Concert Review: Wally Pleasant @ Founders Hall, BGSU, Bowling Green, Ohio (Fall 1994)

I have evidence I went to this show, as you can see there is an autographed Wally Pleasant ‘Houses of the Holy Moly’ cd, even if I can't remember when it happened.

My best guess is sometime in 1994 or 1995, as I was living in Founders Hall at the time, and the concert took place in the expansion area of the cafeteria, the same place I would play two rock shows, one with 10Watt my final year of college in 1998, and a year later with The Stepford Five, our first show ever.



Apparently, Wally is still doing his thing has he’s got a website with current tour dates and lots of albums I never heard. I went back and listened to this album not too long ago, and I’m not going to claim it still holds up, but there were some enjoyable moments in the vein of They Might Be Giants or Ween, two bands I do no claim to be a fan of. Yet, certain tracks still charm me.

I’m fairly certain our radio station, WFAL, had a hand in bringing Wally to BGSU, which is probably why I was even at the concert and ended up buying a cd. Maybe we’ll have him on Dig Me Out someday.

(Update: After some back and forth with Wally himself and some fans on Facebook in 2017, we narrowed it down to Fall of 1994, so while not the exact date, almost there)

This Week In Music: 12/17-12/23

This week in music listening, featuring patent-pending two-word reviews:

Dream Theater: Awake – powerfully dark
The Black Keys: The Moan EP – decent tease
The Black Keys: Attack and Release – different sounds
The Black Keys: Chulahoma – fitting tribute
Cabaret Voltaire: Red Mecca – alien coldness
The Cure: Bloodflowers – undercooked tunes
The Cure: Disintegration – undeniable classic
Quiet Riot: QR III – terrible lyrics
The Kills: Midnight Boom – booming good
The Kills: Keep On Your Mean Side – stark blues
Mr. Big: Hey Man – mixed man
T.Rex: The Slider – classic riffs
Pete Townshend: Twenty (Scoop 4) – more oddballs
Skid Row: Subhuman Race – tougher sound
Skid Row: Skid Row – plentiful anthems
Skid Row: Forty Seasons-The Best of Skid Row – decent overview
Skid Row: B-Sides Ourselves EP – solid renditions
Pink Floyd: Atom Mother Heart – collectors only
Pink Floyd: A Collection of Great Dance Songs – pointless collection

Concert Review: Great White & Dokken @ Wheeling Island Casino Showroom, Wheeling, WV (3/26/10)

Prior to my wedding in April of 2010, my friends Keith and Jason decided to throw a mini-batchelor party for me. It consisted of driving down to Wheeling, West Virginia to the Wheeling Island Casino for a steak dinner, some gambling and most importantly, to take in a rock show. But this just wasn’t any rock show, this was Dokken and Great White.

The Wheeling Island Showroom looked to be about a 300-400 seat ballroom, and when I say seat, I mean yes, there were seats. A little different than the stadium shows these bands enjoyed during their ’80s heyday. Our tickets were pretty much dead center, three or four rows back, kind of a perfect view.

Prior to the show, I downloaded and listened to the entire catalogs of Dokken and Great White because other than their radio singles, I just didn’t know anything about either. What I learned also turned out to be true of their live shows.

Dokken opened and were the far better band, as I learned through revisiting their entire discography. The quality of the music from album to album never waned, and live they were as tight and energetic as you could hope. It wasn’t until seeing them live that I realized what strong songwriters they were, as I easily recalled most of the tunes from listening to the albums only once the week prior.

Great White, unfortunately, did not impress. Lead singer Jack Russell was apparently recovering from back surgery. He struggled to stay upright, and his vocals suffered for it. The other issue is that, while Great White had some hits, they had plenty of misses. The catalog is rife with all sorts of generic and forgettable bluesy ’80s metal. The one highlight was watching multi-instrumentalist Michael Lardie run around the stage, bouncing from keyboard to guitar to microphone – the man was a workhorse and never stopped smiling, clearly trying to make the best of what was not a stellar show.
Actually, there were two highlights – I hit a slot machine for a hundred bucks.

This Week In Music: 12/10-12/16

This week in music listening, featuring patent-pending two-word reviews:

Green Day: ¡Uno! – decent powerpop
Green Day: ¡Dos! – over indulgence
Green Day: ¡Tre! – ridiculous indulgence
Cabaret Voltaire: The Voice of America – sparse pieces
Rage Against The Machine: Rage Against The Machine (XX Remaster) – still powerful
Rush: Vapor Trails – heavy return
Parliament: Trombipulation – weak link
Parliament: Up for the Down Stroke – creative reinvention
The Black Keys: The Big Come Up – bare bones
Ministry: Side Trax – puzzle pieces
Ministry: B-Sides & Rarities – mish mash
Pete Townshend: Who Came First – mixed bag
Pink Floyd: Animals – kinda bored
Quiet Riot: Qr – nothing special
Mr. Big: Get Over It – over cooked

Concert Review: Stone Temple Pilots @ The Palace of Auburn Hills, Detroit, MI (12/10/96)

In March of 1996 Stone Temple Pilots released their third record, Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop. For some folks, this was three albums too many, as STP was pegged as a Pearl Jam/Alice In Chains wannabe on their first album Core.

Despite the fact that the follow-up Purple has some genuinely interesting moments, from the dusty 70s rock of “Interstate Love Song” and “Big Empty” to the slinky rockers like “Vasoline” and “Unglued,” the dye was set in most rock critics minds. From the start, that didn’t matter to me. STP wrote heavy, melodic music, and in the early nineties, that’s what I was interested in. I didn’t care if they weren’t a “real” grunge band, I cared what the music sounded like.

