For someone who has claimed to have a vast knowledge of music,
\nit may surprise people to hear that I’ve never been into NRBQ,
\nsimply because I haven’t heard them that much. (My only exposure to
\nthe group was when I was in college radio, and
\nWild Weekend<\/i> was their latest release, an album I just
\ndidn’t care about.)<\/p>\n
But for some reason, I felt a desire to find out about this
\nAmerican institution – and it just so happened that our friends at
\nRounder wrote to tell me about NRBQ’s latest release,
\nYou Gotta Be Loose<\/i>. (It also could have been that I feared
\nearning the wrath of Penn Jillette, who wrote in the liner notes,
\n“If you don’t like NRBQ, I don’t want to be around you.” No wonder
\nhe never returned my phone calls.)<\/p>\n
Admittedly, the band – vocalist\/keyboardist Terry Adams,
\nguitarist Johnny Spampinato, bassist Joey Spampinato and drummer
\nTom Ardolino – are not your typical band. While they are more than
\ncapable musicians, their playing embodies a spirit of permanent
\nlooseness that makes it almost sound like they’re a bar band who
\nmade it. But make no mistake, NRBQ is no bar band – you can tell
\nthat from the tongue-in-cheek humor of their sometimes
\nundecipherable lyrics – and the different nature of their
\nsongs.<\/p>\n
If the tight-but-loose attribute of the band doesn’t shock you,
\nthen what might is that these live cuts sound like they were
\nrecorded in small clubs (which, undoubtedly, they were). One would
\nhave thought that after such a long time together, NRBQ would have
\nearned the ability to perform in larger arenas. Then again, maybe
\ntheir style is more tailored to the smaller venues.<\/p>\n
From a quick blues shuffle (“I Got A Rocket In My Pocket,” “Jump
\nMan Jump”) to solid pop rock (“Be Here Now,” “Ain’t No Free,” “The
\nOne And Only”) to their own unique take on the world around them
\n(“Girl Scout Cookies,” “Wacky Tobacky,” “Paris”), Adams and crew
\nliterally win the listener over before the first song is completed.
\nEven if you don’t want to get sucked into the party, you soon find
\nyourself with the lampshade on your head, happily bouncing along to
\nNRBQ.<\/p>\n
In a sense, NRBQ reminds me of a modern-day band, The Bottle
\nRockets, a comparison I make with the utmost respect to both bands.
\nIn case you doubt me, check out the country-in-a-washing-machine
\nfury of “Mule In The Corn” off
\nYou Gotta Be Loose<\/i> and a song like “Sunday Sports” off The
\nBottle Rockets’s
\nThe Brooklyn Side<\/i>. Whether they know it or not, NRBQ has
\ninfluenced more bands than we all will ever know.<\/p>\n
Of course, their “hit” – “It’s A Wild Weekend” – is here as
\nwell, if only to provide some type of an anchor for the uninitiated
\n(like me). Problem is, by the time you get to this track, you feel
\nlike you’ve been listening to the band all your life. If anything,
\nthis is a sign of just how good NRBQ really is.<\/p>\n
\nYou Gotta Be Loose<\/i> is a disc that will not only serve as a
\nwonderful introduction to the band, but it will spark an interest
\nin discovering the rest of this group’s back catalog. There is no
\ndoubt that NRBQ is one of this country’s most unheralded musical
\ntreasures. One wonders how long this will last after the fever
\nspreads thanks to this album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7313],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-39164","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-nrbq","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39164","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=39164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39164"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}