Anthrax: Among the Living

Here are the previous random Anthrax posts I've done in the last couple of years:

A Bunch of Rando Anthrax albums that I wrote in 2014.

A post on "I'm the Man" that I wrote in 2015.



Anthrax: Among the Living

1987

	Megaforce/Island Records		Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

 Track Listing: 1. Among the Living  2. Caught in a Mosh  3. I Am the Law  4. Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.)  5. A Skeleton in the Closet  6. Indians  7. One World  8. A.D.I./Horror of It All  9. Imitation of Life



Come to think of it, Anthrax is kind of an Oprah's Book Club for headbangers...Once every two years or so, the band invites us into the mosh pit to discuss their literary picks, which mostly consist of Stephen King novels, Belushi biographies and Judge Dredd comics...

And this is quintessential Anthrax book club meeting. It's the reason why Anthrax fans love Anthrax so much. Just 9 tracks of ass-kicking technical thrash with no unnecessary or unwanted experimentation.  No one has ever skipped a track while playing "Among the Living," because there is neither a single dud nor a single track that shines above all others. If a metalhead was forced to pick a single favorite song from this album, my guess is that it would be nothing less than a 3-way tie...

 

"Dude. If you had to pick one song from 'Among the Living' as being the best one, which one would you pick?"

That's too hard, Man...So many choice cuts...'Caught in a Mosh' cos it's about fucken moshing...Or 'Indians' maybe...

"Yea, dude. I can totally relate to 'Indians.' I'm 1/8th Indian..."

"No way, Dude."

"Yuh huh. I could go to college for free and get a big fat check that I could spend on dope and beer every month, but I turned it down...The government is broke enough as it is..."

"Fucken Obama, dude!"

"Yea, fucken Obama..."

"I also like 'I Am the Law'. That's bad-ass, dude....Judge Dredd is a comic, but it's not like a pussy comic like Superman or something...It's got, like, swear words and stuff in it...And Judge Dredd actually kills people..."

 

 "My cousin Jimmy is a cop...He gets to bring home the drugs he confiscates...I went to his house last weekend and he had a bale of marijuana that he kept from a drug bust in Mexico...We smoked it all and then we took a ride in his cop car and beat up some bums...He says he can get me on the police force when I graduate..."

"You ain't never gonna graduate, man..."

"Yuh huh. I would have graduated three years ago if Mr. Rice didn't hate me...I banged Mrs. Rice in the Equipment Room and now Mr. Rice won't let me graduate."

"Mrs. Rice has some big-ass titties, Dude..."

"Yea, can you imagine if the school threw a wet T-Shirt contest and Mrs. Rice and Ms. Fletcher were in it?"

"Fuck yea, Dude. And they started dykin' out?"

"But yea...But when Mr. Rice finally retires and I get to graduate, then I'm gonna be a cop. Except I'm gonna be a cool cop, cos I won't bust people for drugs. And right before I shoot a criminal, I'm gonna tell them, 'I Am the Law...' then blow their fucken head off..."

"That would be badass..."

"Only you and I would get that joke..."

"Hey, waitaminnit...Your cousin Jimmy? Jimmy Camaro? Dude ain't a cop!"

"Well, he's the security guard at the Alpena Mall, so that means he's pretty much a cop...I mean, his gun only shoots Nerf discs, but it's still a gun..."

*********************************************************

I  hope you all enjoyed Metalhead Theater....Yea, I totally worshiped this album circa '90-'92. 1...If I only had to pick one track from "Among the Living"? Impossible...At least a three-way tie...The epic title track is a no-brainer, but I might have to go with "Horror of It All" and  "Imitation of Life" which are the type of perfect closers that make you wish the album wouldn't end...Whenever I hear it, I turn back into one of those slobbering metalheads shown above, playing "Altered Beast" on the Sega Genesis and rocking out to "Among the Living"..

=

God bless the eternal 90's metalhead bedroom...An undisturbed island of time where the gaudy T-Shirt designs cover every inch of the fabric...

\

 May your Crazypants never fade..

Fly the Dot Matrix banners high...

Long live this headbanging idyll that rises from the mists of time whenever an Anthrax cassette is invoked...

Here's "Imitation of Life" by Anthrax..Enjoy...

