Broken Teeth— Bulldozer
OK so I guess my post from the other day somehow led people to believe our house exploded or something. And that’s not exactly true.
What happened was this:
It was actually only our electrical service that exploded. But it did totally explode. In the middle of the night. Woke Patti and I up from a dead sleep. Vincent was home from college for the summer, and I ran down to his space in the basement, hoping he hadn’t exploded something. I didn’t know if he was home or not. I flipped on the light and was relieved to find that he was in fact not there. But the overhead light glowed unnaturally bright before the light bulb exploded with a loud POP. My own adrenalin surging, I ran back upstairs and met Patti in the kitchen. The light in the rangehood was glowing super bright, too, and just as I reached it that bulb exploded too. There was smoke hanging in the air and the house smelled like an electrical fire. I ran outside to the garage where the exterior mounted light was shining freakishly bright and as soon as I reached it, that bulb exploded. I was beginning to think it was me...
“We gotta get out of the house,” Patti yelled, her eyes flashing. I was relieved when they didn’t explode. We ran out to the front yard to see if the whole neighborhood was pulsating. But things on the street looked normal, with the streetlight and the neighbors’ porch lights operating seemingly at regular power.
We phoned PSE and they said they didn’t see anything weird going on the neighborhood. “You need to turn electricity off to your house,” they said, “as soon as possible.”
I wasn’t stoked about going back into the house, let alone touching the electrical panel. But I found a rubber garden glove, and after psyching myself into it, I hit the main shutoff and the house went dark.
When the PSE tech got there around dawn, he lowered himself in his remote control basket and showed me the tree limb that had been rubbing on my main drop presumably for years.
“That was a pretty big explosion…” he said, examining the discoloration on the limb. “You’re lucky no one was hurt.”
And we were lucky, of course-- unless you consider your refrigerator, stove, fancy tankless water heater, microwave, garage door opener and hi-fi getting fried to be bad luck. Because all those items had been cooked by the reverse polarity generated when the casing had finally worn off the cable, exposing wires that weren’t supposed to touch. Toggling back to the unexplainable good luck-- the dishwasher, laundry machines, amplifiers, computers, television and light fixtures were all spared.
I didn’t really understand it then and still don’t now.
Anyway, it took 5 years to replace the turntable and now I have a bunch of old new records to listen to!
DAY#2: Broken Teeth, Bulldozer. Birthday gift from Matt 2016. Favorite side: A
Jason McMaster is a hard rock warrior. Not necessarily a household name-- at least in my household-- but rocking a Goog on his consecrated ass conjures a resume impressive in its perseverance alone. The most recognizable bullet is Texas-based identity crisis rockers Dangerous Toys from the very late 1980s. But this guy has not stopped working the hard rock room since first picking up the bass for Rampage as a teenager in the late ‘70s. Broken Teeth is among his most consistent and longest-running platforms, but it’s also true that he’s fronted tribute projects of the likes of Van Halen, Priest, Bon AC/DC, Rush, KISS and The Cult-- among others. Jason McMaster is a case study in rolling stones not gathering no mold. He’s a Lifer.
He's also an ordained minister in the Church of Disaster. But—you know—who aint?
The music itself has a distinct NWoBHM cast to it, reminding me immediately of ALL FOR ONE era Raven, maybe with slightly less whack vocals. Only slightly though. The musical performances are average, the production listenable. Standard issue hard rock lyrics about flamethrowers, cloven hoof and holes in the sky. Jason McMaster’s singing is fine. The whole record is just fine.
There isn’t much to set the original songs apart from each other but side A is definitely my favorite because side B has not one but in fact two fairly uninspired covers on it. On a record of seven songs, it seems a tic lazy to include two covers-- especially when one of them is a super straight rendition of Aerosmith’s “Lightening Strikes.” Who doesn’t love this song, but I already have ROCK IN A HARD PLACE and don’t need another true version of this hit. If you’re going to record a cover, pick something off-road like “The Hammer,” the closer of Motorhead’s landmark ACE OF SPADES. To Broken Teeth’s credit they did just this; to their corresponding discredit, they didn’t do a particularly interesting version of it. There was a Seattle band who played a super smokin’ version of this song in the early ‘90s.
Unlike the disappointing packaging of AMERICAN DREAM by LCD Soundsystem, BULLDOZER features a beautiful seablue splatter platter and hi-quality full-color jacket. Very tasteful.
One interesting note: being a 12” record, it did not occur to me that it might be a 45rpm spin. I hadn’t noticed there were only 7 songs on it, and put on side A. I listened through the intro of the lead song “Raining Fire” thinking what an unusual guitar tone it was. Even when the singing started, I wasn’t immediately certain that I was playing the record on the wrong speed. Maybe I’ll leave the setting at 45 and do a single next.
Tomorrow: Walking Papers, I Belong to You b/w Trophy Wives