Addicted To Vinyl Musical thoughts from the open road, with headphones on

No tricks, only treats – gimme J. Geils Band for Halloween please!

Cleveland peeps, pay attention to this one:

Last year, I found myself at the Beachland Ballroom for their Halloween shindig, featuring a ton of local bands reborn (some in costume) to each play a tribute set of tunes from their favorite musical influences. I was there with my friend Amy to see our two favorite Joshs recreate the entire Weezer Pinkerton album.

That my friends, was awesome.

I was kicking myself for walking in during the closing moments of a tribute to Cream that was dead on. Elsewhere in the night, there was a pretty questionable KISS tribute, and also a Ween tribute, I think.

The details for this year's Halloween extravaganza at the Beachland have been announced, and ya'll need to mark your calendars for Thursday, October 30th:

The lineup:

The Muttering Retreats (Beck)
Good Touch Bad Touch (The Kinks)
Devil Moto (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

co-headlining the evenings activities:

Helper T. Cells (The Flaming Lips)

and The Hot Rails doin' their very best J. GEILS BAND!

Hell-llllllllll-llllllllll-lllll YEAH!

Color me super-stoked. My first encounter with The Hot Rails came earlier this year on a Sunday night as I tracked briefly through their CD To Hell with The Hot Rails, preparing for an interview with the band. The CD was a fun game of "name that riff," with me listening to each song, mentally picking out the band's various influences, including one particular track that sounded like Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill had stopped by personally to put their Texas stamp on it.

The Hot Rails were in the studio that night, direct from a long journey back from Austin after performing at this year's South by Southwest festival. An evening of rock and roll conversation with frontman Ken Janssen and the rest of the Rails put a nice wrap on the night. Witnessing a live performance from the band later proved that their disc wasn't hype - they had the chops to back it up, and then some.

And that is why I am so excited to see The Hot Rails band name attached to the J. Geils Band portion of the evening - they're just the band for the job on this one! Which is why if you're in C-town, or within driving distance, you'll want to make your way to the Beachland on Thursday, October 30th for the festivities, which will cost you a mere five bucks. Not a bad price for the opportunity to revisit the collective catalogs of Beck, The Kinks, Creedence, The Flaming Lips, and J. Geils Band, all under one roof!

"Are you gonna get it crazy tonight?"
"I'll get down to it."

"Live" Full House was my introduction to the music of J. Geils Band. I was working in a record store during high school, and quickly I heard about a friend of my boss, who was refusing to buy a CD player until J. Geils' Blow Your Face Out was released on CD. At that point, it was definitely one of the few "classics" that remained unavailable on compact disc (it finally saw CD release in 1993.)

Being unfamiliar with J. Geils Band, I asked my boss for an introduction, and he pulled "Live" Full House off the shelves, opened it, and gave me the audio 411 on J. Geils Band. To this day, "Live" Full House is still one of the greatest live albums I've ever heard - perfection achieved in less than 40 minutes.

So why did I miss their reunion tour in 1999? Geez, I wish I knew - that's why I'll be at the front of the stage for The Hot Rails, and you should be too!

(It was pretty awesome seeing Geils frontman Peter Wolf with Kid Rock earlier this year - Wolf still sounds perfect and looks a-mazing!)

As a primer (and for everyone else that can't rock out at the Beachland with me,) here is some vintage live J. Geils Band for you all, recorded live at The Fillmore East in 1971, and broadcast live by WNEW-FM.

How good is it? C'mon, you know you don't even need to ask that!

And if for some reason you don't have a copy of "Live" Full House in your collection, take care of that problem pronto, and then ask yourself how it is that you survived so long without it!

Get down to it!

J Geils Band
June 27th, 1971
Fillmore East, New York, NY

broadcast on WNEW-FM/ New York City

Peter Wolf - voc
J. Geils - g
Magic Dick - harp
Seth Justman - key, voc
Daniel Klein - bg, voc
Stephan Bladd - dr, voc

Download high quality FLAC files of this show @ Dimeadozen

complete MP3 zipped download

Bill Graham Intro/New York City Breakdown (Sno-Cone)
Wait
First I Look At The Purse
Whammer Jammer
Homework
Pack Fair and Square
Cruisin' For A Love
Serves You Right To Suffer
Hard Drivin' Man
Staff + Bill Graham Thank You/People/It Ain't What You Do, It's How You Do It/Outro Jam

Relevant Links:

Beachland Ballroom official website

The Hot Rails Myspace page

J. Geils live photo from www.jgeils.com

Peter Wolf official website

Purchase Houseparty Anthology from Amazon - CD

Greatest Hits - CD or MP3

Blow Your Face Out - CD or MP3

"Live" Full House - CD or MP3