Time for a quick show of hands here. How many of you have heard
\nof Scatterbrain?<\/p>\n
Okay, you eight people can put your hands down now.<\/p>\n
Rising from the ashes of Ludichrist, Scatterbrain was a band
\nthat was far ahead of its time. Merging the worlds of funk, hard
\nrock, classic rock, Spike Jones and – egads! – classical,
\nScatterbrain were a band that you had to hear to believe. (I went
\none better, and had the good fortune to meet them prior to a show
\nin Chicago. Their soundcheck proved they were one incredibly tight
\nmusical group.)<\/p>\n
Their high-water mark remains their 1990 debut album
\nHere Comes Trouble<\/i>. To this day, this remains one of the
\ngreatest hard rock\/heavy metal albums I’ve ever had the pleasure of
\nlistening to, and I count my advance copy of the tape, signed by
\nthe entire band, as one of my prized possessions.<\/p>\n
The group – vocalist Tommy Christ, guitarists Glenn Cummings and
\nPaul Nieder, bassist Guy Brogna and drummer Mike Boyko – break out
\nof the traditional gloom-and-doom style of heavy metal, and decide
\nto do something unique: they had fun with the music. Who else would
\ndeliver a cover of Cheech & Chong’s “Earache My Eye” that both
\nstayed close to the bone of the original and gave it a Red Hot
\nChili Peppers-type flavor? Who else would write a song called “I’m
\nWith Stupid,” a wonderful little ditty about waking up one morning
\nto discover you had grown a second head? Who else would take a song
\nlike “Down With The Ship (Slight Return)” and throw in snippets of
\nabout a dozen classic rock and metal landmark tracks? (See if you
\ncan recognize all the references; many of them aren’t that hard to
\nidentify.)<\/p>\n
Add to the mix a more serious side to the band, one that dared
\nto look at censorship (“Goodbye Freedom, Hello Mom”),
\nmatter-of-factness (“That’s That”) and even throw in a little
\nMozart to the mix (“Sonata #3”). I mean, who else could get away
\nwith such a hodge-podge, and put together one kick-ass album?<\/p>\n
In a sense, Scatterbrain was destined to fail because of this.
\nHere Comes Trouble<\/i> is an album that definitely puts a smile
\non your face, but it challenges you to listen closely to what’s
\nbeing said in the songs, even when they’re nothing more than a
\nlampoon of ’80s life (“Don’t Call Me Dude”) or a bizarre poem set
\nto a jazz beat (“Drunken Milkman”). Most people didn’t get it…
\nand that’s too damn bad.<\/p>\n
The fact is, Scatterbrain were an incredibly tight musical
\noutfit, and Christ could have easily become the Frank Zappa of the
\nmetal scene. His songwriting ability was incredible, as these
\ntracks show. Why they didn’t become famous is beyond me. Maybe they
\nshouldn’t have made the jump to a major label after the critical
\nsuccess of
\nHere Comes Trouble<\/i>; Elektra dropped them after one release,
\nScamboogery<\/i>. I don’t have the answers; if I did, this band
\nwould still be around today and selling millions of records.<\/p>\n
Even after almost a decade,
\nHere Comes Trouble<\/i> remains an incredible album that begs not
\nonly for your attention, but to be super-glued into your CD player
\nor tape deck. You could not blame Christ and crew for trying to
\nreach for the stars; in fact, after listening to this album, don’t
\nbe surprised if you find yourself wishing that they had
\nsucceeded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7405],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38995","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-scatterbrain","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38995"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38995"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}