BLACKTOP
''I'VE GOT A BAAAD FEELIN' ABOUT THIS: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS''
AUGUST 19 2003
71:17
1/Blacktopintro)
Blacktop/2:55
2/Tornado Love
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo / Darin Lin Wood/2:49
3/I Think It's Going to Rain
Mick Collins/1:41
4/Planet Earth (Goddamn!)
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo/5:10
5/Mojo Kitty
Mick Collins / Darin Lin Wood/2:40
6/Blazing Streets
Mick Collins / Darin Lin Wood/2:02
7/From Beyond
Ritchie Valens/2:29
8/Here I Am (Here I Always Am)
Don Van Vliet/2:25
9/Confusion
Mick Collins / Darin Lin Wood/2:56
10/The Grave
Traditional/2:30
11/No One Knows Your a Dog
Mick Collins/3:01
12/Flagpole Hill
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo / Darin Lin Wood/2:14
13/Your Pretty Face (Is Goin' to Waukeegan)
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo / Sam McCall / Darin Lin Wood/3:26
14/Blacktop (Outro)
Blacktop/2:43
15/Hot Lips & Swivel Hips/1:33
16/Searchin'
Allen Collins / Jerry Leiber / Mike Stoller / Ronnie Van Zant/2:49
17/44 Blues
Roosevelt Sykes/2:43
18/Bahia
Ary Barroso/2:28
19/Keep on Doggin' Me/2:21
20/Let Me Go Home, Whiskey
S. Henri/2:25
21/Goin'/1:50
22/She's Mine All Mine/2:14
23/Hide and Go Seek Pt. 1
Bunker Hill/4:09
24/Hide and Go Seek Pt. 2
Bunker Hill/3:45
25/Self-Destruct Sequence
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo / D. Wood/2:18
26/Baby
Prince / Mort Shuman / Clive Westlake/3:41
Mick Collins /Guitar, Vocals
Alex Cuervo /Bass
Rochester Sessions /Keyboards
Darin Lin Wood /Guitar, Vocals
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
I've Got a Baaad Feeling About This turned out to be a remarkably prophetic title for the first and only album from Blacktop. Formed as a collaboration between former Gories leader Mick Collins and Fireworks frontal lobe Darin Lin Wood, the band staggered through sessions for one album, a U.S. tour, and a second session that resulted in a few singles before personal conflicts and chemical dependence issues caused the band to collapse after little more than a year. It's hard to imagine Blacktop having an especially long shelf life, given the often scattershot recording habits of the principals and the band's dark, swampy monochromic sound, but they sure blazed bright during their short existence, and I've Got a Baaad Feeling About This: The Complete Recordings pulls together their entire body of recorded work onto one handy compact disc. The 14 cuts from the original album are ace stuff; the blues-shot noise of Collins' primitive guitar work and scruffy vocals find a superb counterpoint in Wood's rockabilly-from-hell guitar runs, and the subsonic bass of Alex Cuervo and minimalist percussion thump of Janet Walker pushes the songs forward with muscular assurance while keeping the proceedings suitably creepy. Unlike the frantic high-treble twist of the Gories, Blacktop oozes a dark menace on these sides, and this stuff ranks with the least wholesome party music ever committed to tape. The 12 additional cuts are mostly covers and hardly as revelatory, although the two-part charge through Bunker Hill's "Hide and Go Seek" is pretty astonishing, and any band which covers Snooks Eaglin, Arthur "Hardrock" Gunter, and the Coasters gets high marks for their listening habits. With the Dirtbombs winning well-earned acclaim as Detroit becomes the new center of the rock universe for 15 minutes, it's good to see one of Mick Collins' earlier projects getting a well-deserved second chance in the sun, and anyone who digs their rock rootsy, primitive, and dark out to give this Blacktop retrospective a spin. (The disc also includes a new liner essay from Collins on the band's history, which appears to hold few pleasant memories for him.)
BIOGRAPHY
by Alexandra Zorn
Blacktop was the first post-Gories project for Mick Collins. While similar to the legendary garage punk three-piece, Blacktop is a clear progression, in terms of musicianship and songwriting skill, for Collins and is also the beginning of his movement towards noisier material. The band's sound was fuller and more sophisticated, due in no small part to the addition of a bass line and the songwriting input of Darin Lin Wood (Fireworks, '68 Comeback) and Alex Cuervo. While still drawing from a wealth of blues, soul, and mod influences, Blacktop crossed into seemingly new territory, even going so far as to cover Captain Beefheart's "Here I Am, I Always Am."
I've Got a Baaad Feeling, their first album, was recorded on an eight track at a friend's house in Dallas and was released in 1995. Half of the album's tracks, and several other unreleased ones, were assembled and released in Australia as Up All Night. As with all of Collins' other projects, Blacktop released several 7" singles throughout it's brief career. The band never made it back into the studio, although Collins and Cuervo went on to form King Sound Quartet with Tim Kerr.
