BIG BOYS of RAWK: inspired by buffalo killers

I know I tend to lose my goddamned mind over the slight little wispy men of rawk, but id like to take a moment to appreciate and reflect on the big boys of rawk too. 

Listening to the kadavar mixtape, they featured this band buffalo killers and they are from ohio. and they are big ol boys, and theyre lawng haiyuhed and good lookin, and they fucking rawk. It got me thinkin damn, what other big ol boys are out there rawkin?

They kinda got a black crowes vibe going on, which was confirmed by a wikipedia scroll where I found out that Chris Robinson all collaborated with them on their sound or whatever.

So following this train of thought about the big boys of rawk I started brainstorming: what other big ol boys are out there rawkin? I mean, there are/were plenty of rockers who got fat, but not very many that attained notoriety already fat. I did a google search, natch, but I also engaged friends in my brainstorming effort. I knew our buddy Michael "Thunder" Taylor would be down to help- he loves a challenge, and he is nearly on the spectrum when it comes to classic rock/music in general trivia.

Thunder added Jerry Garcia, Boy George, Elvis, billy joel (all fat after the fact) and started pushing it with heart, bassist for sublime, bb king, bassist for widespread panic...And I'll admit I considered Robert Smith. Matthew Sweet, Ozzy, and Gene Ween, but they all got fat after the fact.

Here are other chubby mens of rawk (of my own selection) that deserve a shout out:

Leslie West of Mountain

frank black

buddy miles

I love this version of midnight rider because he totally outsings the allman brothers, great version of this song, and the melody I always sing when I sing in karaoke.

bob hite of canned heat was a major fatass

after taking an informal poll of several people  i felt compelled to add meatloaf, because he may be the quintessential fat musician, although I dont much care for his music, so no examples contained herein.

brother iz deserves a shoutout, even tho he aint RAWKIN he is performing his own brand of rawk.

  heres a blog with a similar idea and good points. I had never heard of most of the musicians on that blog, but I definitely thought about damn, its a lot of fat dudes in rap, and they certainly celebrate and capitalize off their fatness, but its just mostly skinny dudes in rawk...

finally i guess i should include the band FAT, just to round things out (LOL @ my pun)

i found this album on my redneck riveria record hunt back in october, a month for doing music related things, yet not completing blogs about. (ill finish them soon, i swear!) although none of the band members actually appear to be fat, the album is pretty great, so enjoy!

finally, please feel free to weigh in (BOOM! @ my second pun!!) in the comments below and rattle off some more fat rockers!! RAWK AWN BIG BOYS!!!!

VINYL EXPLOSION: yuletide edition

Man so the Yuletide season brought lots of new records this year! In particular lots of fruity colored vinyl that deserve to be featured here. Behold:

Earthless's new album from 2013! This is an awesome, nonstop, instrumental, fucking facemelt. Its a double disc LP and features four songs. When I showed it to Thunder he was like "sweet! one song on each side!!" and actually, its three songs on the first disc, and one single song on both sides of the second disc! Amazing.

 

Just found out about Uncle acid recently- I think they toured Europe opening for Sabbath last year. This album is actually from 2012, and I gotta get the 2013 release still. Dig the splatter effect!!

Of course, my new boyfriends, Kadavar. The mustard vinyl is sort of an odd effect, but totally werks for them. I love their logo real hard, def gonna have to git me some Kadavar merch. This album is perfect.

 

This is actually a hella old release from Dead Meadow, like 2001 I think, but I'm just getting my toes wet with them still and I think I liked this album cover the best. Anyway it was the only album by them they had in stock at Criminal. Sweet minty green vinyl matches their hazy, fuzzy sound perfectly.

 

This record by Naan Violence was a gift from dear friends at DandeLion Zion, Constable Eva Deva and Bert LeVert McDert. Its pretty sweet sitar jams, plus it came with a "poster" (some scriblle art on a semi cloth bag scrap) 

Now onto the new/used scores:

Stopped into Wuxtry on a payday Friday for a quick dig, its my payday ritual since its right next to the hospital. Its in the same shopping center as the hippy grocery, Rainbow, and a way overpriced, rarely open, yet still intriguing junk/pawn shop. Ended up walking out with some more Spooky Tooth! Dig them!

 

The major haul this go round was from Once Possessed. They always got my hits! Behold:

Styx- just getting into this, heard it some on Stonehenge. Sweet album artwork.

 

Ive tagged a bunch of Cactus on Shazaam so i picked this one up too, plus its a killer album cover, and shows they lawng haiyuh on the back, nice. 

A word about Shazam- this is one of the greatest inventions ever. If you dont know its an app for your mobile device, you can "tag" songs by letting your phone listen for a second. It will tell you whats playing, and archive your selections for you to revisit later. It knows all kinds of rawk from the 60's and 70's, even super obscure stuff. But I'll tell you what it doesnt know- hardly any electronic or reggae music. Needs inmprovement there, otherwise it rules because it also links you to info about the artist, album etc, and of course links you to amazon or somewhere to buy it from . Its such a great tool for me because I can tag music I like wherever, and then remember it later or research it later. It puts the album cover on there so I can spot it ususally later too. 

Here's a live version of a song I love on this Cactus album, its their cover of Evil. I know this song as performed by Howlin Wolf, courtesy of my friend Rahim, but I can see that it has been recorded many times, by many artists.

Got some more Deep Purple! Nice, featuring the hit single smoke on the water (a tune i love to whistle)

Bang: I had not idea what this was when I picked it up, it just looked appropriate for my interests (lawng haiyuh, intensity). I thought the sticker said $15, I gave it a quick google, gleaned that "They were strongly influenced by Sabbath, and are considered the forerunners of the doom metal genre". sounds kickass right? Then I realized that the sticker said $XX (I will not disclose this amount, but I will say that its the most ive ever paid for a record). I asked why is this record so expensive?! and was informed that its super rare. I dont much care about rare or collectable or whatever, I just want to rawk, and there is no price tag for rawking. It was looking cool, and my budget permitted, so into the stack it went! Its pretty kickass, and an interesting record. Its actually a double album in the same sleeve (Mother/Bow to the King) And, as I read online, the band had announced a reunion, just before I got this, fun. 

Fucking Be-Bop Deluxe. This album rules. Pretty sure I heard some of this on Stonehenge. Fairly certain they used the album cover as their image on facebook for the halloween show, and thats why I recalled it when I was out diggin. Such killer album artwork! Beyond that tho this album rules, and its sort of a cross between prog rock and glam rock. Its lots of great guitar on here. 

Captain Beefheart: This was more of an interesting listen for me, but didnt get into it very much the first time, and still learning about the band. The previous host of Tower of Song used to play them I believe. 

This Iron Butterfly album is sweeet! Its their first album. I love that one of the dudes strictly plays tambourine and warbles, because thats all I can do too. He is also like the only member of the band to not have his own wikipedia page :-(

Finally I also picked up this Spirit album. What a glut of tunes, maaan! Ima be rawkin for a while!

Just because it was raining vinyl this yuletide season doesnt mean there is not more in the pipeline. Plus my brother in law hooked me up with like everything I been wanting on mp3 for like the last year for xmas, via "the torrents". So I'm just swimmin in it over here! Now if I can just find some time to be home parked in my living room and just jammin.....

Y'all got any sweet new tunes for the holidays???