Jo Jo Gunne - Bite Down Hard

Oh, what's this? I had no idea what to expect here, but it was on Asylum Records, a label that had a great track record of releasing solid artists. It was produced by Bill Szymczyk, who also produced the Eagles and Joe Walsh. Some of the names were familiar as well, so I figured it was worth a shot. Worst case, I'm out a buck.

The inner sleeve was missing (who knows what treasures were missing - more likely it was a plain plastic insert), but the jacket was okay and the vinyl was in better shape than I thought it would be. This was released in 1973 and is very much of its time, which isn't a bad thing. I love '70s rock and roll. It's enjoyable, and there were no clunkers that made me want to turn it down, but honestly, it wasn't particularly memorable after my first listen. But it did warrant more time on the turntable.

I'm on my third pass now, and it has a solid groove. Songs are starting to stand out. (According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, it cracked the Top 100, peaking at #75.) But there was nothing I remembered hearing on the radio as a kid.

"Ready Freddy" kicks off the album with a guitar riff that brings to mind Alice Cooper's "School's Out" from a year earlier. But that's where any similarity ends, and the song drives along at a clip with some great piano. Side two closes with "Rhoda," which even has a wicked drum breakdown and some very tasty guitar work. One thing that stands out is a lot of the early synth sounds throughout the album. It's just par for the course now, but some of these sounds were pretty new back then. Today's musical cliches had to start somewhere.

Bite Down Hard was the band's second album, and they'd drop two more records before the end of 1974, all of them breaking through the Top 200, but that would be it.

With the benefit of hindsight, we know what happened to Jo Jo Gunne, but hearing this with fresh ears, you can get a sense of why they were the second act to be signed to the label. Considering who their future stablemates were going to be, this was kind of a big deal. If things had fallen into place, who knows what might have been.

Overall, this was a great new-to-me surprise. If I stumble upon more of their stuff, I'll snap it up.

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