The Racers Edge, Part Dos

You ever see that movie Sin City? Where Bruce Willis is in jail and gets out and stuff? That was cool. Not as cool but beneficial for rock n roll was Scott Weiland getting launched from the big house.

Shangri La Di Da (2001)

STP's second disc after the relaunch finds the quartet blending more Scotti-isms into the mix. A lot of mid tempo grooves and Bowie tricks (like the song "Wonderful" having keyboards straight outta "Heroes") are thrown in. Maybe a little too much though, much of the album meanders with a crawling sense of understatement. At least understated for these guys, who made their name by putting together pulverising riffs and hammering them right in your head. The skidding dance effect influenced "Coma" is about as exciting as things get. Shangri La Di Da drags along after track 3 to the point I usually forget its on until it ends. Boorring! Getting lost in a mellow haze might lead you to believe STP had matured, yet Weiland was there to set things straight by getting arrested for domestic violence and following that up by fighting with band mate Dean DeLeo.

Velvet Revolver - Contraband (2004)

A lead singer with a strong creative point of view, drug addiction and anger issues would put off many a band from hiring such a person. To the guys who had survived Axl Rose, Scott Weiland was going to be a walk in the park. So went one of the biggest supergroups of our young millenium, Velvet Revolver. Those with a hankering for a Guns N Roses reunion were sated with Scotty boy hooking up with Slash, Duff McKagen and Matt Sorum (plus one other dude who I can't remember because he wasn't ex-GNR). Velvet Revolver sounded exactly like it looked on paper: Use Your Illusion era GNR rhythms topped with Weiland's increasingly Bowie styled hard rock. As relentlessly predictable as it is enjoyable, Contraband boasted plenty of what you paid for. The driving rocker "Slither" and the power ballad "Fall To Pieces" kept up interest and pushed the unit to big sales.

Oh, and in case you thought Weiland might not challenge the patience of his new employers dude got into a car accident while high. Still beat dealing with someone inciting a riot while wearing a skirt - sorry, tartan is it?

Velvet Revolver - Libertad (2007)

I think it was around this time that Velvet Revolver was the band inducting Van Halen into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. Their performance of Van Halen songs were done with such a sense of sloppy disrespect that I just plain hated Velvet Revolver. Even thinking about it now pisses me off. What the hell is a Libertad anyway? Skipped this disc, could be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I don't care.

Scott Weiland - Happy In Galoshes (2008)

OK, I'm listening to this CD for the first time. Though it isn't the revelation that his prior solo disc 12 Bar Blues was, Happy In Galoshes is pretty good. Even though there are stylisitc shifts here or there, this is mostly a straightforward rock disc. In someways it comes across as a calm STP album, not calm like Shangri La Di Da with slow heavy rhythms just the even balance between instruments pulled behind the vocal. There are a few oddball moments like the surprisingly soft ballad "Killing Me Sweetly" but not the smorgasboard of sound the first solo album was. The single "Missing Cleveland" and also "She Sold Her System" remind me a lot of STP in terms of melody. "Be Not Afraid" is brilliantly haunting. There is a silly cover of David Bowie's "Fame" which comes across like a remixed version of the "Fame '90" remix. I also think I hear a bit of The Killers in the overall approach too. In case you think Weiland got it together now, he was arrested for a DUI in '07. Also, Weiland separated from his second wife.

In yet another messy professional breakup Weiland left/jumped ship from Velvet Revolver to reteam with his old band Stone Temple Pilots. STP released a new album which I just got so I can check it out. Nice time for a mental breakdown...

It Takes A Continent

Sometimes planned activities for the elderly pay off :)

Rating:

and a half

.

When the first supergroup of the 80s, Asia, reformed a few years ago it seemed as unlikely an event as, well, the first time it happened. Sure the four members were of similar prog rock pedigree, but with that came all the baggage of ego and excess that marked their prior careers. Plus two key members, bassist/singer/main songwriter John Wetton and guitarist Steve Howe really seemed to not like each other. So much so that I can't point to any musical moment between the two spanning from 1983's Alpha to 2008's Phoenix album. That's a lot of hate there when you consider the other former members of Asia have all interacted with each other in the intervening decades. So, believe it or not, we are now on the second album of the reconstituted Asia with the original lineup - John Wetton, Steve Howe, Carl Palmer (drums) and Geoff Downes (keys).

