Re: Ian Hunter "Shrunken heads"

Kurt Hernon, a pretty good Rock writer just picked this as his top record of the year and included the comment :

"He's put out a string of excellent records over the past decade and a half. Now he's released a classic."

True? False? Where do I need to start playing catch-up?

It's definitely the best thing he's done in a while. I'll not argue with anyone who wants to name something Ian Hunter has done as a classic, because I think he is hands-down the single most underrated great songwriter in the history of rock & roll. His name should be dropped as often as Ray Davies and Pete Townshend, but rarely is. So if a bit of hyperbole gets people to pay attention to him, hurrah for that.

SHRUNKEN HEADS is a good to great album. RANT was very good. And everything Hunter does is worthwhile by definition, so wherever you pick to start catching up is fine.

On the topic of underrated songwriters, Roy Wood's BOULDERS has finally been re-issued on CD. It's the most widely ignored five star album in R&R history.

I've been listening to the Hoople alot lately along with Hunter's first album. I know it is widely considered his best - but I must admit it is a little underwhelming - I guess I'm just warming up to it. Hoople on the other hand were such a classic.

>
> On the topic of underrated songwriters, Roy Wood's BOULDERS has
> finally been re-issued on CD. It's the most widely ignored five
> star album in R&R history.


MUSTARD

Another great one.

I've been expecting a mass discovery of Roy Wood for over 20 years now and it just stubbornly refuses to happen. I would have thought he would be more likely to break out of his miniscule cult into wider awareness than someone like Vashti Bunyan or even Nick Drake, but no dice. I'm at a loss to understand why.

Guess I just need to get a job with an ad agency and get "Songs of Praise" or "All the Way Over the Hill" on a car commercial or something. Hell, I still don't know why there's never been a big time holiday commercial with "I Wish It Could be Christmas Every Day" - a song that deserves to be as much a holiday standard as anything else written in the last 35 years. Although I did hear it in a mall in Philadelphia a couple of years ago, so that was cool.



Post Edited (12-31-07 15:13)

Personally, I think Shrunken Heads is the best album Hunter's done since his Mott the Hoople days. And that's not to take anything away from Rant, his self-titled debut or You're Never Alone With a Schizophrenic.

I agree with Reno. Anywhere is fine. Heads is a particularly good starting place, but not the only one.

I still have a vinyl copy of Boulders. I need to pick up that CD reissue. I haven't listened to it in years.

I've often wondered why neither Ian Hunter nor Mott the Hoople have entries in the Trouser Book (well, yes, there's one for Ian Hunter, but it only deals w/his Mick Jones produced album, Short Back And Sides). It may be that Hunter is a bit too mainstream/classic rock oriented to be a true alternative artist, but can't we stretch the definiton to include him, if the current one also includes Hootie and the Blowfish? Mott the Hoople's albums -- almost all of them -- are great, smart, dark, hard rock that was just too cerebral to catch on the way other glam bands did. Mott is a masterpiece, and much of The Hoople is, too, but there's a nice 2-CD Columbia disc that gets the highs and lows of the rest of the stuff. Hunter's solo career is great for the most part, with some fantastic hard rockers and some smart ballads (Irene Wilde! Why wasn't that a Top 40 hit?!!!). His 2-disc representation misses some of the good stuff, and having the discs broken up into rockers and ballads doesn't work, since they're both part of his personality, and should be mixed together. His last two (Rant, Shrunken Heads) are pretty damned good, but if you can get a copy of the out-of-print Columbia collection Shades of Ian Hunter (not to be confused with Chrysalis's CD-only collection of the same name), pick it up. It's a very good representation of his early stuff, with some of the chaff picked out. Schizophrenic is great, and so is much of Short Back... , but if your tastes run completely against the grain, any of this stuff might be too mainstream for you. I know people who appreciate Hunter a lot more than they listen to him, but they're the ones who think classic rock is a crime against nature.

I think Hunter and Mott fell outside the original scope of TP - they were acknowledged as influences on what became alternative rock, but were never really considered part of it. I think as time has gone on and TP's parameters expanded, it's become obvious that they deserve inclusion, as does Marc Bolan and T-Rex.

As far as Hootie's inclusion in TP, it does need to be pointed out that in the 90s, Hootie, Sheryl Crow, Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews, etc., WERE marketed as alternative artists. Most actual alternative fans at the time realized it was ridiculous and that these people were the very definition of mainstream rock, but when the TP 90s guide was issued, it did need to be comprehensive of what was considered "alternative" at the time. Thus Hootie and the Crows (Sheryl and Counting) made it in without really deserving to - they were basically signs that the old guard were reasserting their control over the tastes of the country's youth, and while it kind of got away from them during the initial days of 90's alternative radio, they were ready to take it back over by the mid-90s. Thus, playlists that had been featuring Sugar or Sonic Youth gradually went back to sounding like AOR in 1975.

But odd as it seems, Hootie and the Blowfish were billed as an alternative rock band in 1996, when I believe the last TP Guide came out, so they did need to be acknowledged. Of that whole bunch, the only one who may have deserved attention would be Dave Matthews - I despise his early stuff, and only pay a little attention to later stuff, but once he got established, he did expand his sound and begin playing around with less commercial ideas, etc. I'm not a Dave Matthews fan, but he has earned my grudging respect.

