Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Handsome Dick Manitoba - Born In The Bronx (Liberation Hall Records) CD Review
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Handsome Dick Manitoba - Born In The Bronx (Liberation Hall Records) CD Review
Handsome Dick Manitoba - Born In The Bronx (Liberation Hall Records) CD Review
Released by: Liberation Hall
Released on: November 8th, 2019.
Purchase From Amazon
Richard Blum, better known as Handsome Dick Manitoba, has led a storied life. He started his musical career as a roadie for The Dictators, and later became their 'secret weapon,' sometimes handling backing vocals, sometimes handling lead. As the band evolved, he took over vocals full time and after they split in 1981, he basically got the band back together (less founding member Andy 'Adny' Shernoff) to form Manitoba's Wild Kingdom. They put out one album and disappeared but The Dictators reformed in 1991 and kept things going, on again/off again, until just last year when they seem to have hung up their collective hat for good. In the interim, Manitoba opened a great Lower East Side watering hole called, appropriately enough, Manitoba's, and had a long career on Sirius XM's Little Steven Van Zandt's Underground Garage channel and from 2005 through 2012 he handled vocals for a reformed MC5.
This summer New York City saw the bar close and a year before that saw the man go through some personal issues with his longtime partner Zoe Hansen that were, to be blunt, flat out horrible and landed him in court on abuse charges. But with that said, we've now been given his first ever solo album, Born In The Bronx. Those expecting a Dictators Redux or an MC5 clone should look elsewhere - this isn't that. Instead, it is instead an album seemingly influenced by the stuff he listened to growing up. It's a mix of soul, R&B, early rock n roll and charming sincerity.
Without Shernoff and Ross 'The Boss' Friedman behind him, HDM's sound has changed. This is evident right from the opening track, Shelley, is a catchy slice of vintage pop sung with the earnest style and gruffness that Manitoba is known for. You'd never say he had a golden voice, but he does sound like he means it when he sings, and in a lot of ways that's a better quality for a vocalist. Back To My TV is a humorous track about how much HDM loves to watch TV and it's a really fun track, while his cover of Eve Of Destruction, originally recorded by P.F. Sloan and released in 1965 on the album Songs Of Our Times, is delivered with an authentic reflectiveness that works really well.
Surfisde shows a strong Beach Boys influence, while The Cooker & The Hit is a look back at the trials and tribulations of the kind of hard living that Manitoba experienced firsthand. Big Army Brass is three-minutes of ballsy swagger and attitude, while Layers Down is an old fashioned rock n roll track that again looks back at the tough type of living so often associated with the rock n roll lifestyle. The piano playing on this track makes it stand out. Callie May is all about meeting a girl after a show and hitting it off and hitting the road - a decent enough track but it's repetitive and a big longer than it feels like it should be. Thicker Than Blood is a much more soulful track, a relaxed mid-tempo swinger about growing up with family and friends, and honestly, for lack of a better term, it's kind of sweet.
Magenta Street is another track about growing up on the streets, hitting on girls and getting into trouble - and as such, it's a nostalgia track maybe, but it's also the theme that runs throughout the album. HDM is clearly looking back and reflecting here, and it's kind of endearing. 8th Avenue Serenade, a track about romance on the subway, has got some great musicianship behind it, with some horns and some castanets very audible in the mix. Soul Punk King Of NYC is a bluesy, jazzy boast track about HDM's prowess on and off the stage. It's got some jangly guitar work and soulful backing vocals to flesh out its sound. The album finishes up with Born In The Bronx, which is a track that's as endearing as it is corny. It's four-minutes of Dick looking back on his younger days, growing up in the Bronx, warts and all. If it delivers a decidedly rose-tinted view of things, so be it, it's hard not to get a kick out of a song that talks about talking Quaaludes, hanging out at The Bronx Zoo, eating at White Castle and DJ Kool Herc.
