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-Brian,
Fantastic review of the cd. I wish I could come up with all
those kinds af adjectives when reviewing cd's/shows.
As an aside, I had heard about 20 of the 48 songs on the Podolar
tribute about a year ago. I must say I was quite impressed with most
of the tunes I heard. Though yo umay be slightly correct about the
understated style of Podolar. But I think you'll be pleased.
Look for a personal e-mail about some upcoming shows.
ttyl,
Jeff(bigtikidude)
-- In , "Brian Neal" <brian@s...> wrote:
>
> I got this recently and have been listening to it quite a bit. I
> also have "In Heat", and to be quite honest, that didn't do a lot
> for me. The playing is great and they have their own unique take on
> the music, but it just felt kind of overly-hyperactive
> and "punkish". Still, I recognize them as being very good, just not
> exactly my style.
>
> I didn't give up on them though, so I tried them again with
> their "Ride The First Wave" CD. This CD is mainly all covers, many
> of them very obscure. I was familiar with maybe a third of the
> songs, if that. This is an excellent CD, I reallly like it a lot.
It
> takes quite a bit of guts to put out a CD that has 30 songs on it,
> especially if you aren't a good band. But this is not a problem
> here, I did not suffer from "band fatigue".
>
> Of the songs I am familiar with, The Bitch Boys didn't just play
> note for note sterile copies (e.g. Supertones). They made sometimes
> significant changes to the melodies, arrangements, and of course
the
> tones on the guitars. I assume they did the same with the other
> songs. In fact, in some cases, they changed some key parts so much
> that at first I was kind of pissed off. But then I realized this
was
> a good thing, making the song their own, and their version actually
> was a cool and valid interpretation of the original.
>
> The Bitch Boys understand the value of the rhythm guitar. In fact,
> some of the songs feature 3 guitars, and they work together very
> well (even though the original may have had only 1 or 2 parts). The
> rhythm guitar mainly does lots of chording, but of course there is
> ample Astronauts style "chunking" (heavily reverbed root notes).
> Very nice! They rhythm section in general is very tight, it's a
> wonderful thing.
>
> Sonically, you recognize each song as The Bitch Boys right away.
> They definitely have their own recognizable style. The lead guitar
> can be quite savage, and often seems to me to have a touch of echo
> in addition to reverb. They can be very aggressive and can double
> pick with the best of them. However, they also can play quite
> delicate and beautifully, as evidenced by the stunning cover of
> Podolor's "Dracula's Theme" (one of my favorite tracks on the CD).
>
> (As an aside, I eagerly await the upcoming Podolor tribute, but I
> have a great fear that the bands on the compilation will totally
> steam roller Podolor's delicate and understated style...this
remains
> to be seen...)
>
> Overall, one of the best CD's I have heard lately, highly
> recommended listening!! Great playing, great tones, and lots of
> originality and creativity, especially for a so called all-covers
> album!
>
> BN
