Post by Matt Kivel

Alright, we get it. Country is cool. Late nights barnstorming, plowing through bottles of Jack Daniels, lamenting broken love affairs, firing a 12-gauge -- it's all well and good, but where is the new angle? Where is the next level of artistic depth that once seemed inevitable when bands like Uncle Tupelo and The Jayhawks roamed the midwest? David Vandervelde is cut from that same cloth of talented country songsmiths as Tweedy, Louris and Farrar, but he really doesn't stray from the tried and true formula of honky-tonk rave-ups and weep into your Pabst ballads that seems to define nearly every band under the alt-country tag. 

His trio proved to be a nice change of pace for the Echo stage, whose audience was ready for a reprieve after an altercation with the police and a brutal series of hardcore acts. Bass, drums and guitar, simply played with Vandervelde's axe floating high above the mix. They dutifully channelled the hard-rocking power of Southern rock overlords Lynard Skynard and were met with a modest reception from the weary crowd of punks and hardcore addicts. 

There is no doubt that David Vandervelde is good at what he does -- especially the ultra morose ballads, which are quite reminiscent of Secretly Canadian labelmate Jason Molina's work. His high wail cuts clear and warbly, much like Neil Young's more somber vocal inflections ("Old Man" and "Mellow My Mind"). But he's just not adding anything new or exciting to the tested songwriting formulas.

Photo by Nick Befort

Having returned from Las Vegas with the Four Seasons still ringing in my head - please "Dawn,"
go away! - it feels like a bit of kismet that Collectors’ Choice Music would announce that is releasing eight Frankie Valli solo albums as four two-fers.
Coming out June 24 are:
"Solo" and "Timeless." Valli's debut features a cover photo with the signer standing on a silver platter being held up by the other three members of the Four Seasons. Disc includes “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore).” "Timeless," from 1968, includes  “To Give (The Reason I Live).”
"Close Up" and "Valli": Valli shifted to Motown’s pop label and then to Private Stock in 1975. When he left Motown, he paid a reported $4,000 for the master of a song he thought could be a hit. The song was “My Eyes Adored You,” which appeared on "Close Up." "Valli," recorded in 1976, includes Boz Scaggs’ “We’re All Alone.”
"Our Day Will Come" and "Lady Put The Light Out": Valli's disco version of the Ruby & the Romantics hit is the lead track on his first album in the disco era; "Lady Put the Light Out" featured three contributions from the Raspberries’ Eric Carmen.
"Frankie Valli . . . Is The Word" and "Heaven About Me": Valli move to Warner/Curb for 1978’s ". . . Is The Word," which followed his cameo in "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band." (It's where he met Barry Gibb.) Gibb was commissioned to write the title song for the film adaptation of "Grease," which Valli recorded and became a No. 1 hit. "Heaven Above Me," released on MCA/Curb in 1980, featured  “Where Did We Go Wrong,” a duet with Chris Forde that Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio co-wrote.

In the relentless sea of cover albums emerges Frankie Valli, singing 14 love songs for "Romancing The ‘60s," which Universal Motown will release Oct. 2.
Bob Gaudio, Valli's partner in the Four Seasons, has produced. Disc's arranger/conductors Charles Calello and Artie Schroeck are also veterans of Four Seasons/Valli sessions. Gaudio and Valli last collaborated on a 1992 Four Seasons album; Valli's last solo album was released in 1978.
The tracks and the original hitmakers: Bobby Vee’s “Take Good Care of My Baby”; Ben E. King’s “Spanish Harlem”; The Drifters’ “On Broadway” (with the original Broadway cast of Jersey Boys); Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour”; Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”; The Temptations’ “My Girl”/the Rascals’ “Groovin’”; The Casinos’ “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye”; Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny”; Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Any Day Now” and “This Guy’s in Love With You”; Gilbert Becaud’s “Let it Be Me”; and Tony Hatch’s “Call Me.”