{"id":5150,"date":"2010-05-16T15:38:05","date_gmt":"2010-05-16T20:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5150"},"modified":"2010-05-17T15:12:30","modified_gmt":"2010-05-17T20:12:30","slug":"have-a-good-time-but-get-out-alive-wikipedia-the-free-encyclopedia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5150","title":{"rendered":"You Better Learn Something, Boy, While You Still Can"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve written it before; the Iron City Houserockers are the greatest band you’ve never heard of.<\/p>\n

And it was thirty years ago today they released their definining – but not quite definitive – album, Have a Good Time (but Get out Alive)!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Houserockers were led by Joe Grushecky<\/a>, a high school special education teacher who had never quite put away that rock and roll jones.\u00a0 He started “the Brick Alley Band” in 1976, plugged away building a huge reputation on the Pittsburgh bar circuit, and in 1979 released Love’s So Tough<\/em>, an album that was…<\/p>\n

…like a zillion other debut albums by bands on shoestring budgets; with tinny production by a couple of no-name fader jockeys, Love’s So Tough <\/em>stood out in some of the details, mostly a keen eye for the anxious desperation of his fellow working stiffs, and and a raw spirit that cut through the crappy production.<\/p>\n

Cut through it enough to draw some big label attention; the band was picked up by MCA records, and paired with “Miami” Steve Van Zandt – Bruce Springsteen’s second guitarist – for their major label debut.<\/p>\n

The result was Have A Good Time…<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

The Iron City Houserockers (from L): Marc Reisman, Joe Grushecky, Eddie Britt, Gil Snyder, Ned Rankin, Art Nardini<\/p><\/div>\n

And at a time when rock critics on both sides of the Atlantic were swooning over the “anger” and “grittiness” of the so-called “punks”, it was the real thing.<\/p>\n

Part of it was the band.\u00a0 Van Zandt (who produced five songs before leaving the project, turning it over to Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson, who were themselves at the top of their commercal game at the time) has a long history of overwhelming his productions with serial waves of bombast (see Lone Justice’s Shelter<\/em>); it took a strong band not to get lost in Van Zandt’s huge, pounding vision.\u00a0 And the Houserockers were up to the task.\u00a0 Grushecky sang and played rhythm guitar; the rhythm section of Art Nardini (bass) and Gil Snyder (drums) anchored a band of…<\/p>\n

…bar room players, and on the surface nothing more, really; Eddie Britt was a serviceable lead guitar player; Ned Rankin played classic barroom piano and organ; much of the band’s sound hinged around harmonica whiz Marc Reisman.<\/p>\n

Individually, then, they were just another bar band.<\/p>\n

But they were much more than the sum of their parts, especially hitched to Grushecky’s music – where again, the right combination of time, band, producer and inspiration transcended the obvious limits.<\/p>\n

On Love’s So Tough<\/em>, Grushecky’s music had been like cut-rate Springsteen, or leaner and meaner Bob Seger.<\/p>\n

But on Have A Good Time<\/em>, driven by first by Van Zandt’s rock and roll myth-chasing and then by Hunter and Ronson’s then-peaking creativity, the band and the music exploded into something vastly <\/em>more than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n

The title cut sets the stage; the song attacks from the first bar with a ferocity that The Clash never approached:<\/p>\n

You never fit quite right in school
\nWent out and broke all the rules
\nTalk so loud and act so cool – that’s right
\nOnly sixteen when you left home
\nThought you could make it on your own
\nBecause you were born with the right to roam the night<\/p>\n

You said “don’t put those chains on me
\nI am young and I am free
\nAnd I’ll be what I want to be” – that’s right<\/p>\n

Have a good time but get out alive
\nDon’t you know only the strong survive
\nHave a good time but get out alive<\/p>\n

You always did what you wanted
\nIt didn’t matter who you hurt
\nBut you didn’t hurt no one like you hurt yourself
\nYou took anything that you could get
\nDid it all with no regrets
\nYou tried so hard but you can’t forget your past<\/p>\n

Don’t you know this life is killing you
\nYou act crazy but don’t be a fool
\nDo what you want to do but keep in mind<\/p>\n

Have a good time but get out alive
\nDon’t you know only the strong survive
\nHave a good time but get out alive<\/p>\n

