Spin Doctors/Songs From The Road(2015)

If you recall a few weeks back a bunch of us Bloggers did a Where Are They Now? A  feature on artists that may have disappeared from the public eye but in all reality hadn’t really. In the planning stages through email I think it was either Geoff or Bop that mentioned that perhaps  they would do the Spin Doctors! (It didn’t come to pass)….

Spin Doctors?? Great call and that got me thinking as I know I had two of their albums stuffed in a box somewhere in my basement but they haven’t seen the day of light in years. Why is it that?

As quick as that thought came to mind it quickly disappeared! Ha!

So one Saturday night I was lazing around cruising ITunes and “Ping!” A light went off in my noggin type in under search Spin Doctors. Click and boom …..

Wowzers ! These dudes are still making studio records(Good On Them) and in that mix of studio albums was a live album titled Songs From The Road.

I clicked it and sampled the tracks What Time Is it? And Two Princes.(still love that great snare drum intro on the studio album Pocket Full Of Kryptonite)

Wowzers Part Deux! Those two tracks on the minute or so preview that I had on iTunes we’re soooooooo good! I had to punch the purchase button as when it comes to iTunes even though they let you buy individual tracks I cannot do that! I need the full album meal deal….

Done deal. Straight to the iPod and Straight outside to take my 10 month old Puppy named Fender out for a stroll and sample and hope what I bought was a good call other than the two sample tracks I heard!

Cast Of Characters…Chris Barron(vocals) Eric Schenkman(guitar) Aaron Comess(drums) and Mark Whyte(bass)

Songs From The Road with the start of alarm clocks going off and Eric and his six string launch into What Time Is it? These Doctors have their own prescription pad and they play a real funk rock vibe and when they struck Gold back in 1992 with the Kryptonite Album after it had been on the shelves for a full year earlier theres was a sound that was different and i picked up on that quickly! A funky Hook is a Funky Hook! Make no doubt about it folks, these cat’s can play! Dig the swagger of the guitar,the pop of some funk like bass and Comess plays a real decent groove of rock! Plus you have to dig Barron’s Quirky type lead vocal.

Also it’s good to see these Doctors are not lazing around as they were plugging a new release entitled If The River Runs Whiskey.  A total all out blues album by the sounds of it.  Cool album title as well.

Good on them on still releasing new product long after the heyday of selling records is over.

Chris Barron urges the crowd ‘hey we got a new album” out and they feature a smattering of tracks from said release in front of  the German faithful that have gathered for this recording. Songs like Traction Blues,About A Train and of course the title track are just that Blues tunes played with a bit of a punch. Pretty good actually.

Of course the ear candy for me is stuff like Off My Line(which features the lead vocal courtesy of Eric Schnekman) and some cool trippy backing vocals courtesy of Barron. Jimmy Olson’s Blues  is another real good Doctor track with some nice zip on the bass from Whyte.

One of  the two  biggie tracks are Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong which features the great opening line of ‘Been a whole lot better since the Bitch left town. Been a whole lot better without her face around!”

Wowzers…Zap! Kapow! Great track especially when the fellas rock it with some big riffs before they rip back into the final verse about ‘hearing this song and i hope it pissed ya off!’

The second one is of course Two Princes with like i said earlier that real slick opening smack of the snare drum! The guitar playing by Eric is real good as is by the whole band to be perfectly blunt with  you’s. Chris replaces the Father line with a couple of Fokkers thrown in! Hey shaking it up with some cussing!  Two Princes man for being two decades old is a great rock track!

14 tracks make up this Live Album and its good to see these Guys out doing what they’re doing!