My Amazon Reviews: The Empty Hearts "The Empty Hearts"

A Power Pop Supergroup
4 Out Of 5 Stars

First off, there's the pedigree. Wally Palmar of the Romantics on lead vocals, rhythm guitar, and harmonica; Elliot Easton of the Cars on lead guitar and vocals; Andy Babiuk of the Chesterfield Kings on bass and vocals; and Clem Burke of Blondie on drums and vocals. Then for bonus cool points, they were given their name by Steven Van Zandt. The freshly minted The Empty Hearts were birthed by the 60's British Invasion and filtered through 80's power pop cool and then fed through a garage band. The band themselves are wearing their influences on their sleeve, or at least their t-shirt...dig The Who shirt on the CD cover. Make no mistake, this is the real deal.

"The Empty Hearts" is a first rate power popper's dream. The garagey "90 Miles An Hour Down a Dead End Street" careens into a ripping harmonica solo courtesy of Palmar and the band chiming in on chipper 'dit dit dit' background vocals for an ace hook. "No Way Out" cops from The Kinks and The Who. Dig the fuzzed out guitar in "Perfect World." Elements of The Beatles, maybe a touch of The Stones, and certainly a tiny touch of the elements of everyone's band kick in here and there through The Empty Hearts, and it feels completely natural. That could come from the album's immediacy, the whole thing was hammered out in five days, frequently the whole band playing live and catching the first take. Credit producer Ed Stasium for helping capture lightning in a bottle, he used to do the same for the Ramones.

One other thing; no-one here is trying to re-invent the wheel. The band has already stated in interviews that they just wanted to bring back the fun of listening to classic songs and being in a band that enjoyed doing what they do best. When the final "Uh Huh!" brings "Meet Me Around The Corner" to a close (just after a gnarly solo from Easton, I should add), I just want to start the whole thing over from the beginning. "The Empty Hearts" plows through its twelve songs and you wish there were more. I can't think of any better way to describe this little chunk of garage-pop nirvana. I just wanna hear it again. Power Pop lives.

     

My Amazon Reviews: The Cars "Door To Door"

Last Year's Model
2 Out Of 5 Stars

The 1987 swan song of the original Cars lineup delivered this album after their high watermark of "Heartbeat City" and after members had been establishing solo careers. That "Door To Door" sounds uninspired and not crackling with the imaginative songs that previous Cars albums did can be blamed on the separations or just the fatigue of being highly successful, but the material just doesn't measure up to previous standards. It makes "Door to Door" the Edsel of The Car's original six albums.

It's not for a lack of trying. The lead single "You Are The Girl" has all the trademarks of a cool Cars song; there are jangly synths from Greg Hawkes and the typical disjointed and enigmatic lyric from Ric Ocasek. The opening song, "Leave Or Stay" also promises better things, but the album starts falling apart afterwards. There aren't many memorable melodies or snap to the pop, making it even more noteworthy that two of the songs on "Door To Door" predate the 1978 debut ("Leave or Stay" and "Ta Ta Wayo Wayo"). Inspiration just wasn't coming. "Strap Me In" is the best of the rest, but "Door To Door" did not age well, the way other Cars albums have.

      

Hurricane Sandy Visits out Driveway

We were lucky in that the car appears to be undamaged but the wind shield is cracked. I cleared it off with a handsaw, enough so Joel could get the car out and go to work.

So far no power outages. Joel will be at his job overnight, I will be home.

My Amazon Reviews: Ric Ocasek "This Side of Paradise"

This side of a decade
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Ric Ocasek released his second solo album, "This Side of Paradise," before the Cars' finale "Door to Door." It always sounded to me like The Cars were splintering when I heard this, because it has better songs than "Door to Door" did, and it sounds more Cars-ish than Ric's solo debut, the darker "Beatitude." It's also the only one of his solo albums to produce a top 20 single, "Emotion in Motion." (And only the late Ben Orr managed a solo hit in his out of Cars career.)

Overall, "This Side of Paradise" sounds dated. Like "Beatitude," Ocasek spend a great deal of time exploring his Roxy/Bowie fixations with a heavy reliance on that wavey-synth production so predominant in the late 80's. There's also a slew of period guests involved, including Tears for Fears, super bassist Tony Levin and his astounding Chapman Stick, Steve Stevens from Billy Idol's band, as well as Greg Hawkes, Elliott Easton and Orr. Hawkes even gets a co-writer credit on "Hello Darkness." The songs "Keep On Laughing," "True to You" and "PFJ" could have easily been Cars hits, and outshine anything on "Door to Door."

Which makes me wonder why this album came out as simply average. Had the production not been so date-stamped, Ocasek may have been able to fire up his solo career, which effectively stalled out after this (although I thought "Fireball Zone" was a better album, it didn't even crack the charts). "Heartbeat City" flirted with the same emotions and sound, but has aged much better, and "This Side of Paradise" is likely of interest to Cars completists or 80's heads only

 

My Amazon Reviews: The Cars "Move Like This"

Restore, Remake, Remodel  
4 Out Of 5 Stars

You know how you always hear stories about some guy who buys an incredible automotive machine, drives it for a spell and then parks it in the garage? It sits there, under a tarp or other covering, the tarp coated with dirt and pigeon feathers, but the machine itself remaining clean and protected underneath. Time may still cause it bit of damage, but when the old man moves on and either sells or gives his baby to a trusted friend, that friend pulls it out from under the dirt and crud, tunes it up a bit, and drives it off almost as good as it was when the old man first bought it.

That is exactly how "Move Like This," the first all-new Cars album since 1987's "Door To Door," feels. Ric Ocasek, after years of being a record exec, in demand producer and occasional guest on The Colbert Report, finally agreed with bandmates to get together and record again after being the holdout from "The New Cars" project. Given that it was always his clipped manner of singing and often oblique lyrics that defined much of The Cars' best material, his presence makes "Move Like This" sound like the band that released such classics as "Candy O," "Heartbeat City" and the debut album. The lead track, "Blue Tip" rivals anything from those albums, and has a video that compares to the great clips from "Heartbeat City."

The really cool thing about "Move Like This" is just how natural the album sounds. The songs, for the most part, sound easy and unforced as opposed to a band desperately trying to recreate their glory days. Songs like "Hits Me" and "Sad Song" come off as if they were part of a lost 80's album, with Greg Hawkes' keyboards adding that atmospheric cushion and Elliot Easton dropping razor sharp guitar. But as I used in the earlier analogy, not everything is the same as it was in 1987.

The passing of bassist and vocalist Ben Orr in 2000 takes a little of the smooth ride away from The Cars and, despite their best efforts, is still a noticeable absence. His voice was the one The Cars used to carry their ballads (their biggest hit, "Drive," being the most famous example) and was an integral part of the band's unique harmonies. Orr's voice would have made the song "Free" into a Cars Ballad, where Ocasek can't quite do it. Still, the band puts in the liner notes "Ben, your spirit was with us" and "Move Like This" shows it. Shiny, smooth and purring like a classic, this is The Cars reunion we were waiting for.