Beaverteeth: Beaverteeth (1977)
Here's one I wish I could take back, but how was I supposed to guess that a band called Beaverteeth (Beaverteeth, ferchrissake!) would dam their river (in a manner of speaking) with soft rock more so than Southern rock?
Especially when my introduction to these boys from Albany, Georgia, came via an exceptional Southern Rock playlist, full of cool, rare bands, assembled by the ever-reliable Day After the Sabbath blog, and a relatively ballsy cover of Carl Perkins' "Dixie Fried."
Maybe I should have paid some mind to another "cover" -- this 1977 debut album's -- with its strange illustration of two Greek goddesses (or maybe they're just fancy ladies in evening gowns) playing a colorful game of chess.
But noooooo ... to my dismay and horror, the rest of Beaverteeth's self-titled LP set sail on the "smuuuuuuuve" grooves, sweet vocals, and disco strings applied to sappy schmaltz like "Just Another Local Band," "Hope," and "Sacred Harmony."
At their best, the band reveals a reverence for The Beatles on rich, melodious fare like "Sing for You" and "The World's Really Flat," and I suppose the easy-funkin' "I'm Callin'" ain't half bad, but not even these "mid-lights" are spared those damn disco strings.
If nothing else, the band could obviously play, but instrumental skill and good taste (or at least my personal taste) don't necessarily go hand-in-hand.
So by the time Beaverteeth reach a balladic nadir with the downright idiotic "Where Does Love Go (When It Goes Away)" (it goes away, morons!) you'll be begging for mercy, or worse, Debbie Boone's "You Light Up My Life."
And yet, despite all these crimes against humanity, Beaverteeth were allowed back into the studio the following year to record a second and final album entitled Dam It (get it?), but if you think I'm going anywhere near that, forget it!
I think I've had about enough Beaverteeth for one lifetime ...
More Southern Rock: The Allman Brothers Bandâs Idlewild South, Black Oak Arkansasâ High On the Hog, Black Stone Cherry's Black Stone Cherry, Blackfootâs Strikes, Blackhorseâs Blackhorse, Bloontzâs Bloontz, Blue Jug's Blue Jug, Bull's It's a Rock 'n' Roll World, Creedâs Creed, Creedence Clearwater Revival's Bayou Country, Doc Hollidayâs Doc Holliday, Epitaphâs Outside the Law, Estus' Estus, The Four Horsemen's Nobody Said it was Easy, Georgia Satellites' Georgia Satellites, Grinderswitchâs Pullinâ Together, Heads, Hands & Feet's Tracks, Hydraâs Hydra, Lynyrd Skynyrdâs Second Helping, Molly Hatchetâs Flirtinâ with Disaster, Navasotaâs Rootinâ, Nitzingerâs Nitzinger, Point Blankâs Point Blank, Potliquorâs Levee Blues, Raging Slab's Raging Slab, Thunderâs Thunder, Thunderhead's Thunderhead, Two Gunsâ Balls Out, Winterhawk's Electric Warriors, ZZ Topâs Rio Grande Mud.