DoWnLoAd
''I'VE GOT A BAAAD FEELIN' ABOUT THIS: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS''
AUGUST 19 2003
71:17
1/Blacktopintro)
Blacktop/2:55
2/Tornado Love
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo / Darin Lin Wood/2:49
3/I Think It's Going to Rain
Mick Collins/1:41
4/Planet Earth (Goddamn!)
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo/5:10
5/Mojo Kitty
Mick Collins / Darin Lin Wood/2:40
6/Blazing Streets
Mick Collins / Darin Lin Wood/2:02
7/From Beyond
Ritchie Valens/2:29
8/Here I Am (Here I Always Am)
Don Van Vliet/2:25
9/Confusion
Mick Collins / Darin Lin Wood/2:56
10/The Grave
Traditional/2:30
11/No One Knows Your a Dog
Mick Collins/3:01
12/Flagpole Hill
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo / Darin Lin Wood/2:14
13/Your Pretty Face (Is Goin' to Waukeegan)
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo / Sam McCall / Darin Lin Wood/3:26
14/Blacktop (Outro)
Blacktop/2:43
15/Hot Lips & Swivel Hips/1:33
16/Searchin'
Allen Collins / Jerry Leiber / Mike Stoller / Ronnie Van Zant/2:49
17/44 Blues
Roosevelt Sykes/2:43
18/Bahia
Ary Barroso/2:28
19/Keep on Doggin' Me/2:21
20/Let Me Go Home, Whiskey
S. Henri/2:25
21/Goin'/1:50
22/She's Mine All Mine/2:14
23/Hide and Go Seek Pt. 1
Bunker Hill/4:09
24/Hide and Go Seek Pt. 2
Bunker Hill/3:45
25/Self-Destruct Sequence
Mick Collins / Alex Cuervo / D. Wood/2:18
26/Baby
Prince / Mort Shuman / Clive Westlake/3:41
Mick Collins /Guitar, Vocals
Alex Cuervo /Bass
Rochester Sessions /Keyboards
Darin Lin Wood /Guitar, Vocals
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
I've Got a Baaad Feeling About This turned out to be a remarkably prophetic title for the first and only album from Blacktop. Formed as a collaboration between former Gories leader Mick Collins and Fireworks frontal lobe Darin Lin Wood, the band staggered through sessions for one album, a U.S. tour, and a second session that resulted in a few singles before personal conflicts and chemical dependence issues caused the band to collapse after little more than a year. It's hard to imagine Blacktop having an especially long shelf life, given the often scattershot recording habits of the principals and the band's dark, swampy monochromic sound, but they sure blazed bright during their short existence, and I've Got a Baaad Feeling About This: The Complete Recordings pulls together their entire body of recorded work onto one handy compact disc. The 14 cuts from the original album are ace stuff; the blues-shot noise of Collins' primitive guitar work and scruffy vocals find a superb counterpoint in Wood's rockabilly-from-hell guitar runs, and the subsonic bass of Alex Cuervo and minimalist percussion thump of Janet Walker pushes the songs forward with muscular assurance while keeping the proceedings suitably creepy. Unlike the frantic high-treble twist of the Gories, Blacktop oozes a dark menace on these sides, and this stuff ranks with the least wholesome party music ever committed to tape. The 12 additional cuts are mostly covers and hardly as revelatory, although the two-part charge through Bunker Hill's "Hide and Go Seek" is pretty astonishing, and any band which covers Snooks Eaglin, Arthur "Hardrock" Gunter, and the Coasters gets high marks for their listening habits. With the Dirtbombs winning well-earned acclaim as Detroit becomes the new center of the rock universe for 15 minutes, it's good to see one of Mick Collins' earlier projects getting a well-deserved second chance in the sun, and anyone who digs their rock rootsy, primitive, and dark out to give this Blacktop retrospective a spin. (The disc also includes a new liner essay from Collins on the band's history, which appears to hold few pleasant memories for him.)
BIOGRAPHY
by Alexandra Zorn
Blacktop was the first post-Gories project for Mick Collins. While similar to the legendary garage punk three-piece, Blacktop is a clear progression, in terms of musicianship and songwriting skill, for Collins and is also the beginning of his movement towards noisier material. The band's sound was fuller and more sophisticated, due in no small part to the addition of a bass line and the songwriting input of Darin Lin Wood (Fireworks, '68 Comeback) and Alex Cuervo. While still drawing from a wealth of blues, soul, and mod influences, Blacktop crossed into seemingly new territory, even going so far as to cover Captain Beefheart's "Here I Am, I Always Am."
I've Got a Baaad Feeling, their first album, was recorded on an eight track at a friend's house in Dallas and was released in 1995. Half of the album's tracks, and several other unreleased ones, were assembled and released in Australia as Up All Night. As with all of Collins' other projects, Blacktop released several 7" singles throughout it's brief career. The band never made it back into the studio, although Collins and Cuervo went on to form King Sound Quartet with Tim Kerr.
DoWnLoAd