Stylus over Substance (Volume 11) - Rock and Hyde, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, Carl Perkins and NRBQ, The Kinks

Here we go kids. Hope you're ready as well start the slide into the summer months. Junary can be a weird month where it's either too hot, too cold, or too boring. I'm still working my way through the records I bought last December, and while I'm still adding to the pile I'm trying to slow down. Having my favourite record store go tits up was really bad for them, but good for me. Although they do have an auction, and at times that's been a problem but that's my cross to bear.

This time out is another mixed bag of nuts. Some of the albums I had back in the day, and others are new to me. It's always fun to sit down, turn on and turn it up.

• Rock and Hyde - Under the Volcano (1987)
• Three Dog Night - Naturally (1970)
• The Moody Blues - This is The Moody Blues (1974)
• Carl Perkins and NRBQ - Boppin' the Blues (1970)
• The Kinks - Give the People What They Want (1981)
  

Rock and Hyde - Under the Volcano (1987) A couple years after Payolas tried and failed to grasp the brass ring with their 1985 release Here's the World for Ya Paul Hyde and Bob Rock popped up as Rock and Hyde. After a string of albums on A&M records, the boys were signed to Capitol records, and while the name may have changed the band was still the band. Except now relegated to the credits. I suspect this sounds harsher than it was in reality, but then again I have no idea. I'm just sitting in my chair reading the liner notes. Still, it was good to see Chris Taylor, Alex Boynton, John Webster listed in the fine print. 

The album was produced by Bruce Fairbairn, along with Bob and Paul, and it's probably the strongest album of their career. Under the Volcano finally seemed to capture the commercial style they were trying to get on the David Foster record and infused it with their innate sense of raw passion and anger and angst. The songs are all really strong. Starting off with "Dirty Water" the album seems to set up one great song after another. Although the tendency to shit on religion and poke at the hypocrisy of some elements of the church comes across as pedantic. It's too much like shooting fish and a barrel. However, the levelled criticism isn't uncalled for, just unnecessary. Still, they had something to say, and they were going to say it.

I suppose to those who had become a fan of the Payolas from their early days subscribed to the opinion that anything commercial sucked likely felt sucker punched and betrayed as the band evolved and moved more into the mainstream. What really sucks is that just when they put all the pieces together there wasn't anyone to notice. Which is too bad, I'd not listened to this in a long, long time and it was so good.

Three Dog Night - Naturally (1970) This was the bands second album to come out in 1970. This is the album with the massive hit, Hoyt Axton's "Joy to the World" and as a little kid in 1970 this song was everywhere. EVERYWHERE ... at least on the radio stations I listened to. I've been getting into some of the band's work, and it's been eye opening. They were far better than I ever knew. 

There are a lot of good songs here, and one of the standout tracks for me was the instrumental song "Fire Eater" that was written by the band. The guys had chops and showed they could write music, it's just a shame they didn't have anyone who could write lyrics. Then again the strength of the band, at least whoever chose the songs, was they had an ear for a hook, and more often than not the songs selected had gold in them there grooves. The number of artists and writers who benefited from having Three Dog Night interpret one (or more) of their songs was pretty impressive, from Harry Nillsson to Randy Newman.

Like I'd mention a little earlier, there are some good tracks on the album, but they're overshadowed as soon as you hear, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog..." I mean boy howdy and good gravy you just don't get any better than that. At least on this album. Although to be fair, over time fatigue has taken a little shine off the song, but it's held up remarkably well. Better than I anticipated to be honest.

Still in makes me wonder if the band their own material they'd have been given a bit more credibility. We'll never know.

P.S. I stand by my choice for the cover. I know this goes against what appears to be popular convention, but when you look at the spine this picture is the front, and the back photo in the empty pool looks like a back album shot, and the track listing is on the bottom - all standard back panel stuff. So there. I rest my case,

The Moody Blues - This is The Moody Blues (1974) This was a wonderful find. Released in 1974 the collection pulled songs from the band's previous seven albums. When I first found this I was pretty stoked as this had everything I wanted from the band's classic period. The core band remained unchanged, and all of the albums were produced by Tony Clarke. I just figured this was going to be a standard best of collection, the standard pastiche of songs culled from prior releases with a smattering of hits sprinkled throughout. Make no mistake, the big songs are here, but what I didn't expect was how the album was structured. 

This felt like an album. A carefully and meticulously crafted album where song placement was a part of the experience. What I also wasn't expecting was to have slightly different version of some of the songs. Notably "Tuesday Afternoon" that I had recently listened to as part of Days of Future Past. The songs were often cross-faded which helped to fit the songs together and strengthen the sense this was meant to be an experience and not merely a collection of bits and pieces accumulated over the course of a few years.

I'd always sort of known about The Moody Blues, but never really gave them much in the way of credit. This album changed that. These guys were the masters of symphonic rock. I will say that at times the drenching of reverb that often coated the vocals was irritating as it seemed to create an overly brittle echo that at times felt like an ice-pick to the ears. It's just how it was, and frankly I can't imagine the songs without that rich cavernous effect. Over the course of the double album my appreciation kept growing, and by the time the album closes with "Nights in White Satin" I found myself wanting to go back and start it all over. This is The Moody Blues indeed.

Carl Perkins and NRBQ - Boppin' the Blues (1970) Boy howdy, this was a cool find. I'm really looking forward to giving this a spin. It's all cleaned up and we're ready to go. I didn't realize how deeps the band's roots were as I just knew them from Lou and the Q - you know the one, if you were a wrastlin' fan in the '80s you knew "Captain Lou, Captain Lou Albano" oh yeah. Eat your vitamins. The copy I found was a little worse for wear, at least as far as the cover went. The back cover was stamped "Radio Station CKVN Ltd. which seemed familiar, and then it clicked this was 14 CFUN the radio station of my childhood. Well, along with CKLG which was farther down the dial but between them was where I spent my days. This 1970 release is a bit of an odd duck. Very enjoyable, and for 1970 this was a more of a throw back, and as you'd expect with Carl Perkins onboard you leaned into the rockabilly side of the equation. I suspect even back when this was new it was an odd duck. NRBQ, or The New Rhythm and Blues Quartet were still new, and this was their second album. While Carl Perkins was that old dude from the '50s (who was in his late thirties at this point) who was hardly old, but in rock years he was a dinosaur. The collaborations were juicy and while this was a fun listen, it was more a time capsule. A nice addition to my collection and if I'm in the mood this is a lot of fun.

The Kinks - Give the People What They Want (1981) With their 1981 release The Kinks were still making a game case for their relevance. It's weird, they never really went away, they just sort of lived on the fringe of commercial success. With their nineteenth album they were still cutting their teeth, and they were hardly playing it safe. It may seem like they were jumping on the new wave and punk bandwagon but one could argue they helped pave the way for their contemporaries. While I never heard a lot of their stuff as a kid, I knew their classics. Heck the band even gave a generation of hip artists the template for how to recycle something old to make something new. "Destroyer" is a song I remember having an odd reaction to when I first heard it ... "What the fu.....?" It was the second, third and thirtieth times hearing the song that I get a giant musical chubby. It's so good. The whole album is actually a really nice surprise, and frankly it's too bad I wasn't exposed to this one back in the day ... I'd be a bigger Kinks fan. They may have given the people what they want, but you know what they say about leading a horse to water. Too bad.