At some point in the last two years, Billy Bremner and Sean Tyla got together and formed a band called "Trouble Boys" after Billy's song of the same name. They released an album, Bad Trouble, which I resisted buying for quite a while. Both Tyla and Bremner have done a lot musically that I love. Each was in one of my favorite bands -- Bremner in Rockpile and Tyla in Ducks Deluxe.
But my experience with their work outside of those bands has been somewhat mixed. Tyla did a great solo album, Sean Tyla's Just Popped Out, with a killer single, "Breakfast in Marin" (see video). But his second solo album wasn't nearly as good. I never got to hear the third album. And I never really got into his band, Tyla Gang. There was too much of a rough edge (I don't really know how to put it better). Bremner had a great single, "Meek Power," but his albums weren't great. His first one, Bash! had some catchy tunes, but I thought it lacked energy. The second, A Good Week's Work, was boring. I never bought the third and fourth albums. Of course, I see that allmusic.com gives Rock Files a good review.
So when I did buy Bad Trouble, I wasn't sure what to expect. But it was really great. Power Pop with catchy hooks. It's got a bunch of really solid pop tunes on it. It seems that Tyla's rough edges have been softened, and Bremner has been toughened up.
It kind of reminds me of Rockiple -- Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe had complementary interests and together they softened each other's excesses.
I ordered the Dave Edmunds Live at Rockpalast CD. It came today. The fourth and tenth tracks are "Loud Music in Cars" and "Trouble Boys" sung by Billy Bremner (who was touring as part of Dave's band). In my database do I indicate that Dave is the peformer on those tracks? Or Billy?
I've gotten a couple of emails over the last couple of days from a Billy Bremner yahoo group, indicating that Bremner has a new solo album coming out soon.
I honestly wish I cared more about it. Bremner was a member of Rockpile, one of my favorite bands. Though on the other hand he wasn't the driving force, creatively, of the band. That role fell on Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe. He did, I'll admit, lend killer vocals to a couple tracks on the band's album, Seconds of Pleasure. (As an aside, I'll never know for sure, but I'll bet the album title originated with someone's joke about someone else's sexual stamina.) But his solo work has been less than thrilling for me.
It started off reasonably well. The first single of his that I heard (though it was the second one released) was 1982's "Meek Power" b/w "Yes Please!" That was a great single. Pure power pop, that was easily the match of the best Rockpile had ever done. But he did other singles around that time, and none of them were up to that energy. "The Price is Right" came close. And "Laughter Turns to Tears" was a really good single, though it was much mellower than I was expecting. You can hear it here:
I'm not saying his output was bad. It just wasn't what I wanted, or what I had hoped for from a member of Rockpile. Of course, it made sense that his own style was not the same as the group's.
At any rate, I bought his first solo album, Bash!, as soon as it came out. It disappointed me. Stylistically, it was much more like his singles (and I don't mean that lorious first one I had heard) than like his former band. Fortunately, when it was rereleased decades later, they added most of the tracks from those initial singles, including both "Meek Power" and "Yes Please!"
When his second solo album, A Good Week's Work, came out 15 or so years later, I bought it right away and was even more disappointed. The music sounded OK, but was formulaic and nothing caught my interest -- it sounded like so many albums I've heard by broken-up and reunited bands that I've heard. The hooks are there, and I can't point to any specific thing wrong, except it doesn't grab me.
When the third solo album, No Ifs, Buts, Maybes, came out about five years ago, I didn't bother buying it. I've listened to those samples on Amazon, and it sounds like it's better than the second album. But something holds me back.
So now, another album is coming out soon. I just don't know. I'll probably listen to samples on Amazon and then make a decision. Or not.
At any rate, this is how I like to remember Billy:
I was looking for some amusement today and found the following on Youtube:
It's a Japanese neo-rockabilly band performing a song called "Heart." I find this interesting for a number of reasons.
First, "Heart" is an old Rockpile song. It was one of the two songs on the one official Rockpile album (Seconds of Pleasure, for those keeping score) to be sung by Billy Bremner. Then, after Rockpile broke up, Nick Lowe put a much slower (and, honestly, inferior) version on his next solo album, Nick The Knife. As I've stated before, I am fond of well-done covers, especially when a song is reinvented.
Second is the band name, Blue Angel. That was the name of Cyndi Lauper's band 30 or so years ago (before she hit it big as a solo). I always find it interesting when I come across two bands with the same name -- especially if I worry that both will end up in my CD collection. That just causes my anal-retentive self lots of annoyance. Since Lauper's old band is in my collection, and I am seriously tempted to try to find this album, there's a real possibility here.
Finally, I am endlessly fascinated by the large volume of Japanese bands doing American-style rock music.
Here, for what it's woth, is another video of Blue Angel doing a classic. I just love the whole seductive comb bit from roughly 0:15 to 0:29.
