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Tuesday, November 12: Granmax, “Prince of the Southern Ice”

Hammersmith: Hammersmith (1975)

Several years ago, the estimable Day After the Sabbath blog hipped me to an obscure Canadian group called Painter, which issued a very solid but solitary self-titled opus in 1973, and then seemingly vanished without a trace.

Well, I recently discovered that three out of five “painters” -- singer Doran Beattie, lead guitarist Dan Lowe and bassist Royden Morice -- didn’t wait long to recruit drummer James Llewellyn and second guitarist Jeff Boyne, before resurfacing in a new outfit called Hammersmith.

This eponymous release followed in 1975, and the good news AND bad news is that little had changed, sonically speaking, during Painter’s transition to Hammersmith.

Meaning: this was good news for the few of us who liked the band, in the first place, but bad news for the general public, which remained largely unimpressed with this new effort.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves ...

Having launched their careers way back in the ‘60s, as 49th Parallel, the core members of Painter/Hammersmith were seasoned pros, if nothing else, so they could churn out melodic hard rock like “Late Night Lovin’ Man,” “Nobody Really Knows (Why the Sun Goes Down)” and “Low Ridin’ Ladies” in their sleep.

What they couldn’t do so well was get their funk on, though they sure as hell tried, again and again, on less memorable fare like “Money Rock,” “Breakin’ Down” (disco bass alert!) and the quasi-epic “Open Up the Sky,” where things even got a little jazzy.

But the impressive harmonized vocals and overall knack for catchy songs they’d displayed in their previous incarnation carried right over to Hammersmith standouts like “I’ve Got a Right to Know” and “Feelin’ Better,” both of them power pop nuggets, released halfway between Big Star and Cheap Trick.

Alas, Hammersmith would enjoy neither the former’s belated critical recognition, nor the latter’s mainstream acclaim, so they broke up, instead, after issuing a sophomore LP called It’s for You (likely to get reviewed here one day) in 1976. 

However, lead guitarist Lowe would go on to a successful producer’s career and was later involved in the development of a 3-D stereo enhancing algorithm called QSound, used by scores of major league artists in the studio, as well as in cell phone technology!

Dirty Tricks: Dirty Tricks (1975)

Best described as a “meat ‘n’ potatoes” hard rock band, England’s Dirty Tricks joined fellow mid ‘70s upstarts like Liverpool’s Nutz, Toronto’s Moxy and Rochester, NY’s Black Sheep in attempting to emulate the sound and resulting success of Bad Company (and Free, before them).

Formed in 1974, the quartet was swiftly signed to Polydor and paired with pioneering metal producer Rodger Bain (Black Sabbath, Budgie, Judas Priest) on this eponymous debut, which favored bare-bones simplicity over progressive aspirations, and spartan sonics over grand scale productions.

Sign me up!

As such, riff-mongering muthas like “Wait Till Saturday,” the doomy “Back off Evil” and “Too Much Wine,” though a tad long for radio airplay (each tops the five-minute mark), definitely benefitted from Bain’s patented and always raw heavy metal thunder.

Other cuts like “Sunshine Day,” “Call Me Up for Love” (shades of Mott here) and “Marcella” balance out the power chords with enough hooks that may have even attracted a female fan or two, among the hordes of male meat-heads already lining up for tickets.

But, on the downside, “If You Believe in Me” is a sore-thumb of an acoustic ballad and a colossal, sappy failure, at that; while the slow-grinding blues of “High Life” (very good, but it’s no “Mistreated”) has a head-scratching knack for stating the obvious: “I like the high life ... and so should you.”

No shit, Sherlock!

Alas, Dirty Tricks would never really enjoy said high life, striking out almost completely in the U.S.A. (except in San Antonio, TX, home to the nation’s most committed hard rock radio station), and faring not much better back in the U.K., despite surviving for two more long-players beyond this underrated debut.