Agent Orange: Living in Darkness

Agent Orange: Living in Darkness

1981

Posh Boy Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Too Young to Die  2. Everything Turns Grey  3. Miserlou  4. The Last Goodbye  5. No Such Thing  6. A Cry for Help in a World Gone Mad  7. Bloodstains  8. Living in Darkness



I  picked this up about 6 months ago when I was going through a brief period where I was buying any Posh Boy vinyl I could dig up...During my teenage years, I was very familiar with the 90's expanded CD version of this, but hadn't heard it since then...

 I remember the CD had a few songs I liked, but it didn't knock me flat ass backwards or anything...

I think a lot of 90's kids had a similar love/hate relationship with the Agent Orange...Sorta like the 90's Dickies, I was introduced to the group by the bandmember's constant entitled griping that new punk band's were simply "ripping them off"...Of course, once you hear the recriminations, you buy the old band's albums to see if the accusations are valid (oh, and they never are)...

So after you get over the petty, desperate, litigious, cash-grabbing nature of the folks responsible for the art, you start to realize what great songs "Bloodstains" and "Everything Turns Grey" actually are...So I guess their gamble kinda paid off...A new generation of kids were picking up their album as a result, however they may have sacrificed a bit of their reputation for these additional sales...However, reputation can carry a lot of weight in the punk rock community...

The band's approach was really novel for the time, adding Dick Dale/Ventures surf-rock to angsty California punk, and they has a great ear for moody little melodies...I also find the relatively laid back vocals, set against the tightly-coiled punk appealing...They really avoid the whole standard punk "bludgeoning you over the head with jackhammer riffs" thing, although "Bloodstains" does show they can work themselves up into a convincing frenzy when the mood is right...And their cover of "Miserlou" leaves no doubt  that these guys could really play...

I do think the original vinyl version helped me to appreciate this album a bit more...It was kinda swallowed up in the deluxe reissue, but here the compact nature of the 20-minute original really shines...There's really no time for fatigue to set in here...

So I'm glad I gave this another listen after all these years...I'll concede that I originally underestimated it...It offered something a little different and for that reason I'll argue that it's earned its place in the pantheon of early 80's punk classics.. Plus the cover is real  blue and orange ...I like blue and orange...

 Here's "Living in Darkness" by Agent Orange...Enjoy...

Dave Edmunds: Various Greatest Hits Albums

Alright, I'm going to finish off the Dave Edmunds section with a look at two of his greatest hits albums...

Dave Edmunds: The Best of Dave Edmunds

1981

Swan Song Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: Deborah  2. Girls Talk  3. I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock & Roll)   4. A.1. On the Jukebox  5. The Race is On  6. Here Comes the Weekend  7. Almost Saturday Night  8. Queen of Hearts  9. Crawling From the Wreckage  10. Trouble Boys  11. Ju Ju Man  12. Singing the Blues  13. The Creature from the Black Lagoon


Let's say I was forced to toss out a few thousand records and narrow my collection down to one hundred or so.....What would end up in the trash bin (spoiler alert: the Peter Criss solo album and my extensive collection of "The Rapist Wit of  Bill Cosby" albums) and what would earn a spot in the golden crate?

One of my first picks for the golden crate would be "The Best of Dave Edmunds," which was my introduction to his work,  (via the FYE cheapola record bin) and it's seriously one of the most-played records in my collection...A greatest hits album that only covers what is hands down the best period for Dave Edmunds, the Swan Song years....

 When I blindly bought it, I knew of Daved Edmunds but I hadn't yet heard him...He was always mentioned in the same breath as Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe Joe Jackson and Graham Parker, so I was expecting something a little more acerbic and pub-punk... At first I was taken aback by the good-natured twanginess of it all, but good God, did "Girls Talk" floor me, so I put it on again and the next time around, "It's Almost Saturday Night" floored me, and the next time I played it "Crawling From the Wreckage" floored me, and so on and so forth...

I mean, yea...It would be great if they could have gone outside the Swan Song era and included "I Hear You Knocking"...And I would gladly replace "Singing the Blues" for "Never Been in Love," "It's Been So Long," or his take on "Heart of the City" but those are some minor-ass gripes...There's so much fun contained on these two sides, that it puts any other "Greatest Hits" packages to shame...If you're not planning on splurging on Dave's entire Swan Song discography, then get this...

Here's "Ju Ju Man" by Dave Edmunds...

