Bubble - How 'Bout This? (2000)

Low-Fi grunge punk act Bubble are somewhat of a well-kept secret in musical circles, enjoying minor-league cult status in the US with next to no exposure in the UK and ploughing a lonely furrow of self produced albums, videos and publicity whilst being largely ignored, well completely ignored, by the mainstream music press. When you consider the band on How ’bout This? comprised of ex-Vixen bassist Share Pedersen on vocals and guitar, ex-Dogs D’Amour drummer Bam Ross and ex-Faster Pussycats Eric Stacy and Brent Muscat, the apparent lack of exposure seems rather odd!

That said, to get the most from How ’bout This? you really need to put aside any preconceptions as to the style of music you’re about to hear based on the aforementioned band member’s pedigrees as Bubble are most certainly NOT of glam metal styling. Largely a vehicle for Share Pedersen and her now-husband Bam, Bubble offer a heavily stripped-down, punky Nirvana-esque sound with Share handling guitar and vocals on short, snappy rock tracks with no frills.

Opening track Shake has a grinding riff and Ross’s vocals are husky and growled throughout Don’t Talk To Me is one of the standout tracks with, again, a deep and grinding riff but this time with a more memorable hook with a simple but effective guitar solo mid-way through. In fact, I think that simple but effective best sums up Bubble’s overall sound and approach – and I mean that in a good way!

Independently Wasted has a bit of a mid-70s Bowie feel to it – you could certainly imagine the late Mick Ronson playing on it – and does give reason to wonder why Bubble register under the radar of mainstream music success.

All I Want is a move to a more commercial approach – albeit one of the territory once occupied by The Breeders – which is followed by Sex Sells which opens with Bam playing a beat which bears no resemblance to that of the song proper when it kicks-in! The actual song is a slow burner, following the good old mantra of light and dark so well plundered by the Pixies and Nirvana sometime later and no less well-executed by Bubble here.

Sparklestar opens with a melancholy piano over which Share Pedersen sings a more straight forward melodic verse minus the growl that dominates her vocals elsewhere and is a track for which Bubble won the prestigious Song of the Year Award in the John Lennon Song writing Contest . . . again, surely such recognition should have broken the band into the big time? Furthermore, this is a sweeping, well-composed and executed ballad and well-deserving of the accolade it won.

Drug features a crashing chord riff and creates an incredibly dense sound during the chorus akin to the Pixies in full flight and is one of the more aggressive numbers on the album. Goin’ Down For You drops the mood to a mellow more mainstream commercial sound and chorus hook – although the subject matter would probably render Bubble unlikely to be requested to perform it on Letterman any day soon!

6000 Miles is one of the weaker numbers on the album but Eye follows with a very deep, ominous riff which persists throughout with Pedersen growling and snarling her vocals from start to finish. Apart from the odd thump now and again from Bam, the track is a guitar/vocal piece throughout.

And talking of Bam, in he comes with an up-tempo beat leading into Baby Lately with Share Pedersen taking the role of backing vocals for this track. Then it’s to all-out punk territory with Slut Motorchopper but, I stress, not in the corporate bloated Green Day way but a stripped-down retro-punk feel mixed with a bit of sleaze for good measure.

Kickin’ Walls is another up-tempo number with and would have been good single fodder as it’s melodically strong throughout both verse and chorus and is one of the strongest tracks on the album. Castle Hill follows in a similar vein and leads into the closing track Lullaby which is an acoustic-guitar led track with Pedersen once again dropping the ‘growl’ in favour of singing delicately over the mellow guitar melody. Nice to hear a band buck convention too by closing an album with their most mellow number!

I’m not sure quite what went wrong here – well, to be honest, everything about Bubble is wrong from my perspective: Share Pedersen dropped the glam of Vixen to front a punk/grunge band, Bam from Dogs D’Amour was on drums (saw them many terms back in the day and hated the whole ’sleaze’ schtick) and in spite of being award-winning they’ve achieved virtually negligible success. However, in the face of this Bubble are a great band producing solid, no messing around low-fi rock tracks with ease with How ’bout This beings a very strong album indeed and one I’d definitely recommend!