After one long night
\nWhen Bobby was involved in a senseless fight
\nHe woke up in jail with a broken old man
\nThe old man was staring down at him
\nHe said “boy you better wipe off that stupid grin
\nAnd learn something now while you still can”<\/p>\n

Have a good time but get out alive
\nDon’t you know only the strong survive
\nHave a good time but get out alive<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No video exists that I can find of the Houserockers in their prime; here’s Grushecky’s latest incarnation of the band from five years ago<\/a>, doing a version that doesn’t show too <\/em>much wear and tear; the band features Nardini and Reisman as well as Grushecky’s son on guitar.<\/p>\n

Much of the album was cut from the same cloth; three of the five other Van Zandt-produced tracks (“Blondie”, “Angela” and “Don’t Let Them Push You Around”) are subtle as buckets of scrap steel to the forehead, blazing gems of rock and roll ferocity that mocked the art-school pretensions of the “punks”.<\/p>\n

Hunter and Ronson’s seven tracks are\u00a0 more subtle; “Pumping Iron”, “Running Scared” and “We’re Not Dead Yet” sound like Bob Seger songs fed through Hunter and Ronson’s glam pub rock in a way that, miraculously, stripped off the glam; “Hypnotized” is a paranoid minor-key rocker that falls flat, as does the ballad “Price of Love”.<\/p>\n

But it’s the end of Side Two that gives us the album’s biggest, riskiest moment.\u00a0 It’s two-song couplet, “Old Man Bar\/Junior’s Bar”, that is the most thrilling, sobering moment on the whole album.<\/p>\n

“Old Man Bar” starts with an accordion playing an Italian-sounding lament, with keyboardist Gil Snyder singing in a voice that sounds – honestly – sixty years old with forty-five years of three packs a day.<\/p>\n

Going down to Dom’s Cafe, just to have a drink
\nThe old men in their same seats down the row…
\nTelling tales of World War Two for anyone to hear,
\ntheir insides lined with scars that never show.<\/p>\n

Old Man Bar is where I am and where I’ll be
\nOld Man Bar with a jukebox full of memories
\nOld Man Bar until they kill the neon light
\nI hope nobody sees me here tonight.
\nI hope nobody sees me here tonight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A sad, almost depressing song about the kind of bar, and patrons, you see on every seedy tumbledown strip wherever you are.<\/p>\n

And the song – the according, and Mick Ronson’s mandolin part – keen to an arthritic, tired stop; the record courts four…<\/p>\n

…and Snyder slams the snare to launch “Junior’s Bar” – a song with the same chord progression as “Old Man”, but with the whole band telling the story of a man thirty years younger:<\/p>\n

Going down to Junior’s Bar, just to have a drink
\nhoping for a one-night rendezvous.
\nThe girls down there, all at the bar, dressed up and looking good,
\nGonna show them all my new tattoo…<\/p>\n

Junior’s Bar, where the band is playing just for me,
\nThey move the crowdn they play real loud
\nIt’s a poor boy’s symphony
\nJunior’s Bar, until they kill the neon light
\nI hope I don’t go home alone tonight
\nI hope I don’t go home alone tonight<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Junior” was as glorious a rock and roll anthem as has ever been played; the original featured Ellen Foley on a delicious background vocal, and a guitar solo that may have been played by Britt, but had Van Zandt all over it.<\/p>\n

I can’t even find the audio for “Old Man”; here’s “Junior”, again with a newer incarnation of the band.
\n<\/embed><\/object>
\nHave A Good Time… <\/em>was uneven album; the band’s full promise would be revealed a year or so later, when Amercan roots-rock impresario Steve Cropper would produce Blood On The Bricks<\/em>, one of the most perfect albums in the history of rock and roll.<\/p>\n

But the highlight moments on Have A Good Time<\/em>… – the title cut, “Blondie”, “Angela”, “Old Man Bar\/Junior’s Bar” – are, in the annals of America’s brief “heartland rock” phase in the eighties, among the best songs ever; harder-edged than anything Springsteen has ever done, sharper and more immediate than Bob Seger at his best.<\/p>\n

The idea of American Rock and Roll may never have been carried off better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written it before; the Iron City Houserockers are the greatest band you’ve never heard of. And it was thirty years ago today they released their definining – but not quite definitive – album, Have a Good Time (but Get out Alive)! The Houserockers were led by Joe Grushecky, a high school special education teacher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-the-year-that-was"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5150"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10923,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5150\/revisions\/10923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}