Rory Gallagher: Notes from San Francisco

A new Rory Gallagher CD has just been released, and on first glance seems to be nothing too special. It's a bunch of unreleased songs from sessions that were to become his Photo Finish album. From the reviews, it seems Rory wasn't too happy with these kinda weak versions, and scrapped all of them.

Now, it seems there is a second disk included here, and this is what you really want. It's a live CD of Rory sometime in 1979, right around the "Stage Struck" period when he was at his heaviest. And man, does this thing SCORCH!!

This could be the best live Rory ever. It's even more rocking than Stage Struck, if thats possible. The man is on fire here. Every tune is just blistering with mad Strat attack.

Rory never got the acclaim he deserved, and he should be right up there with SRV, Johnny Winter, hell even Van Halen, Beck, Clapton. Just listen to this thing and tell me otherwise.

Absolute MUST BUY!!!!

ANVIL at the Note July 29

I caught ANVIL on Friday at the Note in West Chester.

First off, any lingering buzz or re-gained popularity following the "Story of Anvil" movie success must have worn off. There were about 30 people there. Now, part of that might have been that Anvil didn't go on until about 12:30AM, and people just couldn't take sitting thru..count em...3 lame opening bands. The bar certainly was more crowded earlier. Or rather they just weren't there to see Anvil.

Now, I feel sorry for Robb Reiner. Anvil put on a kick ass show, but it is quite clear that Reiner's drumming is really the propelling force here. He's quite like Dave Lombardo in the fact that without him, Anvil would not sound the same. He's one helluva metal drummer. Rob could probably have gone on to fame and fortune in a bigger band (could he have filled in for Lombardo in Slayer instead of Bostaph?? Probably...), but he chose to remain with his longtime friend Lips.

Now, Lips is quite a character. He makes funny faces and goofs around too much. Metal is meant to be played serious. You don't see Kerry King laughing up there.
But you gotta give Lips props for still doing this and giving it his all, even if there were only 30 people there.

The band plowed thru some of their good stuff (March of the Crabs, 666, Metal on Metal), and some of their duds (New Orleans Voodoo). Robb gave a Tommy Aldridge inspired drum solo. There was dead silence after the last tune, and it took me and a buddy to start a "AN-VIL!!" chant a few times to get them back out. Lips said "I thought for a minute it would be an early night".

Lips, you're damn lucky Reiner stayed in the band. He's one mutherfucker of a drummer.