• Share Pedersen – Guitar/Vocals
• Brent Muscat – Guitar
• Eric Stacy – Bass
• Bam – Drums

Vixen - Vixen (1988)

Originally from Minnesota, it was a move to LA during the mid-1980s, along with a shuffling of line-up, that gave all-girl band Vixen the impetus required to gain a recording contract with EMI and to jump on the ‘hair metal’ bandwagon spewing forth from the city that was, for a short while at least, conquering a huge mainstream audience. For this album, their debut, EMI brought in the song writing talents of soft rock mullet-meister Richard Marx who set about, along with input from the band, creating a commercial melodic, but hard-edged, sound that fitted into the zeitgeist of the time. The album was reasonably successful on both sides of the Atlantic and spawned three singles that achieved considerable airplay with the, shall we say, photogenic nature of the group ensuring much airtime on the embryonic MTV.

One of the biggest hits, Edge of a Broken Heart opens the album and was penned by Marx and ex-Tubes front man Fee Waybill and just about encapsulates all the elements that made Vixen a strong act, and the whole scene of mass appeal, in one number: excellent production, driving riff and very strong vocals and chorus hook. Although the keyboards now sound a bit dated, the band are on really good form and Edge of a Broken Heart is a really strong opener for the album.

I Want You to Rock Me is up next and is a cross between John Parr’s St Elmo’s Fire and Queen’s We Will Rock You with a very heavily 80’s sounding gated reverb on Roxy Petrucci’s kit which isn’t great. It is at this point that you start to wonder if your initial enthusiasm was misplaced, but fortunately Cryin’ is up next which was a single from the album and, whilst following a rather formulaic power ballad format, is a very fine example and was the first single I’d heard from the band and was suitably impressed enough to buy it at the time which for someone to whom the whole ‘hair metal’ scene was their Nemesis, isn’t a bad recommendation!

American Dreams opens with Petrucci and Pedersen laying down a medium tempo rhythm to which Kuehnemund adds a riff then overlays a good bluesy solo. This is a very strong track that ticks over nicely and was written by US singer-songwriter John Butcher and is a little less ‘of the genre’ than some of the other tracks on the album. And whilst on the subject of ‘genre’, Desperate falls perfectly into the compulsory acoustic ballad territory so well plundered by US rock acts during the late-80s. However, the chorus picks things up and Kuehnemund – whose perception that the band wanted to oust her from her guitarist role largely led to the demise of the band following their follow-up release – puts in a good solo along with some fretless bass from Share Pedersen.

One Night Alone is catchy if unremarkable radio-friendly rock track which is followed by Kuehnemund back in the driving seat for the hard rocker Hell Raisers which, when you consider it was co-written by Nuclear Assault’s Scott Metaxas, was always going to be a heavy track! The follow-up single to Cryin’ is up next with Love Made Me and moves the album back to a more commercial footing with a mellow verse leading into a catchy chorus with full harmony vocals and wailing guitar outbursts from Kuehnemund and is one of the standout tracks on the album: the mid-8 lead-up to the guitar solo is a particularly well-crafted piece.

Waiting, written by Jan Kuehnemund and Janet Gardner, is a good plodding hard rock track with understated vocals on the verse that soar and soar leading up the chorus and, as an example of the band’s song writing, shows a slightly less formulaic and more heavy edge. Kuehnemund’s riff is good, and not merely working around a keyboard sequence as largely is the case elsewhere, and the guitar work throughout strong. Cruisin’ is also a Kuehnemund/Gardner track and once more is a powerful hard rock number, this time up-tempo, and motors along nicely with a less polished vocally-harmonised chorus than their ‘hits’ again indicating the band’s heavier leanings: this is more akin to a combination of Vixen and The Runaways . . . if you can imagine such a thing! Kuehnemund also gets the opportunity to let rip with a more lengthy, less chart-friendly, guitar solo which, being a fan of the odd shred, is only a bonus.