When last seen, our erstwhile heroes had rebanded with the Phoenix album. That disc, following the health scare of John Wetton, was a solid restablishing of the group as a creative entity. The songs tended to be a little laid back (not unusual for artists who have just faced death or given birth) yet the instrumental prowess was back. Asia's new disc, Omega, is the type of album that often happens following a relaunch of this type. They come back soft, tour a bit, and return more rockin.

Omega ('cause we've already had Alpha, so we either had to have a Beta or Omega coming) catches latter day Asia in full flight. The Wetton driven power anthems still make sweeping heroic statements like Superman facing General Zod in the Fortress of Solitude. Whether he's pledging his undying love ("Ever Yours"), teaching the children well ("Listen Children") or fighting for truth, justice and the, er, Asian way ("I Believe") John Wetton bellows out with assertive thunder. The arrangements are a little more restrained than the previous Phoenix disc, still no one could call Asia's music sparse. Steve Howe can still pick out a flurry of various textures with guitars sliding, careening and accenting all over the place. Geoff Downes seems focused on more organ work than normal (for that special "classic" sound!) but remains tasteful. And Carl Palmer, every other second is a drum solo for this guy.

In a lot of ways, Omega is reminiscent of Asia's third album Astra. The groups playing focuses more on the songs than solos and some of the songs aim at military goings on ("Finger On The Trigger", "Holy War") though with admittedly less silly bombast than the Astra classic "Countdown To Zero". Interestingly, the song that stands out the most musically is the bonus track "Emily" which has a sort of (intentional?) comic pleading happening over a pensive beat. Sort of Beatleish.

Asia Omega will do nothing to change the minds of anyone who knows the band. But it's a real good album. The Heat Is On! Oh wait, that's Glenn Frey. The Heat Goes On!

The Racer's Edge,Part Uno

Grunge fans initally found a lot to like but little to worship at the Temple. Time and talent would eventually convert the nonbelievers (like me!).

The Stone Temple Pilots are back with a new album which I'm waiting for to show up in the mail, in the mean time I decided to look back on their career. STP have never been critics darlings, they were considered derivative carpetbaggers when they first started (thank you high school history class for drilling that term in my head). Continued success and artistic development has helped STP shed this rep and are now viewed as their own band.

I got into STP through my wife who loved their music up until about the No. 4 album. Funnily, that's about the time I got more into them because of the song "Sour Girl". Our combined interest has us owning about all of their catalog, so I'll be replaying each release I have to jog the ol memory on the history of STP, formerly Mighty Joe Young, formerly Shirley Temple's Pussy.

It all starts in San Diego when Scott Weiland, Robert DeLeo, Dean DeLeo and Eric Kretz formed the band and recorded their debut...

Core (1992)

Grunge was the hot new thang in '92. There was the Seattle scene with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and what not all over the place. Even Cameron Crowe made a movie about flannel clad people doin' it with the new sensation (Singles). And into this came Stone Temple Pilots, suddenly omnipresent on MTV with their rampaging rocker "Sex Type Thing". A fantastic guitar riff and lyrical controversy (were they mocking or supporting the mind set of a sexual predator?) drove them up the charts. Critics carped that STP were imitators, not originals, in the grunge scene. Because San Diego is nice and sunny, not rainy and suicidal like Seattle. The group was compared to all the major bands, Weiland had that insect like tone to his voice like Layne Staley. The lyrics were sad and oppressed like Nirvana. The rhythms were low and heavy like Soundgarden. Like a guy who steps on the end of a rake and gets smacked in the face, the band's next single "Plush" added fuel to this fire. Keeping a similar pace to Pearl Jam's "Alive", "Plush" surged forward with a video that featured Scott Weiland doing the self hugging poses PJ's singer Eddie Vedder was famous for. Did this stop their success? No. But like Rappin Rodney they got no respect, no respect at all!

Listening to Core now, it's retained a freshness and has aged pretty well. Core is a good name because all of STPs best moves are here in its most straight forward form. Heavy grooves, herky jerky sections and haunted acoustic numbers fill the rest of the disc. Even lesser developed songs like "Crackerman" gets by on manic energy.

Purple (1994)

Believe it or not, Scott Weiland allegedly recorded Core clean. While on tour, Weiland tried heroin. And quickly became an addict. You know, if you're trying to not be a grunge cliche' avoiding that stuff would have been the right thing to do. But sho nuff, Scott Weiland got deep into it, so deep he got arrested for buying his own drugs. Doh!

