Now if I was a fan of Patti Smith I may have recognized "Dancing Barefoot" in the track list but I'm not (at least not yet, never say never) and although I've heard her version, back in '79 this more or less flew over my radar. Interestingly, the version here really isn't a cover, as Ivan Kral co-wrote the song with Smith and was a member of her band at the time. Her version is great, and I have to say the Eastern Bloc version is one of the standouts on the album. I am jumping ahead of myself a bit, but I'll leave that there as it may be important later ... or not. I'm as curious as you are now to see if I end up connecting the dots.
Like I said I got this a while ago, and I did give it a few spins. I really liked it from the get go. Oddly it was "Woman Be Strange" that first popped for me. It felt really familiar. It felt like a hit, but it wasn't. Actually a lot of the album seemed to feel like an old friend. It was all new to me, but dagnabbit it often felt like something I'd heard before. Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling the band out for being generic or lazy ... I like this kind of power infused pop, and if the band was able to write songs that seemed to connect with imaginary memories that's a cool trick, not something to be shit on.
I tried looking up information on the band, and boy oh boy there's little to nothing out there. They alsp have a version of "Jingle Bells" that came out on the Mixed Nuts (1994) soundtrack, but who knows when that was recorded. I have seen a couple of other blog posts that are pretty complimentary and a few mentions "Dancing Barefoot" that are mixed. I get that, Patti Smith has her fans, and while the version here is different, it's using the same template. Like I said earlier, it's really good. The album isn't on any of the streaming platforms either which is also pretty brutal, and frankly a surprise. I wonder how much of that is related to licensing and whoever has the rights to the artists who were once on Paradox Records, which from what I can see on the back cover was part of Passport Records and they were distributed by PolyGram ... which already seemed messy. When the label folded where did the songs go?
Nowhere ... they went nowhere.
In short, this pretty much meets the requirements to be a lost gem. It really is. Sure, it wasn't breaking any new ground, but it certainly ticked a lot of boxes for me.
Eastern Bloc as a band name certainly didn't help. I know it was '87 and the whole Berlin Wall thing was starting to generate a lot of press. "Tear down this wall" and all that. Maybe the guys thought calling the band Eastern Bloc would give them some cachet with the kids. The cover art though is forgettable, if not downright bad. I have no issue with the back of the jacket ... heck it was giving off some Bryan Adams vibes from his 1987 release Into the Fire, except instead of looking from the North Shore into Vancouver, we get New York and the Twin Towers. I shouldn't be taking shots at the band, history has already buried them, I'm trying to highlight the album not shit on it.
Is it a perfect record? No, let's not be silly but the power trio, of what I will assume were industry veterans, crafted a really strong album of slick album oriented rock that had enough crunch and hooks to appeal to a pretty broad audience. This was a good old fashioned rock album and the boys weren't having to blow out their hair or wear spandex. Heck on the back cover the guys are wearing sports coats. Yeah baby, this is rock and roll. The music may not have been especially original, but it was really good and there was a swagger to the tunes that should have helped the songs standout from a lot of the other noise out there at the time.
Where are they now? Like I said I'd tried to look up the band, and it was pretty skinny. As to the band members themselves, there was a little more information to be gleaned. The band was comprised of Mark Sidgwick on guitars and vocals, Ivan Kral on bass and keys and Frankie LaRocka on drums and shaker. Yup, shaker.
- Frankie's name has popped up on some other albums I have. He played drums on Scandal's EP, the one with "Goodbye to You" and co-produced The Spin Doctor's Pocketful of Kryptonite with Peter Denenberg - the guy who produced Eastern Bloc. Sadly Frankie died back in 2005.
- Ivan Kral seemed to have the most colourful past having come up through the New York scene and was associated with Iggy Pop, Bowie, Shaun Cassidy (no kidding) and of course Patti Smith. He passed away in 2020.
- Mark Sidgwick I couldn't find much out there. But I really liked his guitar playing. I hope he's still out there.
This is a collection of unpretentious rock and roll songs. There are no lyrically deep songs and this isn't going to hurt your brain, and it's pretty easy on the ears. The songs are all catchy and the production had enough punch to give the songs a nice sparkle and sheen without being too slick. From the opening track "So Long" to the album's closer "Time Will Tell" the band deftly manoeuvred its way through the songs. There are a few standout tracks (I could list them, but I'm feeling a little lazy at the moment), and yes "Dancing Barefoot" is up there (dots connected, whew) but the whole album is really good.
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