Winterhawk [Chicago]: Revival (1982)

Winterhawk’s only studio album, the self-financed-and-released Revival, may have emerged in 1982, but its contents -- power trio hard rock spiced with prog, blues, jazz, and even southern rock accents -- leave no doubt as to the band’s origins in the previous decade.

In fact, Winterhawk was formed circa 1977 by guitar wiz Jordan Macarus, with vocalist/bassist Doug Brown and drummer Steve Tsoukatos, and they eventually opened shows for the likes of Budgie, Steppenwolf, and Black Oak Arkansas in prestigious Chicagoland venues like the 5,000-seat Aragon Ballroom.

Alas, Winterhawk would never graduate to headliner status, in their own right, but stellar songs like “Period of Change,” “Sanctuary” and "Revival” bear witness to an absolutely killer and creative combo -- despite a healthy debt to Rush, in part due to Brown’s acrobatic high notes.

But the star of the band was unquestionably Macarus, wether he was harmonizing, Thin Lizzy-like, with himself, alternating gently picked classical guitar figures with crunchy power chords à la Randy Rhoads, or peeling off jazzy, fleet-fingered displays like Steve Morse (see “Ace in the Hole”).

A little less distinctive was the band’s boogie through “Can't See the Forest for the Trees,” but the album’s closing, nine-minute jam “Free to Live” convincingly covered every (good) aspect of ‘70s rock (including some similarities to Kansas), and even dipped into the ‘60s for its hippie dippy lyrics.

Winterhawk were, in other words, a band waaay out of their time, so it’s only fitting that Revival (beautifully reissued on LP, as you can see here) had to wait a couple of decades to be, well, revived by the dedicated musical archaeologists at Rockadrome Records, via the world wide web.

To learn more, check out my review of Revival and expanded Winterhawk bio in the All-Music Guide.

p.s. -- Don’t confuse this Winterhawk with the San Francisco-based Winterhawk, which released a couple of LPs in 1979 and ‘80, and blended hard rock and southern rock behind their Native American themes. 

BALIPORTALNEWS.COM, DENPASAR - Daihatsu menutup tahun 2022 dengan raihan positif. Hal ini dibuktikan melalui data penjualan Daihatsu pada periode Januari–Desember 2022 catatkan penjualan ritel sebanyak 188.660 unit, atau naik 24,9% dibandingkan periode yang sama tahun 2021 lalu sejumlah 151.107 unit. Sementara untuk Wilayah Bali mencatat penjualan sepanjang Tahun 2022 sebanyak 3.310 unit dan Share sebesar 20,7%. Hal tersebut diungkapkan Kepala Wilayah Jatim Bali PT Astra International Daihatsu Sales Operation (AI-DSO), David Gunawan kepada awak media saat acara ‘Buka Tahun Astra Daihatsu 2023’ di Denpasar, Rabu (18/1/2023). David Gunawan merinci, untuk penjualan mobil Daihatsu secara nasional tertinggi diisi Sigra dengan 47.066 unit, disusul Gran Max (PU) 45.617 unit, Xenia 23.966 unit, Ayla 23.150 unit, Terios 21.058 unit, Grand Max (MB) 14.740 unit, Rocky 9.885 unit, serta Luxio dan Sirion dengan 3.178 unit. “Untuk di Bali, Xenia menjadi primadona dengan penjualan sebanyak 998 unit, disusul Gran Max (PU) 650 unit, Ayla 498 unit, Terios 477 unit, Sigra 344 unit, Rocky 346 unit, Gran Max (MB) 50 unit, Sirion 25 unit, dan posisi terakhir diisi Luxio dengan 32 unit,” jelas David Gunawan. Secara volume dan kontribusi model, penjualan ritel Daihatsu hingga selama tahun2022 tetap didominasi oleh top 3 model, seperti Sigra sebanyak 47.066 unit, atau berkontribusi sekitar 24,9%; disusul Gran Max PU (Pick Up) sebanyak 45.617 unit (24,2%); dan Xenia dengan raihan 23.966 unit (12,7%).