The music you grew up with - the soundtrack of your youth - stays with you forever.
Rock bands are no different. Covers' albums prove it time and time again.
It's an opportunity to cherry pick from the history of rock and roll as it relates to you.
But the problem is this : no matter who you are, your covers are always subject to comparison with the original versions. And that doesn't always work out well.
In recent times, some melodic rock bands have let themselves down badly. Toto may well vividly recall the past glories of their particular musical heroes. But on their covers' album, '
Through The Looking Glass', these were clearly lost in translation. On the other hand,
Styx carried it off with panache, with passion and with class on their outstanding effort,
'Big Bang Theory'.
That said, it's often the motivation behind such a recording that's put in question. Cinics will claim it's the result of writer's block, or at worst a convenience, a way of completing contractual commitments.
It seems that
Tesla considered all of that when approaching the recording of their double disc set,
'Real To Reel'.
First, and fittingly given the band's pedigree and distinctive seventies' feel, all the tracks were recorded live in the studio with minimal overdubbing. An honest attempt to recreate the sound of the seventies / early eighties, simultaneously combating the sterility of modern recording techniques.
Secondly, although many of the tracks are culled from the back catalogues of the usual suspects, Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Free, The Stones etc, in the main it's the more esoteric selections that make '
Real To Reel' interesting, and indeed desirable.
It works best on the tracks that, if you didn't know better, you would swear they were
Tesla originals. The dark, brooding (and Cream like)
'Hand Me Down World' (The Guess Who) and the bittersweet, fragile '
Thankyou' (Led Zeppelin) are delivered in
Tesla's uncompromising, almost funkified, bareboned melodic rock fashion.
The Beatles'
'I Got A Feeling' comes from one of the less explored (and less exalted) sections of the Lennon McCartney songbook, the chapter where the band's penchant for raw, rootsy rock'n'roll was revealed in all its unvarnished, hard hitting truth.
Bowie's utterly magnificent
'All The Young Dudes' is given a surprisingly reverential treatment, but at the same time it captures all the energy and tongue-in-cheek vocal commentary of Mott The Hoople's original hit version, but with bigger guitars (and HUGE drums).
Free's riffy, melodic
'Shooting Star' and the Stones' smokin' (and seminal)
'Street Fighting Man' crank up the engine on disc two, creating an unstoppable momentum that rolls through
'Do You Feel Like we Do' (Peter Frampton),
'Seasons Of Wither' (Aerosmith) and
'Saturday Night Special' (Lynyrd Skynyrd) like a hard rockin' juggernaut. One that'll keep on truckin' till the tank runs dry, or it runs out of road.
And there's miles of motorway here.
With two discs and 25 tracks, '
Real To Reel' is clearly no apology for a lack of new product. This collection of covers stands as an undiluted testament both to hard rock's rich heritage and to a band that's always been out of place and time, but who've very obviously listened, learned, loved and now added their own unique spin to some timeless rock'n'roll.
Written by
Brian Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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