50 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
50 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
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Music Review: Boston - Walk On
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by Dave Bealer
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New Boston albums show up about as often as major locust swarms. The
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mere seven year gap between "Third Stage" and "Walk On" sets a new
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record for alacrity. Perhaps Tom Scholz grew tired of suing his
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record company and decided to spend some extra time in the studio.
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Like novelist Robert Heinlein, who had to build a new house with his
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bare hands between each novel (read _Grumbles From the Grave_ if you
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don't believe me), Tom Scholz apparently has to build an entirely new
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studio, after personally designing and building all the electronics,
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for each new Boston album.
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Eric Clapton may well be the greatest rock guitarist in history, but
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Boston has the best "guitar sound." The fact that this sound comes
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mostly from Scholz's gadgetry, rather than the playing skills of the
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artists in Boston, doesn't diminish this fact (at least too much).
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Let's face it, the quality of Boston guitar work went downhill when
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Barry Goudreau left the band during the decade between "Don't Look
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Back" and "Third Stage."
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"Walk On" turns out to be merely a par effort for Boston. The major
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problem is the absence of Brad Delp, their one-and-only lead singer.
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Fran Cosmo is a reasonable replacement, but it's not quite the same.
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True Boston trivia buffs will remember Cosmo as a vocalist from Barry
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Goudreau's 1980 self-titled solo album (surely one of the best LPs
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not yet available on CD).
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"Walk On" is another Tom Scholz show: written, produced, engineered
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by, and starring Tom Scholz. This may go a long way towards
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explaining why Scholz is the only remaining original member of the
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band. All these other duties kept Scholz from writing any truly
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catchy lyrics for this outing. There's no "A Man I'll Never Be" or
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"Can'tcha Say" lurking on this disc. Boston still *sounds* like
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Boston, though. For some of us, that's good enough. Recommended for
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Boston fans - everyone else will want to avoid it.
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Copyright 1994 Dave Bealer. All Rights Reserved.
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--------------
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Dave Bealer is a thirty-something mainframe systems programmer. His
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musical ability extends to playing "When the Saints Go Marching In"
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on the piano using only five keys. This makes him as qualified to
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review music as most of those who do it for a living. When not
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listening to music, Dave writes for and publishes his own e-mag,
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Random Access Humor. He can be reached at: dave.bealer@rah.clark.net,
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The Puffin's Nest, (410) 437-1460, of Fido: 1:261/1129, (410) 437-xxxx.
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