This week, we’ve got a band celebrating 50 years in the business, another releasing their first single in over 30 years, a third releasing their second, and a fourth who party hard, wear wigs, and pay tribute to Hollywood glam. And that’s just half of what’s on show.
Kix – Wheels In Motion The nearlymen of American Rock (and we mean that in the nicest possible way) are back with a new video, taken from last year’s brilliantly-titled Rock Your Face Off Album. Fact: drummer Jimmy “Chocolate” Chalfant acquired his nickname when lawyers misspelt his surname on a contract.
The Babys – I See You There The Babys (surely they should be The ‘Babies’?) have been away for even longer than Kix, but this song has already clambered the Billboard Hot Singles chart like a racoon fleeing a hungry bear. The song itself is a melodic, tinkly thing with bits that swoosh and a rousing chorus that sounds like it might accompany the riding-off-into-the-sunset scene in a blockbuster movie.
Broken Chords - Rock and Stone Who are Broken Chords? We’ll tell you. They come from the “Essex/Herts/London hinterland” and describe themselves as “Rival Sons meets Royal Blood on all-night Jose Cuervo slammers”. Yikes! And yay, it came to pass that Rock And Stone crashed into our brains like a jack-knifed truck, leaving shrapnel and debris all over our temporal lobe.
Scorpions — We Built This House Nope, it’s not the theme tune to a new series of Grand Designs. It’s the suitably celebratory single from their forthcoming album, Return To Forever – a record that marks the Teutonic titans’ 50th anniversary. Turn ze spotlight on ze birthday cake!
The Neal Morse Band - The Grand Experiment When Neal Morse entered the studio to record his new album – joined by drumming beast/Flying Colours pal/ol’ buddy Mike Portnoy – he had no material prepared. Literally nothing; zero, zilch, nil, nada, bugger all. Which makes the fact that this title track is ace all the more impressive. Pick up the full album on February 16.
Taylor Locke - Time Stands Still If you’re a fan of Big Star, try this fragile, very pretty song from Rooney guitarist Taylor Lock, which is forlorn and heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time in a way that reminds us a bit of Elliott Smith or Ben Folds or Michael Penn or another one of those American songwriters. We’ve heard the album of the same name, which is excellent and rather more upbeat. Bonus: it’s a free download.
3D In Your Face – Forbidden City The wig-tastic, Sunset-Strippers 3D In Your Face are actually from Omaha, Nebraska, where we can only imagine they fit in like piranhas in a paddling pool. Going by the names Hot Rod, Sniper, Playboy and Spade, they claim to have been responsible for a “non-stop rock’n’roll party across the United States” for nearly ten years.
Jorge Salan And The Majestic Jaywalkers - The Thrill Is Gone The editor of The Blues Magazine tells us the the blues are big in Spain, which is where Jorge Salan And The Majestic Jaywalkers are from. This is their cover of the B.B. King classic The Thrill Is Gone, which is something that everyone covers, apparently, but we like this smooth version this very much. It’s from the new album Madrid-Texas, which is out later this month.
