Another band/record I discovered via a track on a comp CD sent to me by Miles. The track wasn’t the reasonably well known single “Mockingbirds”, which is an absolute beauty, but the opening “Lone Star Song”, a crushing guitar riff, that most grunge bands of the time would have been proud of, leads us into a song about David Koresh and the Waco Massacre. It’s a song that struck me immediately and has been a favourite ever since.

Grant Lee Buffalo formed in Los Angeles in 1991. A three piece headed up by songwriter Grant Lee Phillips, “Mighty Joe Moon” is their 2nd of four studio albums and could loosely be placed in the Americana bucket if you needed to do that. It has hints of country and folk music but equally has splashes of Grunge, The Beatles and classic American Rock, Americana in the loosest sense.

2nd track “Mockingbirds” maybe one of their better known songs, a gentle lament with Beatle-esque strings and that’s followed by the folksy “It’s The Life”, all ringing 12 string acoustics and gently brushed snare; “Sing Along” returns us to the grungy feel of the opening song. And so it progresses swinging twixt beautifully melodic ballads like the title song and the tougher songs in the vein of “Lone Star Song”.

On its release in 1994 “Mighty Joe Moon” was about as out of step with American music as it was possible to be at the time, which is likely what drew me to it. Grunge was where it was at, Cobain had recently taken his own life, and here was a band with a predominantly acoustic rooted album singing songs referencing Tecumseh, David Koresh and John Wayne Gacy with hints of country and folk. Gimme that over bands who were playing heavy metal in check shirts any day. Needless to say it wasn’t a huge seller and remains a much overlooked classic to these ears.

If I have one problem with this album it would be that the original CD and my recently acquired remastered clear vinyl beauty is mastered so bloody quietly that you really have to crank the volume and consequently I always feel like I’m never hearing it at it’s best. But don’t let that put you off…

Lone Star Song - https://youtu.be/-bz71U4BZGk

I first came across the Gigolo Aunts when they opened for The Wonder Stuff on a couple of tours around Europe and the UK in 1993 and ‘94. They were young, musically extremely proficient, a bit starry eyed at being on tour with what was at the time a very big band, genuinely bloody nice people and hell’s teeth did they have a knack with a song.

If they entered the mainstream consciousness in the UK it would be when their song “Where I Find My Heaven” was used as the theme tune for some utterly forgettable 90’s sitcom. Internationally it also featured on the soundtrack of the mind numbing movie “Dumb And Dumber”. That song is a Power Pop masterpiece. Not Power Pop as we think of it here but US Power Pop in the vein of Big Star, Jellyfish, Player etc. American rock bands with great songs and an ability to utterly destroy you with seemingly effortless 3/4 part harmonies, they’d obviously worked at their “craft”. Three of the band sang lead vocals (Dave Gibbs, Phil Hurley and Steve Hurley), Phil was (and still is) a superb guitar player. The bottom line here is I bloody loved the Gigolo Aunts and they shoulda been massive.

Highlights on this album would be the aforementioned “Where I Find My Heaven”, the single “Cope” with it’s big fat wah-wah’d guitar riffs and chorus to kill for, “Bloom” featuring Phil Hurley on vocals which was always a live highlight and the ending title track, a great “ballad” about being at the edge.

I’m still in touch (virtually) with Dave, Phil and Steve and they’re all doing well in their own thing now, still all playing either full time or occasionally. I found this album on lovely red vinyl quite recently so I’ve been playing it a lot. It’s great, you should try it.

Cope - https://youtu.be/ZcnoFqvrS2g

A few days ago when writing about Fairport Convention I told you that Prog Rock would never be part of my musical landscape. Now any Prog fan out there could quite reasonably ask “if that’s so what are you doing with a Peter Gabriel album ?” and it would be more than fair of them to ask that. Apart from the obvious fact that it’s an album by the former singer of Uber-Proggers Genesis this album also features Phil Collins (Genesis), Robert Fripp and Tony Levin (King Crimson) and Kate Bush (carrying all her Pink Floyd connections) it’s almost a who’s who of Prog. But I have a mitigating circumstance…

Legend has it (and this may or may not be true but whatever, it’s a good story) Peter Gabriel wanted a particular guitar sound on one track and that guitar sound was that of The Who’s Pete Townshend. When approached Townshend was unavailable but is said to have responded “ask that fella from The Jam, he sounds just like me anyway” (meeeeooooow). Which is why, on the song “And Through The Wire”, we have the conspicuous and unmistakable sound of Paul Weller playing guitar on a Peter Gabriel album. This was May 1980, The Jam had not long gone straight in at number 1 with “Going Underground”, they were halfway between “Setting Sons” in November 1979 and the release of “Sound Affects” in November 1980, just 2 months later they went straight in at number 1 again with “Start!”, they were at the height of their powers, I was obsessed with them, of course I was buying the Peter Gabriel album. Prog be damned, this was Weller !

As a song by itself “And Through The Wire” is really like nothing else on this album. It’s a stomping rock song and Weller knocks out a riff that would have graced and been welcome on any Jam song. But of course I had to listen to the rest of the album, and d’you know what ? I liked it…I already knew the single “Games Without Frontiers” and had liked that too but then there was “Intruder” to start with, Phil Collins banging out a tub-thumping rhythm over which Gabriel eerily intones the thoughts of a burglar about his line of “work”…”Family Snapshot” is the assassination of JFK seen from the shooters point of view…and the album ends on the anthemic “Biko” about South African anti apartheid activist Bantu Steven Biko.

The Paul Weller connection is what drew me in to this album but I must have been starting on an interest in electronic music (Bowie’s Berlin period, the Human League, The Normal we’re all on my record deck around this time) and this album happened for me at a time when it had a chance of making an impression, and it did. It still gets spun regularly around these parts. I’ll still never succumb to Prog Rock tho’.

And Through The Wire - https://youtu.be/k0UJtixnii8