And that leads us into STP's sophomore disc Purple,which sounds like Core...on drugs. The tone of the album is darker, murkier than Core while retaining the heavy riffage and taut grinding rhythms. The Zeppy rocker "Vaseline" and the ground and pound stomp of "Lounge Fly" lay down the law so hard they barely come up for air. Interestingly, it was STP's acoustic moments that garnered the most airplay. The angsty ballad "Big Empty" got mad love from MTV after it was used on MTV Unplugged, playing just about every second of the day. Add to that the band's most enduring hit, "Interstate Love Song". A bit of a classic rock feel came into "Interstate", opening up the group to a wider audience. Some nice bits of psychedelia emerge, such as on the trippy "Pretty Penny". Still, Purple remains STPs heaviest disc to date.

Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop (1996)

Weiland was pretty well smacked out of his mind at this point, which made recording and touring to support Tiny Music a challenge. The group would temporarily split after trying to tour for this album, I missed their concert on this tour because I was sick but my wife got to go. She was a big fan of theirs in '96 so glad she got to go.

By '95 the big old grunge scene died, imploding on its own sludgy depression as the national economy rebounded. People just weren't as sad and hopeless anymore. STP read the playing field and changed strategy, pulling out a lot of the grunge making this one of their lightest sounding efforts. Classic rock influences get pulled to the forefront with obvious nods to The Stones ("Big Bang Baby"), The Beatles ("Lady Picure Show") and Led Zep ("Trippin On A Hole In A Paper Heart"). More variety was featured, what with the slightly funky "Art School Girlfriend" or my favorite on the album, the loungy "And So I Know". At the same time, Scott Weiland's personality begins to show more with bits of his David Bowie / Jim Morrison sense of drama and melody becoming more obvious. Too bad Weiland seemed to deteriorate physically and after holing up with Courtney Love to do a bunch of drugs- bets were being placed as to how long Scotty boy would last.

Talk Show - Talk Show (1997)

Scotty and the rest of the band went in separate directions, with 3/4ths of STP hiring a new singer to call it Talk Show. While the new singer was clearly more level headed and easier to deal with, the guy was also bland and unexciting. So much so I can't remember his name, I just remember him being blond. Same goes for this album, I remember nothing other than the song "Hello Hello". This was a snoozer of a disc, now we don't even own it. We cancelled Talk Show. Bazinga!

Scott Weiland - 12 Bar Blues (1998)

Talk Show demonstrated that they came up with the riffs, Weiland therefore had the melodies. You might think this would leave Mr Scott high n dry with creating a new album, but guess what? Weiland shows he has a real artist in him instead. His sense of catchy melody intact, Weiland supports them with techno beats, Hawaiian guitar, xylophone...just about any sound you can think of. And amazingly, it all fits together like it's all part of a plan. The Beatles White Album sounding "Lady You Bring My Roof Down", the NIN influenced "Jimmy Was A Stimulator" and the alterna ballad "About Nothing" are among the highlights of this excellent disc. What should be a laughable ego trip is instead Weiland's finest work creatively. Commercially it was a bomb and to top it off Scotty got arrested for buying drugs again. What kind of rock star buys his own drugs instead of sending roadies? Oh yeah, seriously addicted ones.

No. 4 (1999)

Once Scott Weiland and Talk Show figured out they couldn't support themselves financially selling CDs to just friends and family, they regrouped. The album title No. 4 says it all as this is the most predictable disc in the band's catalog. Playing it now, it's one of those discs that sounds good when its on but when it ends you struggle to remember what just played. What I could remember was the grungy "Down" and the garage rock mayhem of "MC5". And my all time favorite STP song, the haunting guiltfest "Sour Girl". The rest is STP by numbers, there's a fast song, a slow song, a heavy groove song, etc. Funnily, in 1999 this was my favorite of the STP albums while my wife lost interest in them. Played it a lot while driving to work. Careerwise this put STP back on track just in time for Scott Weiland to go to jail for his drug arrest.

And that's where we will leave our heroes for now. The lead singer behind bars. A band wondering if there's time for Talk Show 2. A space mercenary frozen in carbonite while Billy Dee Williams and a walking carpet go looking for him. All this and more in part 2 of The Racer's Edge!