Dave Edmunds: From Small Things: The Best of Dave Edmunds

2004

Legacy/Columbia Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock And Roll)  2. I Hear You Knocking  3. Born To Be With You  4. Let It Be Me  5. Crawling From The Wreckage  6.Almost Saturday Night  7. Warmed Over Kisses (Left Over Love)  8. From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)  9. Girls Talk (Live)  10. Information  11. Slipping Away  12. Something About You  13. Stay With Me Tonight  14. Ju Ju Man (Live)  15. Do You Wanna Dance  16. Run Rudolph Run



I'm glad this wasn't my introduction to Dave Edmunds...This is one of those weird Greatest Hits packages hampered by licensing issues...Apparently the Swan Song era (by FAR his best stuff) was mostly off limits and to compensate, the compilers rely on live takes, that while enjoyable, are no match for the studio originals (remember, Dave was a studio perfectionist)...

Ultimately, it makes Dave Edmunds career sound wildly inconsistent, which is oddly accurate in a big-picture sense, but betrays the fact that Dave had a very large run of ultra-consistent albums...So yea...Too much Phil Spector stuff, too much live stuff, too many 80's soundtrack cover songs...There's nothing bad on here at all, but if you're unfamiliar with Dave's work, you;ll probably walk away from this wondering, "What the hell kind of music does this guy do exactly?"

I think I originally bought this as a five dollar CD from Amazon...I needed an extra five bucks to get the free shipping, and I didn't feel like buying a 3 pack of Scotch Tape, so I went for this CD...

And it is nice to have some Dave Edmunds that I can listen to in my discman at work...And I personally appreciate all the soundtrack and rarity stuff, since I don't have any of it, but I just can't recommend it as anyone's first Dave Edmunds purchase... Again, it's not bad, it just doesn't leave the correct impression...

Here's "I Hear You Knocking" by Dave Edmunds...Enjoy...

The Dave Edmunds Band: I Hear You Rockin' -Live

The Dave Edmunds Band: I Hear You Rockin' -Live

1986

Columbia

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Girls Talk  2. Here Comes The Weekend  3. Queen of Hearts  4. Paralyzed  5. The Wanderer   6. Crawling from the Wreckage  7. Slipping Away   8. Information  9. I Hear You Knocking   10. I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)  11. Ju Ju Man



Oh, man. I have a vacation for the next two weeks...I'm so psyched for this...Not a single alarm clock in sight for the next 16 days...I'm just holing myself up in my apartment, with a buncha beer and my goal is to not see sunlight for two weeks straight...My goal is by the end of vacation, is to look like this...

...only with glasses...and fatter...

Alright, so let's kick off the hermitage with a blog post...Here we go...

Dave released an album in 1984, called "Riff Raff" that I haven't been able to find...Whenever I hit a record store, I always make a beeline to the "E" section and look for it, but I haven't had much luck...So whenever I do manage to find it, I'll post a review of it...



"I Hear You Rockin'," released a couple of years after "Riff Raff," (but not containing any of its songs)  is an ultra-pro, studio enhanced live record from Dave Edmunds,who unsurprisingly doesn't subscribe to the whole "raw, ragged" live thing...Essentially, it sounds like a Dave Edmunds studio album with less harmonies and crowd noise dubbed in...

 Dave plays his most well-known songs, using the exact arrangements that appeared on the record, with a band of well-seasoned studio musicians... As a result, it's hard not to simply lump this in as a greatest hits package...Which might have been his intention, since this marked the point where his studio output would be reduced to a  sloooow crawl (2 albums in the last 16 years)...There's a couple of tracks that sweeten the deal, as they never appeared on a proper studio album..

 Notable Track #1: A cover of Elvis Presley's "Paralyzed," and thankfully Dave doesn't ham it up with some hammy Vegas-y Elvis impersonation...It just sounds like a Dave Edmunds song...Ah, the undeniable power of restraint...

Notable Track # 2: A cover of  Dion's "The Wanderer"...It goes against Dave's predilection for obscure gems, but it's hard not to view "The Wanderer" as the template for a lot of Dave's career...From the opening, "WEEELLLLLL..." to the precarious balance between pop and rock that results in one side never taking precedence over the other...A totally obvious, but well chosen cover...If you had to explain Dave Edmunds' recorded output to someone who was unfamiliar with his work, "A new wave version of "The Wanderer'" wouldn't be too far off..

