energetic, exciting, no frills, up beat, hard and tight Rock 'n Roll

14 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Hard Rock, ROCK: Progressive Rock



Details:
JOHN CRAIN March 2006
Unsolicited (M-Bomb Records)
www.johncrain.net
www.myspace.com/jcrain
www.myspace.com/thestiffjoints
www.myspace.com/rooseveltband

Guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and visual artist John Crain, a Charleston-based quizzical thirtysomething, has been playing in a variety of bands and writing songs since he was in high school in South Carolina. He recently put his songwriting talent on display with the release of a riff-filled new solo rock album titled Unsolicited
(recorded at Fusion 5 Studios in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.).

"I kept writing and playing original music for years, but I eventually got a day job outside of music and quit writing," he says. "This did not stop the ideas from coming, however. I kept hearing jingles in my head. I kept singing in the shower. I kept writing down passages that meant something to me or had a ring to it. After about a decade of this, I figured I wanted something to show for it. If I died tomorrow, I'd like this collection of songs to represent what's been going on inside of my head and what essentially makes me tick."

In his college days in the idyllic university town of Athens, Georgia, Crain made a name for himself as the bassist and co-frontman of power trio Roosevelt, one of a pile of heavy hitting rock bands who kicked up some post-jangle dust in the early-'90s. Roosevelt played hard, loud and fast and had elements of the blues-rock of ZZ Top and Zeppelin, the ambling country sounds of Neil Young and Johnny Cash, the prog tendencies of King Crimson and the quirky punk of Meat Puppets. As the three guys grew older, the band matured musically, developing an accomplished instrumental technique and moving closer to the prog-rock complexities that were always underneath its punk. But Roosevelt never quite abandoned its classic rock roots, no matter how tangled.

Crain and guitarist Daniel Pruitt were longhaired UGA students who had already put a year or so into the prog-rock trio I.S.S. (or "Independent Skyleague Section") with drummer Isaac McCalla. After the band broke up in 1989, Crain and Pruitt enlisted drummer Ballard Lesemann and officially formed Roosevelt in 1990. The band independently released its vinyl-only full-length titled Shingle in
1991 and extensively toured the Southeast behind it. In 1992, the band recorded a vinyl-only, four-song EP titled Person and contributed three songs to the seven-band compilation album Fuel: Seven bands From Athens, Ga.

As for the style of music or "sound" Roosevelt was going for, John Crain says, "We were really just simply looking for the best sounds that would come out of our crappy amps. The style of music kinda just came naturally as a result of that in an effort to cover it up. And, yes, we did have a lot in common with other bands at that time. The scene was pretty diverse. There were some very strong and exciting bands performing out. There were quite a few that sucked so bad you wanted to kick someone on your way out of the club to somehow make you feel a little better about paying the cover. I think R.E.M. was quite an inspiration for most bands at that time, and that was the problem. They inspired some folks that had no business playing out in public...
like us, for instance."

John Crain relocated to the Carolina coast in the late '90s and stayed busy as a painter and weekend musician. He's probably best known in the Charleston scene for his session work and bass skills with such local acts as funk and R&B band Booty Call, rock/dance outfit MacDaddy, and, most recently, hard-rock combo The Stiff Joints.

"Unsolicited is the result of me listening to a wide array of music", says Crain. "From Johnny Cash to Judas Priest; from Elton John to Earth, Wind & Fire; from Allison Kraus to Alice in Chains; and from Black Sabbath to Pink Floyd. The list goes on and on. Mix my music influences with the experiences with my life, and you get this CD."

Crain wrote all of the songs on the new album and provided all of the lead vocals, bass guitar, and electric guitar work. Local guest players on the disc include pianist Travis Allison, drummers Jim Ratcliffe and Ballard Lesemann, and vocalist Jourdan Laws.

"I suppose my target audience is people who love hard rock and enjoy going out to see a good show; people who are sick of all the same bubblegum junk that the major labels are pushing over and over again,?" says Crain. ?"Am I the only one who sees a great void between, say, Velvet Revolver and Green Day, Blink182, TheKillers, etc.? It seems to me that the target audience of all these 'post punk' rock bands getting signed that you hear all over the radio is a younger crowd. The slightly older audience is expected to succumb to that listening trend, or regress to listen to old CD's of the classic rock and in some cases go to shows of old bands getting back together and touring like the Stones or the Crüe. Know what I mean? It seems like there's either 'nostalgic' shows to go to, or shows where you feel like you're there babysitting the crowd. Very little in between. I guess that my [perhaps phantom] target audience is anyone looking for something in between the two", he adds. "Does that make sense or am I out of touch? I realize I'm out of touch to some degree, but there's some sense to my madness, isn't there?"