| CD REVIEW Tall Stories |
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Band : Tall Stories The story of this New York based Melodic Hard Rock band goes back to the early ‘80s, when singer/ guitarist Steve Augeri was playing in the band Maestro with three Brazilian musicians. As each of those (one of ‘em Anthony Esposito, later bassist for Lynch Mob) in turn decided to leave, they were gradually replaced by guitarist Jack Morer (who worked at a music store where he and Augeri first met), bassist Kevin Totoian (who’d already worked with Edgar Winter and played on a Joe Cocker album), and drummer Michael Cartellone…who would soon be replaced by Tommy DeFaria (who’d worked with Blood Sweat And Tears, Company Of Wolves, and Etta James) and go on to join Damn Yankees and eventually Lynyrd Skynyrd. During that period, Augeri would moonlight by also being active with a band called Preview, prefering to concentrate on his other band as their momentum grew. He also has a lot of credits on several television and horror movie soundtracks, and for a while he was the mystery background singer (performing his job hidden behind the amp stack) for Michael Schenker Group. The members having been exposed to a variety of music styles including Blues, Rock, Funk, Punk, Country and Reggae, the music they wrote together couln’t help but be a little different…and personal. In 1987, the band name was altered and Tall Stories was born! Thanks to getting signed to Foreigner’s management at the time (who also handled Mountain and Damn Yankees), things finally started moving for the band, and they were signed to major label Epic. The resulting self-titled debut album was released in 1991, and got real positive feedback from the press. Regretfully, the musical climate was already changing back then, and the whole AOR and Melodic Rock scene suffered in a major way from the uprise of Grunge (around the same time as the Tall Stories release Epic were preparing to record the first album by Pearl Jam, a band which woùld be accepted by the Grunge happy folks, in spite of the fact that the music they played was really also a form of Melodic Hard Rock), and even a US tour with Mr. Big could not spark enough interest with the album buying citizens. The band struggled on…even went on to write a bunch of new songs between ’93 and ’95…but in the end it was all to no avail, and they were summarily dropped by the label! It led to the band’s split, Augeri going on to replace Danny Vaughn in Tyketto and recording the 1995 album Shine with them. Only to be dismissed from ‘em (so-called because the original line-up was coming together again), and he was all ready to say goodbye to the whole music business, even got himself a regular day job! Then, in 1998, his life was turned upside-down again when he was enlisted into the ranks of Journey (albums he contributed to were 2001’s Arrival and 2005’s Generations). But then Augeri was experiencing voice problems, and he was duely replaced by Jeff Scott Soto (the rest, as they say, is history…of another band, and no longer relevant to this story). Augeri’s vocal chord problems persevered, and it took the singer quite some time to recover. But eventually things were okay again, and during 2008 he got together again with his old pals! What with the music scene having evolved (in favour of AOR and Melodic Hard Rock) as much as it did during the past five years, the timing was certainly right to look back at the material they’d written some 13 to 15 years earlier…if only to see those songs the band had poured their hearts into back in the days released at last! Although reformed with their original line-up, DeFaria wasn’t always available at the time of recording the 11 songs on the album, so the band was forced to hire the help off some drumming outsiders. But then the did chose to work with some heavieweights: first Avril Lavigne’s Rodney Howard for the tracks “Stay” and “Justice”, then Bobby Rondinelli on the “bombastic” “River Rise”, and eventually Nir Z, who’s played and recorded with Genesis. According to the bio provided by the label, the material (produced by Morer) “…stays true to the original concept of what Tall Stories was about…”, and the music certainly is very diverse, goind from bombastic Hard Rockers like “River Rise” to a languid slide-guitar driven “You Shall Be Free” with a Southern touch (plus some organ, ànd female backing singers). Other songs will be found to contain darn groovy guitar parts indeed! Of course, there’s also the necessary ballad with “All Of The World” However, if because of Augeri’s connection to that band, you’re expecting some songs to be remeniscent of Journey, you will be sourly disappointed! Don’t start cryin’ yet though, because Led Zeppelin comes to mind more than a couple of times! Black Crowes is another (those Southern touches, you know). No MySpace page for you to find music on (there’s some óther bands by that name), apparently. There’s supposed to be a page on the band at Allmusic.com, but I’ve been unable to log onto the page itself (not even through the link at the band’s page on Wikipedia). Bummers! I thought, maybe on the label’s website? But somehow I managed not to find anothing at frontiers.it. So, I googled “tall stories skyscraper amazon.com”, hoping to find something at amazon.com…still nothing! But on top of the page came a link to the album’s/ band’s page at hardrockhideout.wordpress.com, where I díd find samples to four songs off the album! Better sómething than nothing at all, I always say, so check that out if you’re into listening to some truly original take on the Melodic Rock scene! I mean, these guys are réally something else, and their music got stuck into a warm corner of my music lovin’ heart with the first listening session I gave the album! Even after giving the album some more runs in the cd-player, I could not find óne song lesser than the next. A real feat when it comes to Melodic Rock and AOR in my book, so there’s no other way for me to conclude this article than by nomonating Skyscraper into my “Best AOR/ Melodic Rock Albums Of 2009”-list! 98/100 Tony. |