Skip to main content

The Elvis Brothers - Adventure Time

The Elvis Brothers are a new to me experience. I'm trying to remember how this came to be on my radar. I suspect it was the result of hearing the name mentioned by my friend Jeff (who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things pop that kind of irritates me to be honest - because I'm older than he is, and it gets up my crack that he's more than my equal when it comes to the accumulation of useless trivia regarding music) AND then looking them up on the internet and seeing Adrian Belew's name associated. 

Rambling Tangent Alert:
Adrian Belew first came to my attention back in 1983 when a wonderful young lady said my homemade DIY "albums" reminded her of Adrian Belew in their quirkiness.  To me this was incredibly intriguing, so I rushed out and purchased Twang Bar King, and Lone Rhino and quickly discovered that my friend was being overly generous as those two albums were life changing and expanded my musical palate beyond anything else I'd ever heard to that point.
End of Tanget - but not the Rambling

It's always a weird and strangely wonderful thing to discover new old things. When they suck or are just a giant sack of "meh" it's no big deal. You can understand why you never heard of it. When you discovered a quirky gem that you know was fitted perfectly into the time from whence it came you have to wonder why things never clicked. I'm just happy to have found a copy.

The album cover is pure cheese, the best kind. Back in the mid 80s this seemed to be the stock and trade of pop acts around the world, from Katrina and Waves to Bananarama and a year later the Stone's Dirty Work would use the same colourful motif. Ah, the 80s - they were the best of times. 

The band was tight AF* too, brothers Brad, Rob and Graham Elvis seemed to share a performers psychic bond not seen since the Dionne quintuplets performed Twelve Angry Men as a one woman show at Massey Hall in the mid 1950s. I'm kidding, Brad, Rob and Graham aren't really brothers they just play them on record the same way Pernell Roberts wasn't really a doctor ...

Regardless, the album is a fine example of wondrous power pop, and deftly produced by Adrian Belew. The band seemed to effortlessly meld the pop sensibilities of Split Enz era Neil Finn and rock chops of fellow Illinois rockers Cheap Trick and tie it together with a healthy dose of sparkling guitars, rockabilly swing and a driving beat. Adventure Time indeed.

* audio frequency, what else would it stand for?

 




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6 Cylinder

As a kid we had one radio station, not counting CBC, and generally there was very little that was worth listening to, although there were times something would come on that would make you pay attention. It was 1979 and on a couple of occasions I heard "There Ain't Nobody Here But Us  Chickens" and it cracked me up, and I always wanted to get a copy for myself. A few years ago when my niece was dancing, they did a performance to this song, and now I can't separate my niece from a bunch of dancing chicks in chicken suits. Such is life. When I found this in the dollar bin I actually let out a little chirp, my goodness could it be? It was, and it was in great shape - including the inner sleeve.  Score. I had no idea what to expect, for all I knew there was only one song worth listening to, and if that was the case it was still a dollar well spent. If I could buy an album by Showdown and enjoy it, odds are I'll find something to enjoy here to. Before I put this on I...
Post a Comment
Read more

Garfield - Strange Streets

I'd seen this before in the bin, but kept flipping through the stacks. I'd see it a few more times, each time stopping to look at it a little more. There was something kind of cool about the cover where the stylized Celtic knot had the dotted yellow line - it was a strange street for sure.  I pulled the record out of the jacket and I was struck by the centre image. There was the familiar Mercury label, the same one I'd seen a thousand times on BTOs Head On album. Well, I'd bought things based on odd associations before - like when I had to buy anything that Solid Rock Records released (this was generally a good thing) who knows maybe this was a hidden gem. There weren't any real scratches or rash, just a lot of dirt and dust - it seemed to clean up okay, but we'll see how it goes. The album opens with the title track, and this wasn't straight ahead pop, or rock. It was leaning to the progressive, but with a pop bent. Oddly enough the vocals reminded me of Mi...
5 comments
Read more

Hoodoo Gurus - Mars Needs Guitars!

The first time I got this album it was a gift from my old roommate Otto. For a goofy little nebbish he would occasionally surprise me with some left of field musical treasures. Although, I still think he was reaching a little when he brought home the new "Led Zeppelin" album by Kingdom Come and forced me to listen to "Get it On" over and over again.  I'd not listened to Mars Needs Guitars in a long, long, long time. The first thing that I jumped out at me was how David Faulkner's vocals reminded me of his fellow countryman Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil. I think the reason this never occurred to me was at the time I didn't have any Midnight Oil until Diesel and Dust in 1987. I'm not saying it was all the time, but there were a couple of songs where it stood out. Not a bad thing, just a thing. Even at the time this felt slightly out of step with what was going on in 1985. It seemed like everyone was using drum machines and synthesizers and having t...
3 comments
Read more