Let me drop this:
I met Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson on the YUIORTA tour when they played Oklahoma City. Almost 30 people were there, and I had to leave to go open up for another band at another bar, but returned immediately after and got to go backstage, since there wasn't anyone to stop us. They were both great guys, and I bought Mick a pack of Marlboro's (yeah, I do feel bad about that...) while Ian brought me a beer. They talked about everything you'd ask them, and didn't feel sad about the lack of an audience at all -- they laughed at the "last minute date" they added for some extra cash. Funniest part of the backstage patter was when the PA played "Jack and Diane" and Mick reacted with disgust to it while Ian said, " Hey, isn't that one of yours?" Mick shook his head "no" quickly and started laughing while singing "The Authority Song" in a mock accent. F-ing great night, even if I only got to see 10 minutes of the show.

Blasmo, that's an awesome story.
I'm only really familiar with the "main" three Hoople albums and Ian's 1st. Why don't you guys rank Motts and Ians albums. Thanks

Nobody has mentioned in this thread about that great article in TP 53 (June 1980) where Ian Hunter was interviewed about all the Mott & solo albums that he did up to that point.

It will be a happy day when the digitizing TP project gets finished.

So I picked up Shrunkenheads shortly after this thread started. I had been thinking about getting it too. Ian always had a Dylan thing going - and still does. He sounds like old Dylan now. The music is pretty much standard bar/blues rock. Springsteenish stuff. Although there isn't really any groundbroken stylistically, the song writing is pretty strong. He's got a few "anthems" going on here. Soul of America reminds me alot of John Cougar Mellencamp. Like Bowie and Jagger, Ian seems to have always had an obsession with the US from what little I know. Maybe some more seasoned Hunter fans could give a better analogy but I would state that

Rockford is to Cheap Trick as Shrunkenheads is to Ian Hunter.
It just has that feel to it.

Hmm all this Ian Hunter Mott discussion has been a treat. Very interested to hear Shrunken Heads. Agreed Ian and Mott both terribly underrated over the course of their career(s). Hootie and the...ahhh never mind.

The great Ian Hunter apparently will be on the Craig Ferguson show tonight, Jan 7.

I saw him on Ferguson (the show, not actually mounting Craig) last night.........Great blast of "All the Way to Memphis".....thanks for the heads up...
Didn't we have an Ian Hunter thread a couple of month's back?

Does anyone know if Ian Hunter made Nick Lowe-type money off Drew Carey appropriating "England Rocks" for his TV show?

If one has to be ignored by the masses, being ignored and rich beats the alternative.



Post Edited (01-11-08 23:50)

I'm sure he made a chunk of cash off the license. How much, I don't know.

I read an interview with Nick Lowe recently where he was asked about the million bucks it was reported he made from The Bodyguard soundtrack. He said he used it to fund his next record, band and tour and that it was gone within a couple of years.

Ask and ye shall receive! Mott the Hoople now has a TP entry, penned by Jon Young and Ira himself. Hot diggity!

Nicely done, and pretty accurate, although it would have been nice to see The Hoople and the Live album included. The Hoople is Mott without Ralphs, and Hunter attempts to fill the void with Ariel Bender (guitar solo in Stuck In The Middle With You, BTW), and a lot of artsy stuff he'd never use again. "Marionette" is the key track on it. It may fail, but it's an always interesting failure. And the Live album is a lot of fun. I consider Mott one of the great albums of all time, but that's because it works so well as a rumination on fame and the costs of pursuing it that it works as a metaphor for any semi-failed struggle to achieve fulfillment. Hunter's solo stuff is maybe a bit too mainstream for TP, but I'd still recommend his first album, Schizophrenic, Welcome to the Club, Short Back and Sides, and Shrunken Heads to anyone out there. And "Irene Wilde" off of All-American. Greatest cheesy-ballad of all time. I get shivers every time he sings the refrain for no good reason.

I agree that The Hoople gets short shrift here. It may not have Mick Ralphs, but it has a bunch of great tunes (including "Crash Street Kids" and "Roll Away the Stone") and deserves a closer look-see.

That said, I get an unfinished feeling from the piece. Are there plans to pick where it leaves off?

ok, ok. i'll do more...that's where my CD collection ran out. next it's on to the vinyl.

**slavedrivers!**

I envy you your task.

Thanks, Ira. I think The Hoople (which I got recently as an import) is worth it. The post-Hunter disks, well...that I don't envy you. If you really wanted to be masochistic, you could thrown in British Lions, I suppose.

Oh, no kidding. That British Lions album is horrible -- more so than either of the post-Hunter Mott albums. Dave Marsh's review in the 2nd Rolling Stone record guide nails it.

After pointing out some of the trivia around the album -- slide glockenspiel credit, worst version of Garland Jeffreys' "Wild In The Streets" ever recorded, he ends it with:

"... you surely don't need the record, no matter how much 'All the Young Dudes' changed your life."

I remember that during the 1st International Rock Awards show (broadcast in 1989 or 1990 -- the one with Tin Machine, The Replacements playing "Talent Show" and Living Colour screwing up a hyperactive cover of "Johnny Be Goode") that an obviously frosty David Johansen just kept yelling "Overend Watts! Overend Watts!" while he was at the mic.
Hi-larious.

Sheesh... "Johnny B. Goode". I type way too phast.

Great job. I'm also looking forward to the rest of the reviews.

i added the hoople and live. that's it for now. no british lions for you!

Thanks, Ira!

Break's over, Robbins! Back on your head!

Saw the ridiculously overhyped JUNO the other day and Jason Bateman's character at one point mentions dancing to "All the Young Dudes" at his prom in 1988 or some such. And I'm sorry, but there was no prom band in the 80s cool enough to play "All the Young Dudes."

Maybe he went to that reunion/prom in Something Wild, where The Feelies played the hits of 10 years ago, which is now 30 years ago.