When Tiny Music came out, it was definitely a curve ball. Gone where the heavy Drop-D riffs, replaced with a poppy neo-glam sound with less distortion. I like when bands take detours, and this was definitely a detour. Unfortunately, lead singer Scott Weiland’s drug addiction was also a detour, so the band cancelled a bunch of shows on this tour, but my college roommate at the time and I were able to snag tickets to one the shows they ended up playing.

I had driven to Detroit for smaller shows at the Majestic, but never to an arena show. The was my second trip to the Palace (the first being a Cavs / Pistons game), and I’ve never been a huge fan of arena shows, but we managed to score fairly good seats. We were actually at about eye-level with the band, only we were just a few seats away from being completely parallel with the stage. It was odd seeing everything from the side, but it didn’t distract from the show.

Even after just three albums, the band was loaded with hits, and they played them all. Because I had played those first two album to death, even the deep tracks were familiar. At some point during the show, the band sat on stools at the front of the stage and performed acoustic versions of a few songs, which really showcased the talents of the DeLeo brothers on guitar, bass and backing vocals.

I can’t say that stayed current with the band after Tiny Music, but I when a song pops up on satellite radio in the car, there’s a good chance I turn it up rather than change the channel.

Howlin Maggie @ Frankie’s Inner City, Toledo, OH (1996/1997)

Sometime after the release of their first album, Honeysuckle Strange, Howlin Maggie made the trip up to Toledo to play Frankie’s Inner City. The name is truthful, the club was in downtown Toledo, a place I did not visit very many times during my years at college in Bowling Green.

The club was split into to sides, one for bands and one for a dance club and DJ. We realized upon arriving that the band side was woefully empty, and the club side was packed. And loud. Very loud. There were (maybe) twelve people there to see Howlin Maggie, who despite the small audience, were glammed up and rocked as if they were playing a 20,000 seat venue. That was greatly appreciated – I respect bands that put on a show regardless of audience size, but after a while it got awkward. Personally, I wanted to say to the band, “Look, we get it, you want to rock out, but you don’t need to pretend this Madison Square Garden. Dust off the glitter, wipe off the eyeliner, let’s just have a good rock show.”

I made the mistake of wearing the t-shirt of the band I was going to see, a fact that my friends Keith, Jason and Billy who accompanied pointed out without mercy.

This Week In Music: 12/3-12/9

This week in music listening, featuring patent-pending two-word reviews:

L.A. Guns: Vicious Circle – lyrically disturbing
Genesis: We Can’t Dance – wildly boring
Juliana Hatfield: Love & Peace – stripped down
Kix: Show Business – slick guitars
Ministry: Twitch – pounding beats
Tindersticks: Tindersticks (1993) – chamber pop
Tindersticks: Tindersticks (1995) – booming baritone
Queensryche: Tribe – still works
Queensryche: Queensryche EP – interesting beginnings
Poison: Open Up And Say…Ahh! – good time
Poison: Poison’d – mostly forgettable
Rush: Presto – matured songwriting
Rush: Roll The Bones – evolved prog
Rush: Rush – Zep influences
Rush: Signals – superior synth
Rush: Snakes & Arrows – textured sound
Rush: Test For Echo – decent score
Quiet Riot: Quiet Riot – loud nonsense

November Movies

November movie watching with patent pending two-word reviews:

Skyfall – intimate Bond
New World Order – unintentionally hilarious
8 1/2 – totally confused
Safe House – overly contemplative
Meet Monica Velour – fearless Cattrall
Despicable Me – not despicable
May The Best Man Win – oddball comedy

Concert Review: Matthew Sweet & the Gigolo Aunts @ Promenade Park, Toledo, OH (7/3/97)

For fourth of July in 1997, the city of Toledo put on a free show in Promenade Park, which is along the Maumee River. I was at BGSU for another summer trying to get through some classes I didn’t want to really take, and drove with my friends Jason and Cortney (and maybe others, who knows) to Toledo to catch Matthew Sweet and Gigolo Aunts. There may have been others, but I can’t recall that either. (It was college, what do you expect, crystal clear memories?)

We spread out on the grass, enjoyed the sunshine and watched the bands, and I clearly remember being awed by the number of guitars Matthew Sweet had brought on tour. He seemed to switch in between every song, and for a cover of ELO’s Do Ya, busted out a Gibson SG double-neck.

Being it was a fourth of July show, there’s a good chance there were fireworks afterward, but I again, I can’t recall. Apparently I need to eat more fish.

This Week In Music: 11/26-12/2

This week in music listening, featuring patent-pending two-word reviews:

Mike Doughty: The Flip Is Another Honey – odd interpretations
Mark Lanegan: Dark Mark Does Christmas 2012 EP – suitably dark
Judgement Night soundtrack – woefully dated
Black Moth Super Rainbow: Cobra Juicy – interestingly eclectic
Parliament: Osmium – dynamic debut
Poison: Power to the People – ill advised
Rush: Power Windows – lacks power
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Expanded Fan Soundtrack) – extra goodness
Ministry: Rio Grande Dub – quality alternates
Queensryche: The Warning – rough diamond
Triple Fast Action: Tribute – varied quality
Shawn Smith: 2012 B-Sides & Rarities – numerous gems
Sunny Day Real Estate: Asleep Under Last Weeks News – missing essentials
Warrant: Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich – solid pop
Warrant: Dog Eat Dog – missed opportunity
Warrant: Rockaholic – not addicted
Warrant: Under The Influence – faithful renditions
Vixen: Vixen – few gems
White Lion: Return of the Pride – solid effort