{"id":20247,"date":"2021-01-23T05:30:24","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T10:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20247"},"modified":"2021-01-23T16:10:22","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T21:10:22","slug":"album-review-phil-fang-volk-rocker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/23\/album-review-phil-fang-volk-rocker\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Phil “Fang” Volk — Rocker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Phil \u201cFang\u201d Volk is best known as bassist for Paul Revere and the Raiders<\/a> during their most high-profile era, roughly 1965-67. That\u2019s him \u2013 the long-running group\u2019s fourth in succession of bassists \u2013 you hear playing bass on essential cuts like \u201cSteppin\u2019 Out,\u201d \u201cKicks,\u201d the original version of \u201c(I\u2019m Not Your) Steppin\u2019 Stone,\u201d \u201cGood Thing,\u201d Hungry\u201d and singing his own composition, \u201cIn My Community.\u201d Longtime readers of this music magazine will know that Volk left the Raiders to form the ill-starred and unjustly overlooked band Brotherhood, along with fellow ex-Raiders Mike Smith (drums) and Drake Levin (guitar).<\/p>\n

After Brotherhood failed to launch \u2013 a story fully chronicled in my ten-part feature<\/a> that also served as the liner note essay included in the only authorized Brotherhood reissue \u2013 Volk went on to lesser-known musical pursuits, often with his wife (and former Where the Action Is!<\/i> co-star) Tina Mason. Some of those bands \u2013 a mega-group named to reflect Volk\u2019s spiritual leanings (Great Crowd) and the six-person Friendship Train \u2013 recorded music, but they lacked even the abortive label support afforded to Brotherhood.<\/p>\n

After taking part in a \u201860s rock-pop alumni group The American Rock All-Stars with Keith Allison<\/a> and former members of The Grass Roots and Buckinghams, Las Vegas-based Volk formed Fang and the Gang. That group performed live occasionally and is featured on the self-released 2004 CD Fang Reveres the Raiders<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Along the way, Volk amassed a cache of personal recordings, and in early 2020 he concentrated on an additional batch of material recorded in his home studio. A new 2CD release, Rocker<\/i>, serves as a compendium\/sampler of music from those sources.<\/p>\n

The first disc in the non-chronological collection features material Volk cut with former bandmate and lifetime friend Levin before the latter\u2019s 2009 death (\u201cBlue Revolution\u201d), a Great Crowd remake of the Brotherhood track \u201cDon\u2019t Let Go,\u201d and a number of more recent recordings. A live cover of Little Richard\u2019s \u201cLucille\u201d finds Fang and the Gang in comfortable nostalgia revue territory, sounding quite a bit like the late-late (Branson, Missouri<\/a>) era Raiders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Somewhat strangely, the disc also includes \u201cFamily Tree,\u201d a track from Brotherhood\u2019s second LP (1969\u2019s Brotherhood Brotherhood<\/i>) with additional guitar and vocal overdubs made in 2018 and 2020. While it may have sounded like a good idea to add to the original, the result is muddy and cluttered, sounding like nothing so much as musicians playing and singing along while a record spins.<\/p>\n

Better (and more well-advised) is a 2019 remake of another Brotherhood tune, \u201cDoin\u2019 the Right Thing.\u201d That 2019 recording features an arrangement vaguely reminiscent of Bob Seger\u2019s Against the Wind<\/i> era material. A 1983 cover of the Goffin-King classic \u201cWill You Love Me Tomorrow\u201d features Tina Mason on lead vocal; the recording sounds of its era, with a rocking arrangement reminiscent of Patty Smyth\u2019s Scandal.<\/p>\n

But the undisputed highlight of the first disc is Great Crowd\u2019s \u201cAll Over, No Wonder,\u201d featuring an impassioned Volk lead vocal and a stirring, soaring arrangement punctuated by horns and brief bursts of lead guitar. It\u2019s easily the best recording Volk has shared from his post- Raiders and Brotherhood periods. The song\u2019s religious themes may not be every listener\u2019s cup of tea, but the song itself is an undeniable achievement.<\/p>\n

Rocker\u2019s second disc is as varied as the first. An ersatz \u201850s reading of the Beatles\u2019 \u201cI Saw Her Standing There\u201d is well-executed but ultimately pointless. A Volk original from 2019, \u201cAllison\u201d feels like oversharing and may leave longtime fans a bit unsettled. (Volk\u2019s semi-cryptic liner notes don\u2019t help in that regard.) Tracks by one Kelly J. (Volk\u2019s protege circa 2008) might seem out of place, but with multi-instrumentalist Volk leading the session, it makes sense within a goal of providing a fuller picture of his body of work. His own \u201cI Appreciate Your Company\u201d from 1995 is a pleasing slice of country-pop.<\/p>\n

A superior 1983 cut from Friendship Train, \u201cYou\u2019re Gonna Get What\u2019s Coming\u201d strikes a sound halfway between Disneyland revue band and made-for-MTV uptempo rock-pop. The Great Crowd\u2019s first recording, \u201cLola Lee\u201d recalls Tommy James at his most musically ambitious.<\/p>\n

Fans of Brotherhood will want to hear \u201cColorful Day,\u201d a recording from the band\u2019s 1967 sessions that features the band\u2019s original lineup of Volk, Levin, Smith and keyboardist Ron Collins. Happily, there hasn\u2019t been any latter-day post production fiddling with the track; had Real Gone Music\u2019s The Complete Brotherhood Collection<\/i> allowed for the inclusion of bonus tracks, \u201cColorful Day\u201d would have been included.<\/p>\n

Longtime fans of Phil Volk\u2019s music will find Rocker<\/i> essential; the two booklets included in the set feature extensive annotation and present-day comments from the artist, plus loads of color photographs. Those whose primary interest in his work centers around his Raiders and Brotherhood era will gravitate toward the vintage rarities from the \u201860s, 1970s and early \u201880s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil \u201cFang\u201d Volk is best known as bassist for Paul Revere and the Raiders during their most high-profile era, roughly 1965-67. That\u2019s him \u2013 the long-running group\u2019s fourth in succession […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,49,51,65],"tags":[427,1668,1696],"class_list":["post-20247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compilation","category-new-release","category-pop","category-review","tag-brotherhood","tag-paul-revere-and-the-raiders","tag-phil-fang-volk","cat-19-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20247","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=20247"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20467,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20247\/revisions\/20467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}