{"id":18960,"date":"2020-06-23T05:30:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T09:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=18960"},"modified":"2020-06-23T08:19:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T12:19:36","slug":"album-review-iron-city-houserockers-have-a-good-time-but-get-out-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/23\/album-review-iron-city-houserockers-have-a-good-time-but-get-out-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Iron City Houserockers \u2013 Have a Good Time \u2026 But Get Out Alive!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"There\u2019s a gritty, heartland strain of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll that has persisted through the decades. Bruce Springsteen\u2019s best material is an exemplar of the style; shorn of artifice and filigree, it\u2019s about visceral emotions and musical muscle. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes did the same kind of thing, as did the Smithereens, though in their hands the approach sounded quite different. (Hey, I just realized all I just named three acts that are from New Jersey; might be something to that.)<\/p>\n

Lesser-known but in the same tradition was Pittsburgh-based Iron City Houserockers. Led by guitarist, singer and songwriter Joe Grushecky, ICH was together for only a short while, making four albums. But the band\u2019s second, Have a Good Time \u2026 But Get out Alive!<\/i> is quite a corker. And if the original twelve-song 1980 LP wasn\u2019t good enough, a new reissue adds a second disc stuffed with demo versions and previously-unheard material.<\/p>\n

Listening today, four decades after the album\u2019s release, it sounds fresh and timeless. The Houserockers\u2019 sound has one foot in heartland rock, the other in a high-octane powerpop vein. There\u2019s sincerity and passion in Grushecky\u2019s vocal work, and the band positively cooks. Marc Reisman\u2019s harmonica is rarely placed out in the front of the mix, but it\u2019s there in a way that adds an urban r&b feel to the tracks. Don\u2019t be surprised if you don\u2019t find yourself singing (shouting, really) along with the chorus on the title track.<\/p>\n

The rest of the record is equally spirited. Even when the melody sticks to well-worn I-IV-V structures (as on \u201cPumping Iron\u201d), there\u2019s enough energy and commitment conveyed in the singing and playing to win over the most jaded listener. Gil Snyder\u2019s assured piano work does more than follow along with the guitars; for those who want to dig deeper into the music, there\u2019s plenty there to hold interest.<\/p>\n

Even when the band tackles a minor-key number like \u201cHypnotized,\u201d they get it right, delivering a smoldering arrangement that would make the song fit neatly into a playlist alongside Graham Parker, early Boomtown Rats and other fiery acts of the era who had plenty on their minds.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that even though the Iron City Houserockers deserve mention alongside Springsteen, Parker, Geldof and the like, the band rarely sounds<\/em> like any of those artists. One of the few tracks to evoke strong thoughts of another artist is \u201cPrice of Love.\u201d It may remind listeners of Mott the Hoople. What\u2019s interesting about that is the fact that Mick Ronson and Ian Hunter guest on the record \u2026 but not on that track. So really, the similarity has more to do with Grushecky being a kindred spirit with those musicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cAngela\u201d lifts its opening chord progression directly from The Who\u2019s Live at Leeds<\/i> arrangement of \u201cSummertime Blues.\u201d But that\u2019s okay in the context of the album, because the song itself isn\u2019t a ripoff; the quote is sort of a wink at knowing members of the audience, something that (subtly or not) gets across the idea that the Iron City Houserockers are students of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll and what makes it vital.<\/p>\n

The fact that Have a Good Time \u2026<\/i> is such a solid album makes the prospect of a second disc of demos and the like a tantalizing one. But as good as those demos are, the murky sonic character and spare instrumentation make most of them of interest primarily to hardcore fans and\/or music journalists. They do serve to underscore just how important was the creative contribution of producers Steve Popovich, Marty Mooney (aka The Slimmer Twins) and Ronson.<\/p>\n

An exception is the demo for \u201cDon\u2019t Let Them Push You Around.\u201d It\u2019s still spare and flat-sounding, but the power of the performance busts through nonetheless. And the demo for \u201cDon\u2019t Stop the Music\u201d has a live-in-the-studio feel that can\u2019t be denied.<\/p>\n

The fly-on-the-wall audio verit\u00e9 of \u201cHypnotized (A Work in Progress)\u201d will be of interest to the kind of listener who digs studio outtakes. And a pair of covers, \u201cRooster Blues\u201d and \u201cDo Wah Diddy\u201d shine a light on the influences that gave rise to the band in the first place. \u201cRooster Blues\u201d isn\u2019t revelatory, because it sounds pretty much as one might expect, but it\u2019s quite enjoyable, and fits in with the flow of the first disc more seamlessly than do the Disc Two demos. \u201cDo Wah Diddy,\u201d on the other hand, is taken at a breakneck pace, and the Houserockers make it their own. It provides a strong way to end the two-disc set.<\/p>\n

Grushecky provides a brief liner note essay that \u2013 in case anyone was wondering \u2013 underscores just how much he and his musical associates had a good time making Have a Good Time \u2026 But Get Out Alive!<\/i> Chances are good that if you\u2019re the sort to have read this far, you\u2019ll enjoy it nearly as much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a gritty, heartland strain of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll that has persisted through the decades. Bruce Springsteen\u2019s best material is an exemplar of the style; shorn of artifice and filigree, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,64,65],"tags":[4228],"class_list":["post-18960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","tag-iron-city-houserockers","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18960"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19043,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18960\/revisions\/19043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}