Concrete Blonde

One of my favorite bands of the 90's, Johnette Napolitano who is one of favorite vocalist, male or female, wrote dark songs in a Leonard Cohen vein, and wrote some great great songs. The songs were inspired and dealt with subjects such as AIDS (Tomorrow Wendy), gun violence (God is a Bullet) relationships in an adult fashion ( Dancing On the Edge) and their biggest hit was 'Joey' another great song, I donot access to You tube at work to post clips, but love this band, also another personal favorite tune is 'Heal it Up'. Any fans out there?

YES! Jim Mankey is an incredible guitarist as well.

They even did a cover of Thin Lizzy's "It's Only Money" on the album Free.

I love them as well. "Bloodletting" is my favorite right now, but I need to delve deeper into this band.

'Bloodletting' is the first Concrete Blonde I ever owned, loved it instantly, and their cover of 'Its Only Money' was the highlight of the 'Free' CD.

One of my favorite songs:

Here's another: Leonard Cohen via Concrete Blonde. One of her finest vocal performances as well.

I have their debut and Free on vinyl.
Saw them live in Bergen, Norway in 89..
Johnette Napolitano was an awesome vocalist and they put on quite a show.
She really got the crowd going nuts .
It was in a small venue called Hulen (the Cave), the whole place is inside a cave, old mine or something like that..

Saw them live twice, great concert, saw them live In Canada around 1991 and even videotaped the show, no one questioned me or tired to take away my camcorder, I saw them again closer to home a year or two later and it was another great show .

Johnette Napolitano is an amazing singer with such a very unique but awesome voice. De Jim is def an amazing guitar player as well, with a very unique style. "Joey" to this day remains one of the very few songs that breaks me down everytime I hear it and is one of the best songs ever.

If I'm not mistaken Johnette releaed a solo album a few years back?

MetalRob331 wrote:

Johnette Napolitano is an amazing singer with such a very unique but awesome voice. De Jim is def an amazing guitar player as well, with a very unique style. "Joey" to this day remains one of the very few songs that breaks me down everytime I hear it and is one of the best songs ever.

If I'm not mistaken Johnette releaed a solo album a few years back?

Yes she did I have not purchased it yet but it is on my want list:

The only one I have is Mexican Moon but I love it. I also love Johnette's unique voice.

tohostudios wrote:

The only one I have is Mexican Moon but I love it. I also love Johnette's unique voice.

Mexican Moon excellent album and the title track is worth the price of the CD alone.

I love the song "Jonestown" on that album.

And the vocals on "Heal It Up" are phenomenal.

tohostudios wrote:

The only one I have is Mexican Moon but I love it. I also love Johnette's unique voice.

"Walking In London" and "Bloodletting" are both incredible, I recommend picking those up.

tohostudios wrote:

And the vocals on "Heal It Up" are phenomenal.

She is an incredible vocalist, if someone could post the video for this song from youtube that would be killer.

I love Concrete Blonde. Still In Hollywood has an unreal live version of Tommorrow, Wendy. I've always meant to pick up their live album. Regret that the only time I would've seen them was when they played the HFS festival and I had a big fight with my girlfriend at the time so she dis-invited me.

Damn, you beat me to it!

I don't have access to YouTube at work.

It's about time this thread happened, hey!

Love the first two CB records, Bloodletting is a bit too Anne Rice vampire novel for me. But there's still some good songs on it.

Fave songs would be "Cold Part Of Town", "Dance Along The Edge" and "Scene Of A Perfect Crime".

Also love the duet she did with Paul Westerberg/Replacements on "My Little Problem".

'Cold Part of Town' is a great song and one of fave Johnette compositions, just great songwriting that paints a picture and sets a mood very simply.

Every song on Walking in London is great. That is pretty rare. I saw them at the Ave on tht tour.

But avoid Vowel Movement like the plague. Absolute rubbish.

SAXON1500 wrote:

But avoid Vowel Movement like the plague. Absolute rubbish.

I've always been interested in grabbing a copy considering it also features Holly Vincent of thee great Holly And The Italians......but you say it's rubbish hey.

SAXON1500 wrote:

Every song on Walking in London is great. That is pretty rare. I saw them at the Ave on tht tour.

But avoid Vowel Movement like the plague. Absolute rubbish.

I agree Vowel Movement, Bowel Movement is more like it, it was terrible but I admire the fact that Johnette follows her own muse, but very disappointing considering that Holly Vincent is her co conspirator I did like her other band that only made one album Pretty and Twisted, great songs 'Dear Marlon Brando' and their cover of Roxy Music's 'Mother of Pearl' is fantastic, also loved that she put music to one of Charles Bukowski's poems.

Total noise. No structure.

SAXON1500 wrote:

Total noise. No structure.

That was directed at Vm, not P&T. I like that Pretty and Twisted too. Could have been considered a more mainstream CB album.