{"id":19522,"date":"2020-08-31T05:30:37","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T09:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19522"},"modified":"2020-08-31T11:16:04","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T15:16:04","slug":"album-review-the-hollywood-stars-live-on-the-sunset-strip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/31\/album-review-the-hollywood-stars-live-on-the-sunset-strip\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Hollywood Stars \u2013 Live on the Sunset Strip"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In the mid 1970s, The Hollywood Stars were charting a musical path not wholly unlike Sweet: super-catchy bubblegum-meets-glam rock. But they didn\u2019t earn success commensurate with the quality of their material. Last year saw the release of Sound City<\/i><\/a>, a \u201clost album\u201d of the band\u2019s best material from that era, and its success was met with live dates by a current lineup of the band, one that features most of the original members to boot.<\/p>\n

That hometown show from July 2019 was documented on audio, and now the band has decided to release it on CD. As planned, Live on the Sunset Strip<\/i> was slated for release on the Burger Records label, but (as you may or may not know) some very unsavory news about that label \u2013 none of which has the slightest connection to The Hollywood Stars, it should be emphasized \u2013 came to light, and the band severed its relationship with Burger within hours of that news breaking. (Burger collapsed a day or two later anyway.)<\/p>\n

All of which is to say that release of Live on the Sunset Strip<\/i> won\u2019t be on Burger. The band\u2019s site indicates that it\u2019ll be out on October 31, apparently self-released. Happily for this reviewer, an advance copy found its way into my mailbox the day before the … uh, burger<\/em> hit the fan. So let\u2019s dig in.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s safe to assume that a sizable contingent of the crowd gathered for the show came to hear the \u201cold stuff\u201d as presented on Sound City<\/i>. But you wouldn\u2019t know it from the way the band opens the show. The Hollywood Stars audaciously launch into \u201cKing of the Night Time World,\u201d a tune that\u2019s best known in an inferior cover version by Kiss. On this night, The Hollywood Stars are on fire, playing the tune just loose enough to channel that Stonesy, New York Dolls vibe that characterized their \u201870s sound.<\/p>\n

To underscore the influence they had upon others, the follow it up with a stomping, fist-pumping-in-the-air version of \u201cEscape,\u201d another original, one that was recorded by Alice Cooper on his solo debut Welcome to My Nightmare<\/i>. Lead vocalist Scott Phares\u2019 in-between-song comments are a bit muddled audio-wise, but the sonic clarity of the overall recording is fine.<\/p>\n

Most of the remaining songs in the band\u2019s set at the Whisky A Go Go are tunes found on Sound City<\/i>, and the current-day band tears into them with assured rock-osity. Lead guitarist Chezz (or Chez) Monroe is the new member of the band, and he fits perfectly, avoiding the showy overplaying tendencies that far too often characterize new-guy-in-the-band players.<\/p>\n

<\/a> Nearly all of the songs are strong, but standout tracks include \u201cAll the Kids on the Street,\u201d which really should have given Sweet some stiff competition back in the day. An interesting rocker is \u201cSupermen Are Always Gentlemen,\u201d first featured on another release billed as \u201clost\u201d: Shine Like A Radio – The Great Lost 1974 Album<\/i>. It was written by Mars Bonfire, best known as the composer of Steppenwolf\u2019s \u201cBorn to Be Wild.\u201d The song is less glam-leaning than the other songs in the band\u2019s repertoire.<\/p>\n

The only weak point in the set is \u2013 perhaps unsurprisingly \u2013 a ballad. There\u2019s nothing especially wrong about \u201cModern Romance,\u201d but it feels far too derivative of \u201cA Whiter Shade of Pale\u201d and \u201cAll the Young Dudes.\u201d The vocal harmonies are undeniably great, and the heroic \u201870s style lead guitar break suggest that it worked fine live and in person.<\/p>\n

But that tune\u2019s an outlier. Elsewhere, Live on the Sunset Strip<\/i> pretty much rocks out start to finish; in a perfect world, the band\u2019s radio-ready tunes should have made a mark on the charts. But hey: we\u2019ve got \u2018em now, and that\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the mid 1970s, The Hollywood Stars were charting a musical path not wholly unlike Sweet: super-catchy bubblegum-meets-glam rock. But they didn\u2019t earn success commensurate with the quality of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,49,62,65],"tags":[3938],"class_list":["post-19522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-glam","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-hollywood-stars","cat-34-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19522","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=19522"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19542,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19522\/revisions\/19542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}