White Noise

Today we return yet again to the American Southwest to nit-pick at another obscure underground release. ‘Different’ is just about the perfect title for this record because, well, it is indeed different! Unlike other heavy-ish acts from that time and place (Voltz, Loosely Tight, etc), White Noise adopted a split personality when it came to songwriting. The songs with male vocals, courtesy of Carl Montney, are very staid hard rock numbers, most of which fall on the wrong side of the Limp versus Heavy boundary. The songs featuring female vocalist Susan Vickers are very different in composition (sorry, couldn’t resist). As such this is no bona fide hard rocker or bonehead slammer, but the album does flirt with the edges of the heavy spectrum and it is the kind of album that looks interesting enough to ensnare the unsuspecting metal vinyl purveyor, so it’s worth some of our time to consider.

Side A is pretty much a total loss. Opener ‘Frontstage Pass’ shows the band to be operating in very, very basic late 70s hard rock terms. The lyrics are simple and cliché and the instrumentation is about on par with the lyrics. ‘Gonna Skate’ moves Susan to the mic for a strange, jazzy number that feels like it was supposed to be a scat tune, but the band didn’t quite have the musical chops to pull it off. Then Carl moves front and center again for ‘HD Boogie’. Now, you know as well as I that any time you see the word boogie in the title of a song that’s supposed to be heavy, you are asking for disappointment. And boy, does this song disappoint. ‘HD’ stands for Harley Davidson, and the song is meant to be an anthem to those big ol’ manly hogs. Except it starts with a harmonica solo. I’ll pause to let that sink in for a moment.

………….

Yeah. At the risk of sounding harsh, this sounds like the ‘hard rock’ song you tried to write with your 12-year old cousin while his family was visiting you for 2 weeks in Connecticut during the summer of 1976 when you guys had just discovered the Bay City Rollers. It sounds like the flipside of every disappointing NWOBHM single you’ve ever regretted buying. The delivery is so weak that they really should have called this ‘The Vespa Boogie’, except that would be an insult to the thrust and horsepower that a Vespa delivers. Side A wraps up with Susan singing a split song called ‘Dancing Bear/Bring Me Giants’. Despite doing her best Grace Slick impression (hey, if you’re gonna copy someone, copy one of the best), this song just leaves me scratching my head; I think they were going for ‘arty’ and just didn’t know how to package that concept musically...? What were these folks doing? I would bet a decent amount of my OG Australian death metal cassettes that this band formed from the remnants of two pre-existing bands, and they decided to keep half the songs from each of their former bands’ catalogs. Regardless of how they concocted such a weird set list, by the end of this side you’re seriously considering telling the Discogs seller that you never received the package and asking for a partial refund. Side B thankfully (one might say mercifully) delivers some much better songs. ‘Soul of the Spider’ sees Susan and the band finally nail an atmospheric number after the failed attempts on Side A. This is a cool, moody tune where the elements finally come together. This song has been posted on YouTube and Discogs, and it is strong enough to explain why people are interested in learning more about this album. Carl subsequently mucks things up again on the follow-up, ‘Love On the Run’, which would have sounded lifeless and dated even in 1981. But then Susan nails another somewhat creepy tune, once again channeling Grace on the great ‘Obsession’. How this song is on the same album- and by the same band- that gave us ‘HD Boogie’ is harder to fathom than the purpose of Virtual XI. And, to prove that every dog has his day, Carl finally delivers on the album’s closer, ‘Only Yesterday’. This is the only one of the straightforward rock songs that passes for a decent hard rock number.

And there you have it. Certainly not a gem of, well, anything, but not a total loss either, so there’s no need to scam some poor Discogs seller out of a refund due to your embarrassment over what you spent your money on. If you have a soft spot for Grace Slick clones doing some nice, slower, moody rock songs, then check this out if you can get a copy for a reasonable price. Or, if you’re a huge fan of Slayer’s ‘Dangerous Appetite’, you can hear Darryl Ogawa here, practicing his trade a year before Slayer delivered their album, presumably after White Noise had faded into the background (sorry, couldn’t resist).