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Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 91

Publication:
Tampa Bay Timesi
Location:
St. Petersburg, Florida
Issue Date:
Page:
91
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

SOUND BITES Maura O'Connell A Real Life Story Warner Audio Files YOUR WEEKLY GUIDE TO THE HOTTEST DISCS, TAPES AND RECORDS IN TAMPA BAY HAS FUN JY Maura O'Connell's appeal is in her earthy delivery of seemingly wholesome, unadorned songs. O'Connell's voice is rich and warm like a country kitchen in the morning, ripe with the smells and sounds of a fresh meal on a new day. O'Connell serves up neither country nor pop, but a blend of both: the simplicity of country arrangements matched by the immediate appeal of pop writing. Along with O'Connell, the star players on A Real Life Story are the album's songwriters, a group that includes John Hiatt When We Ran), Tom Waits (Broken Bicycles) and LennonMcCartney (For No One). Yet the most endearing numbers are Larry Kingberry's When Your Heart Is Weak, a love song of subtle and stubborn persistence, and the LP's best track, Larry Tagg's Burning My Rowboat, a light-hearted number that deals with deliberate, self-imposed isolation.

DAVE HALL Carey Bell and Tough Luck Mellow Down Easy Blind Pig Records Cereal Killers, the third album of Too Much Joy, may not be the thing you want intelligent aliens to hear, but it's pretty good. Though it's a guitar band and not a rap group, Too Much Joy probably won't ever receive much radio air play, as several songs fling expletives about. From the very first song (Susquehanna Hat Company), where a four-letter word is shouted vehemently three syllables into the first verse, those who are easily offended might be inclined to shut off. But there is subtlety to this of that, there are fast guitars, bottom-feeding bass and a constant drum melee. Good Kill is a sarcastic number about hating peoplesociety.

This song features special guest rapper, KRS-1 of Boogie Down Productions. William Holden Caufield is a song, which, like the book Catcher in the Rye, confronts the frustration of growing up as well as the problem of people who over-identify with J.D, Salinger's lead character. Humor and youthful energy enliven the good ol' rock 'n' roll dispensed by Too Much Joy. By HELEN AS. POPKIN Times Staff Writer Is it possible to get sick of Too Much Joy? Maybe, but it certainly will be fun along the way.

Fun is what this four-piece band is about. Fun and rock roll. Real rock 'n' roll: exciting, stupid, hormone-crazed stuff where nobody takes the time to think about deeper meanings, seminal passion, correct politics or how that cello section is going to fit in the break. Think about how ridiculous the words are to some Chuck Berry songs, let alone how simple and repetitive the chord progressions are. Still, Chuck was good enough to send into space in a probe message for possible intelligent alien life forms.

Too Much Joy Cereal Killers Giant Word to the uninitiated: The harmonica is a fun, sophisticated and sleekly sexy instrument. At long last, the world outside of Chicago has a chance to learn about mouth harp band angry humor. Too Much Joy generates more energy than a dozen solar panels at high noon. There is no lead singer. Everybody sings at once, or the band members trade off in complex adolescent-sounding harmonies.

On top The silliness and inside jokes grow tedious after a while, but Too Much Joy is still a whole lot of fun. And after all, isn't fun the very best thing to have? ace Carey Bell. On Mellow Down Easy, the new album that features Bell with his regular road band, Tough Luck, Bell is at his ze LOCALS FLAUNT VARIETY UZE Can 't Save Me, with its short sharp falsetto harmonies and electronic keyboards, is the most new-wave tune of all. Group Therapy is fronted by Tampa Bay area scene veteran Flash Gordon (formerly of Flash in the Pan), whose deep, atonal voice brings to mind wraparound glasses and spiky hairdos. The four-song title cassette crams in a multitude of sounds, including everything from harp to flute.

The horn section on Discrimination Runs Deep'is reminiscent of the Mod-Ska band Madness, while Th is Is My Life takes on an auonarbizarreness in its use of disjointed female background vocals. Happy Together, So takes a double-retro approach, borrowing a verse from the classic Turtles song and putting it to a pogo-dancing beat. Combining an arty intensity with the heavy fire of electric guitars, Factory Black succeeds in progressing into the next wave of music in the '90s. The four-song String Driven Thingis a clean and solid mix of metal-like instrumentation and driving melodies. Singer Brian Merrill is well-equipped with a baritone yowl perfect for extending the vowels of Pretty How Town.

Collide includes a Bon Jovi-ish a capella break, but somehow it all works. A splinter band of the former area scene favorite, Parade In Paris, Factory Black has a strong sense of its roots without dwelling on the cliche elements. Bay area groups wrap their own sound around everything from new-wave to metal. And it usually works. By HELEN A.S.

POPKIN Times Staff Writer Hey, remember the early '80s? The crest of new-wave and the dawn of MTV. The time of low-budget videos when aluminum foil and bubble packing were used on everything from background sets to women's costumes. Well, if you don't remember, several area bands that shoot past the current trend of the 70's sound" will help remind you. Liz Back On Booze has the smell of new-wave nostalgia on its breath. Loaded with a post-Cars sensibility, the local band's five-song title release is punctuated with an early Talking Heads beat.

Little bridges break up History as the deep and swanky voice of Domenick Ginex lolls over the strained but funky melody. Razor's Edgeis a somber tune with a spooky bass line and drums provided by guest musician Jeff Wood of the Forgotten Apostles, while CCB is almost folkish in its moodiness, though forced in its post-production special effects. CCB also features local jazz percussionist extraordinaire Gumbi Ortiz. You nith. After years of honing their songs in nightclubs and studios across America, Bell and his band play with an efficient plucki-ness rarely heard from pickup bands composed largely of session musicians.

The spirit of Muddy Waters hovers above this album, which opens with Short Dress Woman, a song that reed player J.T. Brown wrote for Waters in 1 964. The recording also includes Waters' own 1958 classic, Walkin Thru the Park, plus songs by Waters' longtime bass player, Willie Dixon (Mellow Down Easy) and his guitarist, Jimmy Rogers Walkin 'By Myself). In the traditional Muddy Waters style, Bell treats his harmonica fills and solos as if they were vocal duets, containing the same expressive nuances as the lead vocal. Mellow Down Easy also illustrates a few perfect intersections of Delta blues and Chicago jazz.

Kevin McKendree's jazz organ on That Spot Right Thereis a nice, reflective touch, as is Brian McGregor's understated electric bass. Harmonica legend Lips Lackowitz calls Bell "Chicago's best-kept secret," but Mellow Down Easy may change all that. JEAN CAREY Liz Back On Booze Liz Back On Booze LBOB Music Group Therapy Group Therapy Factory Black String Driven Thing One Big Face Records FRIDAY, APRIL 19,1991 TIMES 17.

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Pages Available:
5,180,598
Years Available:
1886-2024