OK disc by an average band
Jersey Kid | Katy, Texas, America! | 04/01/2009
(3 out of 5 stars)
"During the mid to late 1960s and even into the 1970s, there was a rumor going around that the reason EMI/Capitol had not issued a live Beatles album was because...they were no good live. In retrospect, it is amazing that anyone believed this in light of the several hundred thousand of us who saw them perform live between 1964 and 1966. (I can remember driving down the I-5 in Los Angeles listening to Jim Ladd marvel after each cut on the day `Live at the Hollywood Bowl' was released, saying "They were really good! Duh!). Well, rumors and conspiracies are the stuff of life, I guess. After all, look at the `Paul is dead' stories from around the same time. (My view is that Paul is still alive but from time to time - in the wake of some events - wishes he were dead.)
The reason I mention all this is to set up an inverse proposition; namely that there are some bands who are better live than recorded. This disability can - in some cases - make or break a career. It's been my view that such was the case for The Remains.
And, as I listened to `Introducing...The Gants,' I have come to believe it is the case with this album. This CD contains singles and album cuts of originals and covers - The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, for example - that are wholly competent technically but are flat and uninspired in terms of performance quality. Part of this I attribute to the near pathological attempt by the band to sound like the Fab Four, a process that went to such extremes that I felt I was listening to a faux-Beatles cover band like `1964.' Listen to `Eight Days a Week' or `Things We Said Today;' the speeches patterns are so carefully copies of the Fabs that one has to wonder if the effort overwhelmed spontaneity.
The problem with that hypothesis is `Twist and Shout' sounds equally flat. This is a heinous crime on the band's part. After all is said and done, any band that can't rock `Twist and Shout' shouldn't rock at all. While not as bad as Pat Boone doing `Tutti Frutti,' it's nearer that it is to The Beatles.
This led me to the idea that this just might be the fault of the producer or some cosmic occurrence during the sessions; I looked to the live on radio performances that closed out the CD. What I found was six of one and a half dozen of the other. `Taxman' was a drab as the rest of the band's Beatles' covers. `Hey Joe,' on the other hand, pops off the disc with all the frenzy one could possibly want...and, no faux Brit enunciation.
Final conclusion - an OK disc by a pretty good band doing what bands like this did in the mid 1960s.
Oh...by the way, Sundazed; it's rubles in Russia, not rupees.
"
Track Listings (16) - Disc #1