.

 Sure, it would have been great if Dave's first live album would have been with Rockpile, but we have to take what we can get...And what we have here is just a slick little recording full of hits and a surprise or two...

Here's "The Wanderer" by Dave Edmunds...Enjoy....

Dave Edmunds: Information

Dave Edmunds: Information

1983

Columbia Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Slipping Away  2. Don't You Double  3. I Want You Bad  4. Wait  5. The Watch on My Wrist   6. The Shape I'm In  7. Information  8. Feel So Right  9. What Have I Got to Do to Win?  10. Don't Call Me Tonight  11. Have a Heart


The critical consensus is that this is the moment Dave Edmund's creative output went down the drain...Man, fuck the critics...This is one of my favorite albums, not just by Dave Edmunds, but by anybody... I know there's some school of thought that if a record has identifiable 80's production values, then it automatically sucks, but what if the producers aren't total hacks? What if the songs are well written, well performed and suit the production beautifully?

This is the record where Dave teams up with another studio perfectionist (Jeff Lynne) and maxes out the popometer...This is the Dave Edmunds album for those drawn to the power pop aspect of his sound, since the overt rockabilly trappings are dialed down in favor of slick keyboards, vocoder vocals,  and pumped up drums...There's still a few tracks that leave the synthetic sheen behind ("Wait," "What Have I Got to Do to Win" and "The Shape I'm In" which takes on zydeco) and stick with the tried and true method of simply rockin' out...

The song selection is absolutely killer...Cherry picking the catchiest moments from relatively obscure artists like Moon Martin, Paul Kennerley and NRBQ...Brilliant songs that I would have no idea existed without Dave...Plus we get a couple of Dave's all-time best singles..."Slipping Away," is the usual, massive, machine-tooled Jeff Lynne rock...You always hear the legends of Dave overdubbing dozens of guitars on a single track and this is where that story rings most true...Huge tidal waves of twanging guitars wash over the motorized beat...I know Jeff Lynne production is usually considered a love it or hate it proposition, but I think Dave is well-suited for it...It doesn't totally swallow him up like it seems to do for other artists, probably because you're used to hearing studio perfectionism on a Dave Edmunds album...He matches the gloss with more gloss...

And "Information" might be one of the most insidiously catchy tracks I've ever heard, with its fluttery synths and immaculate harmony arrangements...I swear that when I first heard it, it stayed lodged in my head for about a year...For the best example of Dave's harmonies, look no further...

I can't convey to you how many drunken Friday nights I've spent, poring over every inch of this record...Staying up until 3 am, while the mechanical voices on "The Watch on My Wrist" ring into the endless night..Friday nights would be an empty place without this record...This gets the highest possible thumbs up from me, but if you have an aversion to 80's production you might get less out of it than I do..Still, if you value the art of power pop whatsoever, you cannot miss this..So energetic, effervescent and packed with sharp hooks...

Here's "I Want You Bad" by Dave Edmunds...

Dave Edmunds: D.E. 7th

Dave Edmunds: D.E. 7th

1982

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)  2. Me And The Boys  3. Bail You Out  4. Generation Rumble  5. Other Guys Girls  6. Warmed Over Kisses (Left Over Love)  7. Deep In The Heart Of Texas   8. Louisiana Man  9. Paula Meet Jeanne   10. One More Night  11. Dear Dad



Now we're in the post-Rockpile era, where the albums are still great just a bit different...First off, all the Nick Lowe penned tracks are gone...Additionally, Dave's studio perfectionism comes more into play, giving the album a thinner, more tightly-wound, less scrappy character...

Dave also completely abandons songwriting on this album and relies on covers and donated material from outside songwriters, most notably, the Bossk himself, Bruce Springsteen with "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come).

 Let it be said, that Dave never squanders an outside contribution, giving "From Small Things" a proper, heartfelt-stand runthrough resulting in it becoming his signature song to a lot of folks... For a Welsh dude he's pretty damn good at this hamburger stuff...

Another interesting development is a sudden bluegrass influence and its accompanying instrumentation (banjos, mandolins, general twanginess) on songs like "Warmed Over Kisses (Left Over Love)" and "Bail You Out." Turns out he's really good at that genre too, coming up with a sort of pop-bluegrass hybrid...I think he should have pursued this muse a bit more, since some of the more standard rockabilly stuff sounds notably diminished this time around...But when he goes outside is ususal go-to genre he hits a homerun every time...

