In melodic rock circles,
Blue Tears were immortalised by their one and, until recently only album, released back in 1990. A stunning debut, with three or four gems that may now sound dated, but continue vividly to evoke the era that defined melodic rock.
'
Mad, Bad And Dangerous To Know', a more than full album of remastered demos, previously unreleased except in bootleg variations, popped up last year on the emergent Australian label, SunCity Records.
Essentially,
'Dancin On The Backstreets' is Part Two, and apparently exhausts a fertile seam of unreleased material that few knew existed.
Fulkerson's youthful obsession with clichéd romantic imagery continues unabated as he heads down "lonesome highways" or exhorts us to "run with the wind in your hair". No mention of boulevards unfortunately. In other ways though, Part Two is perhaps more interesting than Part One, in that it gives us the original versions of Fulkerson / Spears songs that saw the light of day as cover versions by other bands, with varying degrees of success.
Eighties "supergroup" Contraband, featuring Michael Schenker, Tracii Guns, Richard Black, Share Pedersen and Bobby Blotzer enjoyed major MTV exposure with the throwaway 'Loud Guitars, Fast Cars & Wild, Wild Women'. Hard to believe in these post-ironic times, but as with all of the other songs on this collection,
Blue Tears play this one absolutely straight faced, getting the cheese and corn content dead right. Tongue in cheek just wouldn't have worked.
'Date With Destiny' was written for
Meat Loaf but not used. God knows why, as it's far superior to most of the material on post Bat 1 and pre Bat 2 albums.
Fulkerson's current outfit, Attraction 65, recorded 'Storm In My Heart' and 'Strong', two of the better songs here. Neither do much to repel the Jovi copyist accusations which marred the band's reputation, but you have to say that several other tracks more than make up for this.
'All Cried Out' and 'Small Town Girl' are songs of unerring simplicity and uncomplicated sentiment with fabulous tunes and a tacky, teenage splendour. 'Slip&Fall' and 'Do You Want Me' are cracking little slices of sleazy/bluesy commercial rock. This is the kind of stuff that Aerosmith would do well to cover. 'Kiss&Tell's synth brass gives the track a note of individuality, miles away from the alleged New Jersey connection.
That said, the shadow of Springsteen looms large on the powerful, brooding 'Forever Yours', but Fulkerson's reined back, understated performance pushes it out the shade and into the light.
The chronology of these two albums is hard to figure. Individually and collectively, the song quality on 'Dancin.' is streets ahead of 'Mad, Bad.'. You might have thought the label would have put the best stuff out first. One way or the other, 'Dancin On The Backstreets' is further evidence of
Blue Tears' (and particularly Fulkerson's) talent and ability. It leaves you wondering just why the band never did get that second album released.
Written by
Brian Sunday, April 30, 2006
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