Chief Ghoul – On My Trail…
Rock music, especially nowadays, is a sugary confection, a thing so sweet that you need a glass of water and a lie down after you encounter it. Even the people in black metal bands wearing upside-down crucifixes on their clothing, in interviews, talk like geography teachers moonlighting on some kind of pyramid scheme and desperate to make people love them.
It didn’t always used to be like this, and Chief Ghoul is one of the ones that appreciates the mysterious and often gruesome history of rock n’ roll. Most of it was based, after all, on eerie-sounding, Devil-obsessed music. The best songs were written and played by the kinds of people who ended their path in this world by drinking poisoned whiskey, or getting gunned down by jealous husbands.
Chief Ghoul wants to make you remember how evil rock music can get. The writer, performer and producer also wants to make you remember that the blues sits at the heart, virtually, of all U.S. made rock music. “On My Trail…” traces its origins back to Robert Johnson’s dark obsessions, but has the sound of a modern folk-rock track. It’s darkness that’s on sale tonight!
CR & The White Lights – Please
After a while, it’s only natural to start to worry. Rock n’ roll, after all, is an old thing now. It may need help climbing up the stairs, and you fear that if it falls down all of its bones will shatter like glass. It’s been a while, you know, since its Golden Years, since it could do somersaults and get all the people to sit on their tiptoes and applaud.
And that’s the reason why so many people, those who still want to believe in rock n’ roll, get excited every time that somebody tells them that they’ll take good care of it. But it’s risky. You can easily end up with hacks who play Led Zeppelin riffs at nauseam and write lyrics about garden gnomes coming to life and saving the world.
Nah, if you want to give your trust to anyone, make sure that it’s someone as good and honest as CR & The White Lights. There’s something about “Please” that brings to mind Neil Young’s most free-wheeling performances, or the vocal harmonies of CSN. But there’s also a humour to the song that is wholly a modern invention, and a good reason to believe that good, ol’ rock n’ roll is safe and sound for now.
