FIELD NOTES
For those who may not have seen, the roof collapsed at a Morbid Angel concert on Friday evening in Belvidere, Illinois — not too far from where I live, and specifically the kind of not too far where I almost attended. I lucked out, but a lot of folks did not. Dozens injured and one who lost their life. You can check out two GoFundMe campaigns here and here, if you have anything to spare it would not go unnoticed. As the news of tragedy loomed over the weekend, I skipped out on a planned concert in Milwaukee that I was to talk about in todays ‘Performance Review’ segment. I also recalled that we just passed the first of the month, so this week I’m going to deviate from the format and talk about my monthly playlist. 30 standout songs, new and old, that I heard in March that I’d like to recommend. For no other reason than wanting artists to get paid equally and avoiding Joe Rogan, I do not use Spotify so I can’t link the playlist itself here. But click on the song titles for YouTube clips of any tracks you may find interesting. Since I never want these pieces to run too long, I’ll talk about 6 songs a day throughout the week.
HUNTER’S LOG RADIO — MARCH 2023
The Rings - ‘Who’s She Dancin’ With’ (1981)
A seemingly deep cut power pop band from Boston, I blind bought this record off Discogs a while back and finally had the chance to listen to it. It’s a really great release finding itself between The Cars and The Police, ‘Who’s She Dancin’ With’ being the top cut for me. They had a minor hit with ‘Let Me Go’ from this same self-titled album, released a second LP Rhythm Method before 1981 was up, and were promptly never heard from again. Most of the members formed another group The Wicker Men, with only two 7”s to their name. Exactly the type of band(s) I love to seek out.
Blue October - ‘Shut Up I Want You To Love Me Back’ (2022)
You might recall Blue October’s hits ‘Hate Me’ or ‘Into The Ocean’ if you listened to any alternative radio in 2006. The hard-rock-meets-emo band may be past their mainstream prime, but have been pretty consistently releasing albums ever since. The band found themselves in a bit of a less-annoying Imagine Dragons hole on 2018’s I Hope You’re Happy and 2020’s This Is What I Live For, collections of okay ballads and grating radio pop rockers. Last year’s Spinning The Truth Around (Part I) is easily their best crop of tracks in almost a decade, with ‘Shut Up…’ being a dancefloor standout that conveys emotion and progression.
Diamond Rexx - ‘Wish I Was Rich’ (1986)
Chicago has had a pretty strong track record with its classic / hard rock exports. BulletBoys, Cheap Trick, Enuff Z’Nuff, REO Speedwagon, and Styx to name a few. One of the lesser known bands is Diamond Rexx, whose sole major label album Land Of The Damned is a scuzzy and sleazy slab of glam and hair metal. If they were kicking around Los Angeles at the time, they absolutely could have been featured in The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. I saw these guys open up for Ratt back in 2017 and had no idea why everyone was so excited to see them. In retrospect, it was pretty rad despite them not sounding or looking all that great. ‘Wish I Was Rich’ is a total hair era novelty that maybe isn’t objectively good, but is a lot of fun.
Skid Row - ‘Beat Yourself Blind’ (1995)
It’s easy to lump Skid Row in with the large crop of late ‘80s-early ‘90s hair bands, and if you only heard their 1989 eponymous debut it wouldn’t be inaccurate. But 1991’s Slave To The Grind and 1995’s Subhuman Race are much heavier than some people may give them credit for. I dove into the band’s classic material last month with their vinyl box set The Atlantic Years (1989-1996) and was the first time I gave a full listen to Subhuman Race after hearing so many great things about it. The hype was totally deserved and tracks like ‘Beat Yourself Blind’ are key reasons why. It’s a shame this didn’t totally crossover to the heavier sectors of ‘90s metal as well as it should have, but I urge any fans of Metallica’s Black Album (1991) or KISS’s Revenge (1992) to give this a shot.
Racey - ‘Some Girls’ (1979)
If the group Racey doesn’t sound familiar, you might recognize the song ‘Kitty’ as being the “bubbleglam” genesis of Toni Basil’s ‘Mickey’ from 1981. Surprisingly, Racey’s original cut was never released as a single. The group released one album Smash And Grab in 1979 featuring that track and ‘Some Girls,’ which kind of sounds like T. Rex covering the Bay City Rollers. It maybe hasn’t aged excellently, in line with an unfortunate lot of lyrically misguided power pop like that year’s ‘Good Girls Don’t’ by The Knack or 1980’s ‘Woman’s World’ by The Jags. Listening on the surface as purely a rock and pop single, it’s a damned fine tune.
Lydia Loveless - ‘Desire’ (2017)
I had been wanting to see Lydia Loveless in concert ever since I heard her album Real in 2016. Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, Loveless is one of the strongest voices in the modern age of alt-country. Early last month she performed a free acoustic show at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, where she debuted an amazing run of songs from her upcoming album. Rounding out the set were other career highlights like Real’s swooning ballad ‘Out On Love,’ the sex-positive ‘Head’ from 2014’s Somewhere Else, and the fan-requested (it was me, I was the fan) ‘Boy Crazy’ from 2013’s EP of the same name. Towards the end, Loveless broke out ‘Desire,’ a non-album track from Real which is found digitally backed with a surprising but earnest cover of ‘Sorry’ by Justin Bieber. Despite loving the proper LP I hadn’t heard this track before, and it was absolutely the set’s highlight. Loveless’ voice on this song is in top form and demands the listener’s full attention. I think I ran up at least 15 plays of the studio version in the couple of days following the show. Extremely excited for whenever her next release is ready to go.