Audioscam 3 reviewed by Joseph Tortelli

AUDIOSCAM 3

         On their third and latest release titled simply 3, the Australian band known as Audioscam delivers a four-song CD bursting with irresistible pop-rock.

        Multi-instrumentalist and band founder Brian Pitcher opens the disc strumming the ukulele to introduce "Bridgetown Girls."The ear-catching Anglopop is adorned with clever guitar riffs, sunny Caribbean rhythms, and a few synth-powered horn lines in the playout. "Bridgetown Girls" is a worthy update to the breezy calypso-pop pioneered by Bobby Bloom and Jeff Barry on the international smash "Montego Bay."  Audioscam closes 3 with the Afro-calypso-rock "Awayo." Pitcher uses his drums to crisscross musical cultures, grounding his blend of styles in earthy percussion and vocal chants.  

     
    Bass guitarist Brad Wallace sings his uptempo composition "Thank You," a melodic tune harnessing jangly guitars onto insistent power pop.  Brian Pitcher's "Hello" swings with a joyfully repeated chorus that calls out: "Hello! I can't resist your smile." 

   
     No listener who appreciates captivating pop rock will be able to resist Audioscam's "Hello."

by Joseph Tortelli  

Biography information

Joe Tortelli has written liner notes to "The Best Of Delaney & Bonnie" (Rhino Records) and "Ding Dong The Witch Is Back" by The Fifth Estate on Boston Skyline Records. He's completed the bio of Gary DeCarlo and Steam - "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" - the #1 song from 1969; Mr. Tortelli is currently writing the biography of songwriter/performer Bobby Hebb http://www.bobbyhebb.com

As host of his own TV program, ON TOPIC, Joe has interviewed:

Dominique LaPierre author of Is Paris Burning?
Senator George McGovern
Bobby Hebb
George Denham of WATD radio
Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits
Johnny Rivers
Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night
Little Walter of The Time Machine
Moulty of The Barbarians
Guitar Shorty with Floyd Sneed (of Three Dog Night)
Judy Collins
John Lincoln Wright
Marshall Simpkins of Inn Square Men's Bar
Felix Cavaliere
Ian McLagan of The Faces
Wayne Wadhams of The Fifth Estate and many others 

Metal Pistol Live at Club Bohemia June 5, 2014

METAL PISTOL CONCERT
CLUB BOHEMIA
CENTRAL SQUARE
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
JUNE 5, 2014

Metal Pistol live at Webster Hall

http://metalpistoldates.blogspot.com/2014/05/metal-pistol-live-in-new-york-city.html

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METAL PISTOL LIVE AT CLUB BOHEMIA

The Hoochie Coochie Men were onstage at 10:22 pm, dabbling with something that sounded like "Riders on the Storm" but it actually evolved into a noteworthy cover of Jimi Hendrix meets Allman Brothers, a little more inventive than another cover of "Red House" which the band performed earlier.  Five guys with a woman on bass, two keyboards, two guitars and drums.  About 30 people were groovin' to tunes like "Annabelle" - and a song with a hook "When You're Young" sounding like a lighter version of The Band.
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Metal Pistol, all business

Anatomy of a rock band with a serious attitude about being serious.

    Metal Pistol has the image, sound and a professional approach that indicates a vision younger bands sometimes lack. These industry veterans launching the music they love to a specific market, and displaying confidence that the market will respond in a big, positive way.

    At 11:34 PM the power trio went into "D.O.A." - Kelsey Kit's bass concurrent with Steve Stanley's heated guitar riffs under a memorable, movable melody bouncing off the cement walls and floor of the dungeon that is Club Bohemia.  There was a heavy rock festival on a Sunday a few weeks prior to this which Metal Pistol would have fit in nicely with.   The song swells up with an eerie backdrop, a kind of ballad/mantra all wrapped into powerful surges that keep the audience paying attention.

     The three-song set was like a Mountain concert where Leslie West and Felix Pappalardi would take the songs into deep extensions, before lighter "jam bands" turned it into an industry. Metal Pistol takes the listeners back to that time and gives this style its rightful place in 2014.  The seductive guitar lines in "Minefield" glide over Sunny Lee's vocals, Stanley's bursts of power from his amplifier outstanding on this tune.

   Sabbath IV ominous power chords ooze into a slow spin at 11:50 PM (and the band was traveling since 4 PM in the afternoon, almost eight hours earlier) for "Destruction in Action" - a sublime, exotic, mellow setting, like a boat sailing slowly on unknown seas, cruising by the stars in the moonlight, a chugging staccato blasts changing the mood quickly and efficiently, these three souls blending into a lovely morass of metal, metal Pistol that is, "Destruction in Action" plunging headlong into 11:56 pm and straight into midnight, to the closing of this Thursday night gig in Central Square.