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KARL'S
COMMENTS:
The Barbarians, the Remains, Teddy and the Pandas, the Rockin' Ramrods, Lazy
Smoke, the Cobras, it was a fertile scene, if generally only appreciated
today (2002) by genre enthusiasts, and noticeably absent from recognition in
the "Fool's Gold" Palace, the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. The members of
Rising Storm (originally known as the Remnants) were on the wealthier side of
the fence, and while attending prep school in Andover, Massachusetts, they
documented their existence with a 500 copy custom pressed LP to sell to fans
and as a sonic scrapbook for themselves. The Storm starts the affair with a
nod to hard-edged but soulful rock 'n' rollers (as well as local scene
kingpins -- they opened for the Beatles!) the Remains, with a well done (if
"turned down" a notch in intensity) rendition of the show-stopping staple of
the Remains' set-list, "Don't Look Back". "To L.N./Who Doesn't Know" is a
song with a melody truly deserving of the overused descriptor, "haunting".
Strong. A song so lost in its deathbed confession of unrequited love it verges on the suicidal. You had to have once been a teenager in a state of
frustrated, never realized love to "get" this piece. The musicianship is
perfect for expressing the emotions: crude, yearning vocals, warm keyboard
sounds and soft drumming with a solid "feel" (a trademark of this group and
the now recognized New England '60s garage style). The Storm matches its
conception (both in name and image, just look at the classic LP cover and
the sea swept mystique of the moment soaks into your nostrils) with a
distinctly expressive, if somewhat subdued, musical vernacular. A positively trancelike "A Message To Pretty" is one of the best renditions of
this Arthur Lee song laid to wax. "Frozen Laughter" (perhaps inspired by
Simon and Garfunkel, as it bears a stark similarity to their work from this
period) brings to mind the frost and fire of sharp skates cutting the ice
while the barely cogent, rapidly sublimating emotional landscape of the protagonists' "lost soul" echoes away into twilight, it's final remnants
sucked into the dark, laughing mouth of the demonic, enveloping and
evaporating atmosphere of imploding loneliness. The standard "Frat rock"
covers like "Midnight Hour" and "Big Boss Man" cook along nicely, with the
organ taking charge of the proceedings. The edgy fuzztone stomper, "She
Loves Me", is the most Back From The Grave-like cut here, a sharp-tongued
"ex-girl" putdown that turns its anger inward with descending riffs cutting
like a sword in the stomach, sticking through the singer's backside (his
psychological mutilation is played out here as revenge, but the vengeance
is musical fantasy only, a victory won in the mind if not the heart). To my
ears, the ultimate example of the happy/sad, signature narcosis of the Rising Storm is their version of local rivals Rockin' Ramrods' "Mr. Wind",
here bettering the original by miles with a soft atmosphere and melodic innocence that's as delicate as a hatching butterfly or a prematurely
falling leaf hitting your head just as you look gratefully upward at the
shady tree sheltering your eyes and skull cap from Old Sol. The Animals-like
organ-riff theft (from "Itıs My Life") gives the song a great grounding,
like a dream on a softly feathered meathook. And as if that signified the
end of the highlights, there's "The Rain Falls Down", a minor key
meisterwerk that combines bubbling eastern style percussion, scraping guitar
(rain falling or tears crashing?) and sustained organ that serves as a bed-like meditative drone broken into fragments as it proceeds. "Baby Please
Donıt Go" blasts off into the night to conclude this rockin' feast, a true
genre classic, and a very enjoyable rock record. Grab the Stanton Park LP reissue
from the early '90s, as the earlier Eva repro changed the cover color and
has inferior sound. Rating: 10/10
STAN'S
COMMENTS:
OK, bear with me here.... It occurs to me that this is more a record
ABOUT records than anything else, or, rather, it may make more sense to approach our interest in it as being about our interest in albums more
than our interest in this particular album. Here's what I mean....
What this IS is a record by a high school band from a New England prep school recorded in the spring of 1967. It is, for the most part, well
played, but not exceptionally so. I live in Indianapolis in the heart of
the American Midwest. My next-door neighbor had a high school graduation
party last year for one of his daughters and a local high school band played in their back yard. They were way better than The Rising Storm
(their guitarist was tossing off Van Halen licks left & right all night). My neighbor's daughter told me they had made a CD and were
working on a second one. But I find it impossible to imagine that in another 20 years that CD will be as fought over as an original copy of
The Rising Storm. Why? I suppose it could be that the current band doesn't have any originals as cool as "Frozen Laughter" but I haven't
heard the CD so I could be wrong, and most people who plop down the $3,000 for a M- real copy would still do it if "Frozen Laughter" wasn't
on the record anyway. No, that's not it. It has more to do with the
notion that going to a garage sale and finding ANY book from the 17th Century is worth getting excited over regardless of it's literary merits.
I clearly remember 1966-1968 as a time when garage bands were EVERYWHERE. You couldn't walk a block without tripping over a Farfisa
organ or Hofner guitar. But how many actually had sufficient shit together to record an LP's worth of tracks, figure out how to get a
vinyl record pressed, jump through all the various hoops and actually DO
IT? Answer: hardly ANY.
We love The Rising Storm because it's original tracks like "Frozen Laughter" "She Loved Me" "Mister Wind" "I'm Coming Home" "The Rain Falls
Down" and others are a couple cuts above not bad, and the cover of "A Message To Pretty" has this certain left-field vibe that you just can't
pull your ears away from, and their "Big Boss Man" actually gives The Warlocks a run for their money. But we REALLY love the artifact that is
the original LP because it EXISTS and occupies this space in which all the ghosts of our collective memories of a thousand other bands all play
as we dance and dance and....
Almost forgot; how about 7 outta 10 and $2,000-$3,000 for a real one.
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