Hotshow & Afterglow: Where rock music should be
by: John Gardiner
I’m an old rocker who broke his musical teeth in the mid to late Sixties when there was a golden age of rock ‘n’ roll filled with innovation and fresh new sounds. Since then, I’ve survived disco, punk, metal, grunge and a seemingly endless succession of pretenders to become hier to that magic time of great rock music.
Not one of them have quite cut it, but over the last few months I’ve been listening to some music that has made me think where rock music should be as we enter the new millenium. Hotshow & Afterglow, the 2005 release by Canadian-based rocker Just B, is a wonderful collection of rock ‘n’ roll – simple but sophisticated, straightforward, catchy, with thoughtful, imaginative lyrics.
The record is an impressive production, with Just B writing all tunes, except for one co-write (Hero), and one cover (I Wanna Be A Cowboy), and performing all music and lead vocals. Instrumentation is excellent from the get-go and it’s clear he’s a talented musician. Most of it is hard-driving, go-for-broke rock ‘n’ roll, but there are also moments of great tenderness and soaring melody lines.
The disc contains a neat variety of rythyms and vocal stylings, any that could have caught major radio airplay when there was sanity in the music business and fresh, innovative talent actually had a chance for exposure. That’s what I kept thinking as I was listening to it – any of these tunes has the integrity to have succeeded back when rock ‘n’ roll music was a great art form that revolutionized society.
Lady Freak Show, the opening track caught my attention right away, as the type of music that is classic rock before it’s time – if that’s possible. It’s followed by the self-titled Just B and Hero, two more excellent examples of what this versatile songwriter is capable of. I Wanna Be a Cowboy is perhaps the catchiest tune on the album – after my first expsoure, I was humming it for several days.
I smiled, too, to see a song titled Jack Kerouac. Indeed, as one of the hitchhiking hippies of the late 1960’s, I owe much to Kerouac and have been a fan since high school. And when the tune started, and it had an almost rap-like quality to it, I thought that Jack would appreciate being brought forward to 2008 in such fashion.
This is a great collection of music – and if you’re like me and haven’t bought a record (except at garage sales and flea markets) for about 25 years because you’ve lost faith in rock music, this is a great place to have that faith restored. Well-produced, well-played and able to take you out of the ordinary, even for a little while. Highly recommended as where rock music should be in 2008. Check it out!