undercurrent of focused maturity that really pulls the listener in, and the closer I get, the more I like what I am hearing. In fact, the only complaint I have about this album is its 8 track, 29 minute runtime. I want me more Sassparilla!

Don’t sleep on these guys folks. If they stay together they’ll be huge fish in our little pond pretty soon. Needless to say, this album is 100% Essential Listening.

Sassparilla – Same Old Blues
Sassparilla – My First Lover

Sassparilla’s Official Site, Sassparilla on Facebook, Sassparilla on Spotify, Buy The Darndest Thing