The Nite Songs Singles Bar - October 2022
Well, a cursory glance outside your window will tell you that the nights are drawing in so what better place to seek solace than here in the Singles Bar. As with last month, the offerings this time out are an eclectic mix of singles, EP's and a token mini-album so let's mix something up and see what happens...
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Well the big news this month is we're finally getting the multiple times postponed UK tour from the one and only Mr Billy Idol and to celebrate, he's issued a new EP, The Cage (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑). Honestly, it might just be the best thing I've heard from him since Devil's Playground a good decade and a half ago with a good mix of stuff that shows off all facets of his musical style from the stomping title track through the pounding goth ballad Running From The Ghost and the affectionate nod back to his '80s stadium rock heyday Rebel Like You to the twisted groove of Miss Nobody. After the solid but unspectacular Kings and Queens of the Underground album and Roadside EP this is a welcome reminder that Mr Broad can still turn on the old magic to good effect when he feels like it.
Long time Nite Songs favourites The Erotics have certainly been a busy bunch this month with not one but two new singles landing on our desk since the last Singles Bar. First up, Helltown Boogie (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗) is a delightfully malevolent slice of party down swagger from Mike Trash and co which sounds like the sort of thing that would've sat well on Alice Cooper's Welcome 2 My Nightmare album a few years back and I can't think of much higher praise than that. Bandcamp Link. Also just hitting the shelves is Blood Of The Wasted (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) which packs a big chantalong WASP chorus to carry it along and sees them covering Celtic Frost's Cherry Orchards (from their infamously terrible Cold Lake album) and surprisingly doing a decent job of it. Which makes you wonder if Tom G Warrior maybe should've lent that 'un to Blackie Lawless to cover back in the day but that's a whole other train of thought for another time... Bandcamp Link
The Subways are another group who’ve cropped up in these climes a bit recently and Black Wax (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) is the latest taster from their upcoming album due in January. I was pleasantly surprised by its predecessor You Kill My Cool a few months back and this sees the group's recent run of good form continuing with a swaggering School's Out style glam stomper of a guitar line powering it along and mixing well with Billy Lunn's oddly gothy sounding vocals here. Consider me intrigued as to what that new album's gonna sound like. Bandcamp Link
We reviewed Paradise Alley lead singer Steve Vincent's recent solo album in these pages quite recently and the group have very nicely sent us a copy of their new EP Bad Timing And Silver Linings (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) as a follow-up. Paradise Alley were regulars on the '90s Soho glam scene alongside Last Great Dreamers et al and lead-off track Soho Daze could very easily have come from that era with its Quireboys/Faces style honking harmonica and Dolls-indebted strut namechecking the likes of Kill City Dragons and Gunfire Dance. Similarly, Backstabber and Walk Away both have that Jo Dog style slide guitar underpinning them to good effect and the title track is another suitably raucous defiant middle finger to the critics with a sly tip of the hat to Spike. Enjoyable stuff, definitely recommended for the old school sleaze brigade out there. Bandcamp Link
Ooh, a supergroup! Now there's something we've not seen around here for a bit. Sorry Audio are, as the name suggests, a collaboration between Scott Sorry and Kris Rodgers of the Scott Sorry Band and Jay Butler, Ben Marsden and Ritch Battersby of Grand Theft Audio and their cover of Mission of Burma's That's When I Reach For My Revolver (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) was recorded during the groups' recent tour together supporting CJ Wildheart (you might remember our live review a few weeks back). It's a good cover as well with the guys capturing the paranoid atmosphere of the original nicely. Bandcamp Link
Ryan Hamilton is over on these shores as we speak doing some tour dates with Warner E Hodges and a new single On The Edge (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) has just landed to accompany these dates. It's a pleasant upbeat slice of country pop which reminds me of the Eagles' Take It Easy a bit (which is a good thing I promise!). B-side Forever And Ever Amen is cut from the same cloth and is similarly high quality too. Good stuff. Bandcamp Link
Let's be honest, it wouldn't really be a Singles Bar without at least one release from Rum Bar records for neat serving and they've pulled off a bit of a coup this month with a new release from Holly Beth Vincent, former frontwoman with power-pop legends Holly & The Italians (of Tell That Girl To Shut Up fame) in Hey Boy (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑). It's a good one too with a stomping beat similar to the old Small Faces classic Whatcha Gonna Do About It laying the bedrock for Holly's timeless cool while B-side Smash is another naggingly insistent number which would have the likes of Karen O turning green with envy. Bandcamp Link
And speaking of long time MIA legends, here's another one as we've got a new single from none other than Michael des Barres, formerly of '70s glam should've-been-legends Silverhead and Detective as well as glam-punk supergroup Chequered Past with Ain't Nothing You Can Do About It (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑). As you'd expect, this is a proper old school stomper with Des Barres still having an impressive set of pipes on him fifty odd years into his musical career (he actually reminds me of a less overblown Meatloaf a bit here and I mean that as a compliment I promise!). B-side Waves meanwhile has a low-slung boogie reminiscent of a glammed up Status Quo on it and is another good effort. Bandcamp Link
We seem to have had a few new efforts from Wicked Cool records this month and alongside Hamilton and des Barres (sounds like a solicitors' firm when you say it like that, dunnit?) we've also got a new effort from Kurt Baker in the form of Move Up (🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑). It's a fun slice of power-pop singalongability although readers of a certain vintage might struggle to get memories of that old Santana stinker Smooth out of their head. Still, this is a much higher quality so at least that's something. Bandcamp Link
And finally for the singles part of this month, another much-welcomed comeback with the return of the one and only Mr Jim Jones with his new group The Jim Jones All-Stars and their debut single It's Your Voodoo Working (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗). The song sees the group link up with the smoky-voiced Nikki Hill and the result is an ice-cool slice of soul power which well and truly smoulders out of the stereo. If the Urban Voodoo Machine's Gypsy Hotel club was still a regular thing then you can pretty much guarantee that this number would be a floor filler there and it just to say edges it as our Single of the Month.
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MINI-ALBUM REVIEW
MAD MOJO JETT - "Get Your Mind Straight"
Mad Mojo Jett are another group from the Rum Bar stable and as you'd expect, Get Your Mind Straight is a suitably crazed slice of old school garage rock from these Minneapolis natives. Similar to the sadly missed Jim Jones Revue, there's a real back-to-basics feel about this mini-album and that's definitely a good thing.
NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)
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And thus our trip down the bar concludes this month. Hope you're not staggering about too much on your journey home and we'll see you back here again for the November instalment in a few weeks' time.
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