The album closes with Charmed Life, written by Gregg Tripp and Jeff Paris, and is back on a more AOR footing.

I love this album for what it is, a collection of very strong commercial rock tracks performed excellently by a talented group and, having worked on a tour with them in the UK, they reproduced their sound perfectly live . . . and I’ve still got a soft spot for Share Pedersen if I’m to be honest. However, not letting the Pedersen issue cloud my judgement, this is a great album of its genre and it’s a pity Vixen let internal squabbles halt the progress of this line-up after only two albums!

• Janet Gardner- Vocals
• Jan Kuehnemund- Guitar
• Share Pedersen- Bass
• Roxy Petrucci- Drums

Contraband - Contraband (1991)

“Supergroup noun (so̵̅o̅′pər gro̵̅o̅p′): a rock-music group made up of members of other well-known groups and/or a highly successful rock group”. Well, Contraband certainly satisfied the former but definitely not the latter being hardly a name the trips of the tongue of the majority of rock officiandos! An unlikely coming together of glam, hair and trad metal, Contraband comprised of Michael Shenker, Bobby Blotzer (Ratt), Tracii Guns (LA Guns), Richard Black (Shark Island) and Share Pedersen (Vixen) and this 1991 album was to be both their debut and swansong!

The album opens with a cover of Mott the Hoople’s 1973 single All The Way From Memphis, which was also a single release from this album, and is a solid rocker of an opener featuring some wah-wah soloing from Guns along with a strong solo from Shenker. Despite my initial misgivings about the compatibility of the players here, Memphis is certainly a strong opener for the album.

Kiss By Kiss follows-on from Memphis and again is a powerful riff-driven slow burner with a catchy chorus hook and, I would have thought, had significant commercial potential – there’s constant wailing guitar flourishes throughout to boot! The theme continues with Intimate Outrage with, I suspect, a Shenker-penned opening riff with, interestingly, the members of the band combining to produce a sound unlike any of their previous bands but rather creating a polished, powerful sound with a commercial edge that works extremely well.

Bad For Each Other slips into the ‘we must do a ballad’ territory which never wins brownie points with me and is overly formulaic in that respect. However, we are soon back on track with the appallingly named Loud Guitars, Fast Cars And Wild, Wild Livin’ which, to be fair, does what it says on the tin – provides plenty of loud guitars . . . not sure about the rest though, but it is a good, solid track best played loud and leans more towards the Ratt/Guns style of chorus and hook.

Good Rockin’ Tonight is a good up-tempo number – albeit lyrically childlike – with a striding rock and roll feel and some more wailing guitar breaks. Then the mood is dropped for If This Is Love, another ballad with a good harmony guitar intro and a certain amount of power is kept throughout so, fortunately, it doesn’t qutie descend into the formula mush of Bad For Each Other.

Stand features an acapella intro (well, with bass drum and hi-hat accompaniment from Blotzer), there’s even the odd flourish of a heavily midi’d Yes 90125-era keyboard and a strong solo from Shenker later in the track which is all good as far as I’m concerned.

Unfortunately, Tonight You’re Mine takes us back into ballad territory – of the more mushy kind but fortunately the album is then saved by a rocked-up Bowie cover with Hang On To Yourself which provides a storming finale. Unfortunately Guns provides the majority of the soloing as opposed to Shenker but that’s nit-picking really as it’s a cracking cover!

This album does leave you pondering the question: how did they not make the big time? Contraband had a really strong line-up (and Bobby Blotzer!) of members from really big-name acts and the music they produced was great – there’s no real filler, every track (even the ballads) are well-crafted so what went wrong is a moot point. The album itself seems very hard to obtain now too but I would recommend its purchase should you be able to find a copy . . . and it’s got Share Pedersen on it which is always a plus as far as I’m concerned: a forgotten gem of an album.

• Richard Black – Vocals
• Share Pedersen – Bass
• Michael Schenker – Guitar
• Tracii Guns – Guitar
• Bobby Blotzer – Drums