Girls, Girls, Girls. Your mom is one. It was an Elvis movie. Some guys dressed like them in the ’80s. And four of those guys made an album named after them.
Now three guys and one of them are in a band called Blackwater James. And wouldn’t you know it, they made an album too. It smells suspiciously like aqua net, cocaine, Jack Daniels, motorcycle exhaust and leather.
A few misplaced umlauts aside, I’ve never had too much of a bone to pick with the Cr’e.
There’s more to Blackwater James than screechy androgynous kitsch or gimmicky nostalgia. There’s a bluesy undertone to nearly every track, not that the Motley ones ever shied away from that sort of thing. It’s not my kind of blues. This brand of blues is stolen from ancient Mississippi Delta masters by some English white kids then brought back over and vomited out by Joe Perry blues. But I digress.
Anyone who is ready to ’rock’ (whatever that means anymore) will like this record. FM junkies prepare for a feast. The twin guitar attack will make your Trans Am run again, instantly causing well-endowed blonde 22-year-old women to writhe in inexplicable glee upon its hood, bring a 30 percent chance of cherry pie precipitation to the weekend forecast, make cheap beer taste better and instantly max out every meter for armchair Guitar Heroes.
For some reason, in the middle of the album they chant ’Stone Cold Crazy’ for about four measures. I don’t know if it’s a nod to Queen, but it’s somehow kinda cool in my book. Oh yeah, and there’s a ballad so you can get close to your lady-friend. It won’t bring about legendary Led Zepplin IV base rounding, but that’s probably just me because the levees have to break to get my stairway to heaven.