(Click picture for complete series album listing, and sample tracks)
As the last record in an impressive series, Volume 9, featuring garage rock acts Two Cow Garage and Jr. Juggernaut has a lot to live up to. For the most part, they do well, especially considering that each chose to cover classic songs by some of rock's most celebrated writers. After hearing all of the modern rock and punk, and classic folk and country, Juggernaut and Two Cow emulate a classic rock style that fills a nice empty niche in the series, and their sounds are both unique and welcome to the series.
Jr. Juggernaut aims high to start by covering Cat Steven's "Trouble." The first thing to notice is the band's sound- they seem to epitomize the term "garage band." The guitars are beautifully sloppy, the drum's cymbals are over-represented, each part seems to struggle to be the loudest track, and everything sounds like it's bouncing off of a cracked concrete wall. This is in no way an insult. Nowadays, there seems to be a fine line between crappy-sounding garage recordings and over-produced, more radio-friendly styles, and all I want is a nice middle ground where I can hear something clearly, yet create a more intimate sound, like I have the band right next to me. Jr. Juggernaut's "Trouble" is in that comfortable space, sounding like that one good local band playing their hearts out in their friend's garage or local pub. You get the feeling that they'd rather perform and play their guts out for that one night at the local bar than try to get their songs on the radio. They play "Trouble" in a sloppy, beautiful style, from the wailing guitar to the raspy vocals and pounding drum set, and each second is just that pure, soulful old rock sound, like if Cat Stevens had formed a hard-rock jam band.
The second track by Juggernaut, Neil Young's "From Hank to Hendrix" is a bit less impressive. It's done well in the same style as the Cat Stevens tribute, but it's more of a jam piece, and I'm not particularly fond of the style, especially the slower, sleepier rock styles of it. The beginning between the sung parts is great, but that second that the massive solo at the second half of the song begins, there's a noticeable drop in energy. There's not much I can say here, other than that the sung parts are good, but the instrumentals (easily the bulk of the track) are boring and over-long.
Before being put to sleep at the end of "From Hank to Hendrix", I can switch back to Two Cow Garage's cover of "No Surrender" to rock me back awake. Two Cow Garage sounds like what Springsteen feels like it should sound like- dirty and powerful, sung with a blue collar and a red face. The first note is just this outward blast of raspiness and pounded instruments that immediately gets my blood flowing. One of the things I always enjoyed about Springsteen's earlier work was that it felt completely ego-less; his earlier performances of "Born in the USA" didn't have him humping air, closed-eye pounding single notes on his guitar, and sliding on his knees just to get a bunch of cougars to toss their bras onto the stage. He sang with conviction and soul, yelling almost every note and furiously strumming on his acoustic, sounding more like he was just saying everything off the top of his head, rather than just reciting lyrics. Two Cow Garage plays in much the same fashion. It's pure, loud, rural rock with soulful singing and powerful instruments. It's played right, and played well, and serves as a better tribute than any American Idol contestant wailing out "Born to Run" in their tortured, cliche vocal styles.
It's a pretty good testament to the talent of two bands who decided to cover three great artists, and the worst thing I can say about any of the recordings is that at the end, the worst thing is that one of them has too many guitar solos. It's also a pretty good sign that out of 17 artists from a single label covering 19 songs by rock's most celebrated acts, is that at worst there are maybe three or four boring covers. The series has put Suburban Home at the top of my favorite labels these days, and most of their artists are at the top of my current favorite acts by introducing their acts in such a fun and creative way. I enjoyed the series greatly, and it's helped my writing progress from the disjointed mess of my first few entries into a much more cohesive mess now., and the worst thing I can say to either Suburban Home or Vinyl Collective is that I will not be happy until they release that Cobra Skulls album cover as a poster.