The album was produced and co-written by Jon Tiven, who brought in some Nashville players like Buddy Miller, Harry Stinson, Beth Hooker, Shannon Pollard, Chuck Mead, Donte M'Shawn to help out. The album also features work from Mickey Curry, Mat Reale, Simon Kirke and Mike Shrieve. It's got a very clean, polished sound that contrasts in interesting ways with HDM's growly and remarkably unpolished vocal delivery. Overall though, this works quite well. Yes, there are those out there that hate the guy, and their reasons are sometimes valid, but there's an undeniable authenticity to this album that goes a long way.
-
#1Mark TolchSenior MemberFind all postsView Profile12-11-2019, 10:22 AMEditing a commentYou best Kapital K Kool Herc, my friend.
-
#2Ian JaneAdministratorFind all postsView Profile12-11-2019, 04:19 PMEditing a commentSNAP!
-
#3Mark TolchSenior MemberFind all postsView Profile12-11-2019, 07:23 PMEditing a commentWerd.
Posting comments is disabled. -
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (271)
- blu-ray (3225)
- blu-ray review (4162)
- comic books (1392)
- comic reviews (872)
- comics (988)
- dark horse comics (484)
- dvd and blu-ray reviews a-f (1969)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews G-M (1711)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews N-S (1757)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews T-Z (878)
- dvd review (2512)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (391)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (298)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (497)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Sony Music
Released on: December 9th, 2003.
Director: Wayne Isham
Cast: Judas Priest
Year: 1986
Purchase From Amazon
Judas Priest - Electric Eye – Movie Review:
The Judas Priest – Electric Eye DVD from Sony Music/BMG captures the band at the height of their popularity and was released just in time for what was, at the time, the upcoming reunion tour which saw original vocalist Rob Halford reuniting with the band...-
Channel: Music
07-17-2022, 05:06 PM -
-
World War IX - Phoning It In (Emergency Breakthru Records) Album Review
Released by: Emergency Breakthru
Released on: May, 2021.
Purchase From The World War IX Website
It's been a while, but NYC's own World War IX are back, this time with a new 10†EP and a new lead vocalist, following up 2015's If One Of These Bottles Should Happen To Fall EP.! The skinny, smelly looking flexible guy named Filthy Phill is gone, replaced by new guy Johnny Celentano...-
Channel: Music
06-01-2021, 07:11 PM -
-
Released by: AFM Records
Released on: June 4th, 2021.
Purchase From Amazon
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM have been at this since the early 1980s and are probably best remembered for giving bassist Jason Newstead to METALLICA. Their first two records - Doomsday For The Deceiver and No Place For Disgrace are considered classics of the thrash metal genre but like many other acts that started strong on an indie label and wound up on a major label during the thrash signing boom ...-
Channel: Music
05-25-2021, 10:02 AM -
-
Released by: AFM Records
Released on: March 19th, 2021.
Purchase From Amazon Recorded in Bulgaria - where life is cheap! Hot on the heels of his utterly bizarre We Are One collaboration (also reviewed here at RSP!), everyone's favorite Teutonic Metal ogre Herr Udo Dirkschneider returns with that ubiquitous staple - the live album. For a while now it has been common practice for legacy acts, or pretty much any band with a history over 20 years long, to release a live album...-
Channel: Music
03-05-2021, 01:04 AM -
-
Released by: Massacre Records Released on: February 12, 2021. Purchase From Amazon “Metal in my head... EXPLODING!†Germany's WIZARD have been at this since 1991 and at this point have pretty much nailed this “true metal†thing down to a science. This, the band's 12th full length offers very little in the way of musical surprises and appears to be purposefully designed that way. WIZARD are catering to a very specific demographic - aficionados of gloriously irony-free...
-
Channel: Music
01-28-2021, 10:19 AM -
-
Released by: Skydog Records/MVD
Released on: December 18th, 2020.
Year: Various
Purchase From Amazon
Iggy And The Stooges - From K.O. To Chaos Review: This eight disc boxed set, made up of seven CDs and one DVD, gathers together all of the Iggy And The Stooges releases that have been released over the years from France's Skydog Records, including the infamous Metallic KO album from 1976 and the two complete shows that that album was culled from, in ad...-
Channel: Music
12-30-2020, 02:21 PM -