His power pop chops are still strong as fuck though, check out the chunk of bubblegummy pop, "Other Guys Girls" and his cover of NRBQ's "Me and the Boys" (oh, yea...Dave Edmunds covering
NRBQ is a no-brainer...They're poppier material is so well-suited for him)...

 It's definitely not my go-to Dave Edmunds album (in fact, it's probably the one I listen to the least), but  there's still a lot of great stuff and you can never go wrong with straight-up, well-played fun...

 Here's "From Small Things" by Dave Edmunds...Enjoy...

Dave Edmunds: Twangin...

 Dave Edmunds: Twangin...

1981

Swan Song Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl and Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Something Happens  2. It's Been So Long  3. Singing the Blues  4. (I'm Gonna Start) Living Again If It Kills Me  5. Almost Saturday Night  6. Cheap Talk, Patter and Jive   7. Three Time Loser  8. You'll Never Get Me Up (In One of Those)  9. I'm Only Human  10. The Race Is On   11. Baby Let's Play House

This one usually gets written off as a letdown after the masterpiece "Repeat When Necessary"...Most commonly attributed to the crumbling of Rockpile and a reliance on covers and outtakes from previous albums...But I think it's a testament to the streak that Dave was on at this time, that this album is as great as it is... To me, this is roughly as good as "Repeat When Necessary"...The best stuff on it is some of his best material ever but where I think this album falters a bit is in the secondary material (which, while listenable,  falls short of the filler on his previous albums)...

Here are the high, high, highlights:

"It's Been So Long" is one of his best power pop tracks...Hands down...The hooks are massive and his lightning speed guitar picking is outta control...A perfect pop single as well as an impressive technical achievement....

 Add to the list, his cover of John Fogerty's "Almost Saturday Night," which is another example of Dave's impeccable arranging skills...I like Old Fogerty's original just fine, but there's a certain Creedence-ness that it's lacking that you kinda fill in with your own imagination when you hear it..And Dave nails that missing spirit, turning it into the greatest Creedence song that never was (complete with  harmonies that are among the most glorious thing I've ever heard)...Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant...

Alright, here's a true story about the power of "Almost Saturday Night"...This song became thee weekend song at the Friday night record parties...It was mandatory...You come home from work, you crack a beer, you toss "Almost Saturday Night" on the turntable...It was an unspoken rule (Hell, it even happened last night (note, I'm writing this on Saturday morning )...Well, one Monday morning I was on the morning bus to work and decided to listen to the "Twangin..." album...When "Almost Saturday Night" came on, in the stark daylight, without a Saturday night pr a beer in sight, tears suddenly started to well in my eyes...I was so wracked with grief that this beautiful slice of weekend-ness was so far from its natural habitat...I had to shut it off immediately and now I know better than to play this song anytime during the work week...Its the exclusive property of a Friday Night or Saturday afternoon...

I also consider "(I'm Gonna Start) Living Again If It Kills Me"to be one of Edmunds/Lowe's best Everly Brother tributes...It's beautiful, harmonized stuff with a real life-affirming edge...This is the song you play after you accidentally hear "Almost Saturday Night" on a Monday morning...It makes you bite your bottom lip, hold your head up (despite that tear in your eye) and make a defiant fist at the capricious Gods in the heavens above...

"Cheap Talk, Patter and Jive" also strikes me as should-of-been single...Nothing innovative about it, but it strikes me as a really solid example of Dave doing what he does best...And although I don't consider it a highlight, I should probably mention the notable collaboration with the Stray Cats on a cover of George Jones' "The Race is On"...I'm not a fan of the Stray Cats (they cross some invisible line for me that Dave has always managed to avoid...They turn rockabilly into some grotesque Sha Na Na-esque caricature...) but this song is alright...

The remainder of the album does have a bit of an Edmunds-by-numbers feel of obscure old rock n' roll and country...Not bad at all...A lot of it's fun, like "You'll Never Get Me Up (In One of Those)" (which I find absurdly relatable), but I doubt it'll blow anyone out of the water or anything...Just good, fun old time rock n' roll...All in all, another solid release...A must-buy if you find it in a used record bin somewhere...And the cover is beautiful in its full-size...

 Here's "Almost Saturday Night" by Dave Edmunds.. Enjoy...