Brian James and Grand Cru - Chateau Brian

Brian James has been around more blocks than a New York cab driver.

That's a fact.

List the acts he has formed, has been involved with, and then add to the list the artists that he has worked with, and after a while you will realize that in a certain sense he is the oil that has kept some of the best rock and roll machines ticking over for decades now.

The man is indeed a bonafide legend, and I am indeed a fan.

So it's to my great shame that I will admit that I missed the release of the Brian James and Grand Cru album 'Chateau Brian' last year.

I will also admit that until just last week it existed in a blind spot I had.

I didn't know anything about it at all.

I actually just stumbled over a mention of it, and then of course I pounced and managed to get myself one of the limited to 150 vinyl releases.

Money well spent.

I may not be the only person who missed it though so in my opinion it's still worth a mention.

So here's the skinny. On it we see Brian team up with his old mate from their Lords of the New Church days Mark Taylor (Also Simple Minds) and indulge in taking a trip down a less beaten track with some well played out acoustic ditties.

You have your Dylanesque blues squeezed through the Tom Waits ringer, a tip of the hat to the white man reggae of The Clash, and then there's the honky tonk of bar room shenanigans that sound like a drunken Steve Earle holding court getting a look in.

Okay, it would be remiss of me to fail to mention that this is of course a far cry from his stints with The Damned and Lords of the New Church.

However don't let that put you off as throughout Brian rasps his way across the states using his guitar to paint pictures of the Delta, New Orleans and the Irish dive bars of New York city and he does it all in the style of the snapshot.

You could very easily imagine that this release is the result of a late night jam that started and ended with a bottle of red, and that is exactly where its charms lie.

I could suspect that in some ways this was a bit of a vanity piece, but unlike others, where the artists step so far out of the box they feel confines them and in doing so lose sight of who they are, this is one hundred percent Brian and you can hear the relaxed love for what they are doing in the grooves.

If you were to buy it as a completists exercise then you would be missing the point as its a worthy addition to his back catalogue.

Grab a bottle of wine and when it hits midnight dim the lights and pour your first glass and let the record spin.

That's when it will hit home.

Buy it

Scabies/James/Texas Terri - Damned Damned Damned - Pivo - 17/12/12 (Glasgow)

As I have said often I'm not very keen on reviewing the gigs that I've promoted.
So when others do I'm always pleased to share them.
Especially when they are so positive of course :)
Here's a link to what Joe Whyte wrote for Louder than War about the recent support slot that The Coffins played supporting Rat Scabies/Brian/James/Texas Terri in Glasgow.
Please feel free to visit the excellent site and have a look at pretty much all the content they have as you will not be disappointed.

The Coffins - Louder than War.
Take dark garage punk played with passion, add in a twisted sense of humour and a mad-man for a lead singer and you have LTW's New Artist of the Day,The Coffins!

Bursting out of Glasgow?s underworld, The Coffins are a breath of fetid air in a world of X-Factor pseudo-niceness.

Riding a Cramps/Gun Club/Meteors kinda wave, they play the type of music that will have you grinning from ear to ear whilst planning to murder your in-laws.

Joe Bone leads the band and the diminutive vocalist attacks the mic with a gusto and energy that positively screams ?goodtime? at you. That?s, of course, if your version of a good time involves songs about 60?s serial killers, drugs, celebrating alcoholism, blackmail and general mayhem.

Opening earlier this week for the James/Scabies Damned Damned Damned show in Glasgow, The Coffins wreaked havoc on the audience and quite frankly, blew the headliners away. With a rhythm section of Graham Platt and Michael Werninck on drums and bass respectively, The Coffins are a tightly-drilled garage rock machine. Add in Bill Gilchrist?s metal-tinged guitar and Bone?s bluesy, gravelly, shrieks and yelps and you have a mixture that?s hard to ignore.

Bible John' is about the notorious (and as yet, still not apprehended) 60?s Glasgow serial murderer who preyed on women in the legendary Barrowland Ballroom. It?s a sleazy, greasy rocker with sinister backing vocals from the band and evokes Alex Harvey?s mental-er moments. ?You dancin?...? I?m askin?,? stutters Bone in the songs coda. Unsettling in the extreme.

'Boy Band Member' has a staggered Who-style chord progression with spiraling lead from Gilchrist and a vocal line in which Bone urges, ?Bring me the head, of a boy band member.? Hard to argue with that, really.

It?s refreshing to hear a band these days with so little pretension and pre-planned agenda. The Coffins are a straight-down-the-white-line punk-rockin?, garage-stompin?, arse-kicking rock and roll band. The songs are fast, furious and darkly humorous courtesy of Bone?s deranged mind.

Looking for something to blow away the Xmas cobwebs? Ladies and gentlemen, boys and ghouls, I give you The Coffins.

The Coffins forthcoming album is called 'Bob's Shed' and it will be out in January. You can hear what you will be in for on their Soundcloud page. Be sure to check out theirFacebook page as well

and then if that's not enough there was this from The Scotsman.

Gig review: Rat Scabies and Brian James, Featuring Texas Terri - Pivo Pivo, Glasgow

By DAVID POLLOCK
Published on Wednesday 19 December 2012 01:41

THE fan who yelled at the top of his voice that “Sensible’s a w*****” might simply have been fulfilling a tradition where live concerts by first wave British punk outfit the Damned are concerned, with Captain Sensible himself – never less than a snot-nosed wind-up merchant in the group’s enduring incarnation – well used to fielding the slogan as it’s chanted in his face.

Rat Scabies and Brian James, Featuring Texas Terri

Pivo Pivo, Glasgow

* * * *

Yet in those words there was more than just a decades-old slogan being trotted out, more a statement that this group before us laid strongest claim to the soul of the UK’s first punk band.

Guitarist Brian James and drummer Rat Scabies (real name Chris Miller) haven’t been involved with the Damned since the early 1990s, but they’re both key members of the classic line-up and enough of a draw that Pivo Pivo’s low-ceilinged basement bar was rammed full of punks old and young for their return. The body of the set was an in-order run-through of the debut album Damned Damned Damned in honour of its 35th anniversary, but this was no nostalgia trip.

Scabies, James and their band played tracks like Neat Neat Neat, Feel the Pain and the Stooges homage I Feel Alright at ear-splitting volume, offering a conduit back to both the nihilist danger of punk’s early days and their spiritual forebears on the Detroit garage scene of the 60s. In this their secret weapon was “Texas” Terri Laird, a gangly, tattooed androgyne with a voice like a drill splitting cement and the same forceful, trashy sexuality as Iggy Pop. “You are the Damned,” screamed another thrilled acolyte, and the definitive finale of New Rose suggested he had a point.

René Berg - The Leather, The Loneliness...and your Dark Eyes

Bit of a lost gem this one.
Rene Berg was a musician who promised so much and yet ultimately, and sadly, failed to make it to the finish line and reap the rewards of his undoubted talents as a singer, musician and songwriter.
For a while in the eighties he seemed to crop up here, there and everywhere. I'd find myself waiting patiently for one of his projects to bear fruit only for them to crash and burn leaving nothing but high praise for unreleased demos.
To be honest it was a real pain in the arse.
Then it finally all fell into place and we got this, his one and only solo album.
A nice blend of gutter styled, glam tinged, rock and roll that didn't disappoint.
Band - Rene Berg (Guitar and vocals)
Bernie Torme (Guitar)
Paul Gray (Bass)
Rat Scabies (Drums)
http://rapidshare.com/files/342503821/Rene_Berg.rar