Tone Death Stephens

The Original Rock Legend, 21 July 2005

If this guy could have been handed an electric guitar, nobody would give a damn about Hendrix. Even if you're not used to hearing proper acoustic blues, make the effort and you'll be blown away by how much a man could achieve with only his voice, his guitar and one crackly track to get the song down on. I guess that selling your soul to the devil is cheating a bit though...
I give this particular compilation only 4 stars because, although a good introduction to one of the greatest musicians ever, there are other comps with everything he did, and for not much more dough. So forget your limp emo or skater-punk nonsense and discover this cool bloke.

WHY I AM I THE FIRST REVIEWER?, 24 Jun 2005

Why has nobody left a signpost here to steer people in the right direction. The Childish direction. Surely someone bought this. Anyone who has must love it. This is a compilation of the singles by thee best garage-punk band ever (or maybe that honour belongs to the Gories), mainly because they are extremely garagey AND extremely punky, which is the way garage-punk should be, surely. If your idea of garage rock is informed by the NME, then you probably thought that the Vines/Datsuns/Hives/WhiteStripes thing from 2001-2003 was all garage rock. Well, you've been misled. The Hives mimic garage rock, but when you get in to real stuff you realise what a weak band they were. The White Stripes are… Read more

B-Side shocker!, 31 May 2005

Hopefully all the stripes fans have heard the song 'Blue Orchid' itself on TV or the radio by now, so I won't bother describing it here. Opinions have been quite divided by what is the biggest change in their sound since 'Seven Nation Army'. At first I was quite disappointed with this song, but it has since grown on me even though I still think it's their weakest single to date.
Anyway, I just got both versions of the CD single (Ta muchly, Amazon!)and JAYZUS!! was I shocked by the B-sides. If you thought 'Blue Orchid' itself was a bit strange for them, well...
On this, CD2, you get 'Who's a big baby', which features the much talked about marimba and a guitar sound they've never… Read more