Tuff Darts

s/t

(Sire / Music on CD)

Led by lead guitarist/primary tunesmith Jeff Salen (RIP), the Tuff Darts were among the more colorful and proficient of the 1970s CBGB class. That was amply evidenced in their three tracks on 1975's Live at CBGBs double LP. Robert Gordon was then the group's voice.

Tommy Frenzy, himself crackerjack at the mic, had by this 1978 Sire platter assumed the Darts' frontman position. The undersung colleagues of Big Apple brawlers the Ramones, Blondie, Dead Boys, and Heartbreakers shone like streetlights amid a streetfight, and are recalled fondly by in-know survivors of bowery overnights.

Tuff Darts compositions were mini-classic episodes in which regulation Rock'n'Roll and Pop inclinations were strained through wiseass Punk attitude (that occasionally cruised the more deviant Red Light precincts), ending up as sleek missiles that satisfied. 

Some tracks cried 'Radio.' Others belonged in the back pages of under-counter periodicals. All, though, were front-of-the-underclass. 

Several reissues of this LP have occurred over decades, the most recent being a 2024 CD issuance by Music on CD.

Recommended: "Who's Been Sleeping Here," "(Your Love is Like) Nuclear Waste," "Here Comes Trouble," "Rats," "Fun City," "All For the Love of Rock'n'Roll," "Love and Trouble," "Head Over Heels," "Slash," "Phone Booth Man," "My Guiar Lies Bleeding in My Arms"

Videos: "Who's Been Sleeping Here"   "(Your Love is Like) Nuclear Waste"   "Here Comes Trouble"   "Rats"   "All For the Love of Rock'n'Roll"   "Head Over Heels"   "Slash"

Amoeba Records

Music on CD

Darkside Records

Amazon

With previous lead singer Robert Gotdon

Back In the Day, 1976

Various artists

Live At CBGB's DBL LP

(Atlantic)

This subcultural period document hit shelves in 1976. Also that year, the Ramones issued their maiden wax on Sire.  (Epic had released Bronx metallic proto-Punks the Dictators' debut LP in March of the previous year, which helped trigger the DIY onslaught.) 

The burgeoning New York City Punk uprising featured groups of diverse natures, their sole shared trait being defiant reaction against the tedium of the era's mainstream Rock product. That stylistic dissimilarity distinguishes Live At CBGB's, though with sometimes worthwhile/other instances dismissable result.

But the LP contained no Dead Boys, Blondie, or Richard Hell and the Voidoids -- acts that gained considerable notice and were identified with the momentous scene. All would shortly release discs of their own.

The major plus is the inclusion of three Tuff Darts mini-classics that portray the band when Robert Gordon was its singer. As the Darts would demonstrate on their 1978 Sire album (recorded after Gordon had begun a successful solo career and Tommy Frenzy had assumed lead vocal duties), it was among the more colorful and proficient of the CBGB class.

Other Big Apple combos that contributed significant entries include Mink DeVille, Laughing Dogs, and the Miamis. Their roles in that storied time merit recognition. (The Miamis' "We Deliver" could easily be a sitcom theme.) 

Reissued by Atlantic in CD format, in 2007, Live At CBGB's certainly has recommendable factors, both as a snapshot of that New York epoch and time-capsule preserving important works. But it is hardly free of shortcomings. Know that going in.

Recommended: "All For the Love Of Rock'n'Roll" (Tuff Darts), "I Need a Million" (Laughing Dogs), "Let Me Dream If I Want To" (Mink DeVille), "Head Over Heels" (Tuff Darts), "We Deliver" (The Miamis), "It Feels Alright Tonight" (Laughing Dogs), "Slash" (Tuff Darts)

Videos: "All for the Love of Rock'n'Roll"   "Head Over Heels"   "Slash" (Tuff Darts)   "Let Me Dream If I Want To"   "I Need a Million"   "It Feels Alright Tonight" (The Laughing Dogs)   "We Deliver" (The Miamis)

Discogs

Strummer Room

Acoustic Sounds

Apple

Amazon

Spotify

Back In the Day, 1994

Hank Flamingo

s/t

(Giant/Warner)

As the Tuff Darts lamented, you can't sell something if it hasn't been sold before. Hank Flamingo (a band, not an individual) produced one LP that captured its olio of traditional Country, Rock'n'Roll merriment, and sideways 'alternative' adventurism. It was home-style good and sporadically quirky. "Little Miss Fire Prevention" and single "Baby, It's You" romped with familiar dirt-road mischievousness, their fiddle and six-string interplay of back-country blood. But "Tennessee Plates" and particularly "Redneck Martians" (which cultivated idiosyncratic visage) employed tilted sonic effects, locating them at a distance from Nashville proper. Label marketers surely had a stern go. Audiences groomed to applaud orthodoxy were nonplussed. Regardless, much fun was had by those without rigid demands.

Members atomized the following year. Drawling and baggy-suited frontman Trent Summar, whose freewheeling demeanor portrayed affability, formed Trent Summar and the New Row Mob. Over years, the group featured Flamingo guitarist Philip Wallace, as well as eminent picker Kenny Vaughn (McBride and the Ride, numerous ensuant marquee-name associations, and Marty Stuart's present band). Others included Michael Granda (Ozark Mountain Daredevils), and Dan Baird (Georgia Satellites). Two platters were cut for Palo Duro.

Earlier this month, Trent led the Trent Summar Band in performing at the California Avocado Festival. He is also the "boss man" of Farm Rock Music Publishing.

Recommended: "Little Miss Fire Prevention," "Baby, It's You," "When You Ran With Me," "Tennessee Plates," "White Lightnin'," "Redneck Martians Stole My Baby," "Slaw"

Videos: bio and "Baby, It's You" (13:11)  "Redneck Martians Stole My Baby"

Facebook  (Trent)

Discogs

Apple

Amazon

Boomplay

Spotify