Bloodstone Unreal London 1973

Bloodstone Unreal London 1973 CAT# XPS634

Kansas City's Bloodstone is on point on this album.  Typically speaking, people really only spend time with their hit and album of the same, Natural High.  However, their material throughout the 70's is all worthwhile.

This album is pretty slick and smooth, definitely a 70's soul album.  The band is usually credited as bringing a bit of rock into the soul sound, but for the first side, not much of that is  found.  The title track, "Unreal" is a highlight and penned by Charles Love of the band.  Most the tunes here are in fact, penned by the group.  The album picks up the pace on the final track of Side 1, "Everybody Needs Love," which leads into a more uptempo Side 2.  The second side starts with the Beatles, "Something," and followed up with same smoothness but a lot more emphasis on the guitar, bass, and funk (see the song sequence of "Let Me Ride" into "The Traffic Cop," it's perfect).  They let loose a little more on Side 2 for sure and show the rock aspect to their music more clearly.

Overall, solid album and one of the band's best.  And...the cover.  It's got a rainbow with the band on horseback, if only they were mounting unicorns, it'd be perfect.

Let Me Ride
Unreal

The Pedaljets Today Today Twilight Records 1988

The Pedaljets Today Today Twilight Records 1988 CAT#TR017 Promo Copy

Man, fantastic band with a fantastic record.  I revisited this after listening to the most recent Pedaljets release and am really surprised this LP never found it's way into my personal rotation at any given time.  I remember it being a lot more angry, but it's pure pop.  All solid, crunchy, 80's punk...very similar to the scene that was happening in Minnesota with the Replacements and Husker Du.

I mean seriously, if you want all the emotion and hooks of the Replacements, but would rather have the tightly wound pop-punk of Husker Du as the back drop, this is your album.  The Mats got a little too sloppy, the Husker Du got a bit too wound up, this is a perfect compromise.  So much so, it's kind of the Pedaljets' downfall as it became too easy to say they were riding coattails.

Reading the promo material that I got along with the record, it indicates the history of the band dates back to 1983 when founder, Mike Allmayer, was a DJ at the legendary KJHK 90.7 at Kansas University calling out for musicians with the same interests.  Once he was able to establish the band, it appears they relocated to KC gigging locally, then after the release of 7" in 1987, they started to tour nationally.

This album, for obvious reasons and warranted comparisons, got them zine famous (the next LP would be as close as the band got to a "breakthrough").  All the cool kids were digging on it and band was touring nationally, gigging with previously mentioned Minnesota scensters.  It's a fantastic album, unfortunately, it doesn't get the kind of later-day, underground, punk rock praises as other locals like the Embarrassment or the Micronotz, but it's certainly deserving of it.

Paw Death To Traitors Double LP A&M 1995

Paw Death To Traitors Double LP Promo Copy
A&M Records
CAT# 69712 4070 1995

Paw is destined to become a sought after grunge band.  Give it another few years, about the time when everybody starts remembering how "great" the 90's were.  When people start wearing flannels and combat boots to the 90's themed office party and talking about how much they loved JNCO jeans.  At that point, Lawrence, Kansas' Paw will garnish the type of attention they always deserved.  Collectors will focus on grunge and punch themselves in the face when they realize they could have listened to this back in the day rather than Bush.

Honestly, though, I'm not too sure Paw really wanted to be a grunge band.  You listen to Dragline and hear a song like 'Jessie' and it's clearly grunge, but I've always wondered how much of that was forced by being on a major label.  It's almost as if their hand was forced on Dragline to be Nirvana from a Cowtown.

I did enjoy Dragline, but to me, Death to Traitors feels a bit more honest.  The grunge with a "twang" isn't completely abandoned, you'll hear it on the first song.  But, this album gets a lot more melody and harmonies, less screaming and more musicianship.  Melody and musicianship have always been more a part of Kansas music than "twang", anyways.  We're much more roots rock than we are country.

And back to my original point, someday Paw is going to be highly sought after by collectors.  They'll be Grunge compilation albums and some of them will feature tunes like 'Death to Traitors' and 'Hope I Die Tonight'.  They're going to search out this album and discover it's softer side with songs like 'Texas' and 'Last One', then they will throw away their Sponge and Stone Temple Pilots CDs.  This is better.

Lawrence, KS It's not just grunge

Death to Traitors