As my good rock & roll friend Kyle and my lovely wife Debbie will tell you, I’m a big fan of Top Five Lists: i.e. My Top Five Live Shows of All Time, Top Five Guitar Solos, Top Five Power-Pop Tunes, etc. They will also claim that over the years my Top Five lists have expanded to include close to a hundred choices of concerts, solos, songs, etc., depending on the day of the week, the weather, and my mood as I’m detailing the list.
That number is WAY overblown. There couldn’t be more than 20 entries in any one of the Top Five lists I’ve compiled through the ages.
Here is installment one of Ricki’s Fives: (Needless to say, a five-part series.)
NOTE: COLIN & THE LEAGUE BOWLERS WILL APPEAR THIS SUNDAY, NOV. 21, AT WOODLANDS TAVERN (1200 W. 3RD AVENUE)
FOR AN AFTERNOON OF DAY DRINKING, 4-6 PM. (DOORS AT 3 PM, ADMISSION IS FREE.)
TOP FIVE SONGS COLIN & THE LEAGUE BOWLERS SHOULD COVER
I flatter myself to think I’m one of maybe 25 rock & roll fans on the planet that have seen ALL of the incarnations of The League Bowlers, Colin’s sideline band from Watershed. For the uninitiated, The League Bowlers are meant to be a modern take on the Classic British Pub-Rock Bands of the mid-1970’s – Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe, Dr. Feelgood – who paved the way for punk-rock to careen into the rock & roll consciousness. Pub-rock bands played a classy/classic blend of original songs AND covers, differentiating themselves from cover bands or bar bands with the crucial inclusion of original tunes.
The first version of the Bowlers in 1994 were Colin and Watershed bassist and co-lead singer Joe Oestreich on guitars, Paul Beltz on bass and Watershed drummer Herb Schupp. The basic idea grew beyond being a Georgia Satellites tribute band to to play up the more Americana (which hadn’t even been INVENTED yet as a genre) rootsy side of Watershed’s usual rock-power-pop leanings, and to be able to throw in a few covers (something Watershed NEVER did.) The Bowlers would occasionally OPEN for Watershed, an interesting idea I don’t think I’ve ever seen explored by another band (except possibly The Dead Schembechlers).
The second – and probably best-known – incarnation of The League Bowlers was built on a generational fault-line of two thirty-year old’s (Colin on guitar and Dan Cochran – formerly of Big Back Forty – on bass) and two fifty-year old’s (Mike Parks on guitar and Jim Johnson on drums – both from Willie Phoenix & the True Soul Rockers, among many other bands like Shakedown and Frank Harrison & the Straights). That musical fault-line led to some truly blazing live shows (which I will at some point detail here on Pencil Storm, but not today) but also led to the band breaking up ONSTAGE in 2008. (A tale you can read about here, if you are so inclined: The League Bowlers Roll a Gutterball and Break Up Onstage.)
Our focus tonight, however, is the THIRD incarnation of the band which I like to call Colin & the Bowlers to separate it from the earlier versions: Colin & Rick Kinsinger on guitars, Andy Hindman on bass and Dave Masica on drums (replacing Herb Schupp when Herb pulled up roots and moved to California). This is the band I formulated this list of projected covers for, taking into account their strengths and (negligible) weaknesses.
“B.I.G. T.I.M.E.” / KEITH SYKES
In 1978, I had maybe four ways of making money. (I really can’t say I had four JOBS, that would be WAY overstating the case.) I worked 40 hours a week at my day job as receiving manager of the West Broad Street K-Mart; I played in a band called Ricki & the West Side Rockers; I was a roadie for Willie Phoenix’s BEST BAND EVER, Romantic Noise, running lights, wrangling guitars, and doing whatever else needed done; and I was writing for a Columbus rock weekly, Focus. Part of the process at Focus involved sorting through all the various vinyl releases the record companies would send out every week (and there were HUNDREDS of those every month back in those halcyon days of rock & roll) and choosing some to write reviews of.
One of my favorite finds of that period was Keith Sykes’ debut album, I’m Not Strange, I’m Just Like You. The opening tune – “B.I.G. T.I.M.E.” – was a KILLER and there were at least two or three other great cuts. I’ve always thought it’s one of the best songs I’ve ever heard to open a rock & roll set and I think Colin & the boys could make it their own.
“FINANCIAL DISASTER (IT’S ONLY MONEY)” / SCREAMS
Screams were a Midwest band who might have been cohorts of Cheap Trick at one time or another, and who never got the attention they deserved. I only got to see them live once – opening an Iggy Pop show at the old Columbus Agora – in 1979 or so, loved them at first sight & sound and sought out their self-titled debut record. Sadly, the production on said disc was abominable, I couldn’t believe they were the same band I had seen BLAZE the Agora stage. One of the few surviving listenable tunes on the disc was “Financial Disaster (It’s Only Money)” and it’s my second pick for the Bowlers set.
“SWITCHIN’ TO GLIDE > THIS BEAT GOES ON” / THE KINGS
Probably the best-known of any of my Bowlers cover picks, The Kings were a new-wave band out of Canada who were all over rock radio in 1980 with this insanely catchy segued tune. My Friday & Saturday night ritual of that time was to fire up a joint, blast “Switchin’ To Glide > This Beat Goes On” on my stereo, and – in the words of Bruce Springsteen – “head out into the night” for some rock & roll at a local club. Possibly an odd choice for Colin, but I think the guys could nail it as a cover.
“1000 MILES AWAY” / HOODOO GURUS
Just flat-out one of the most criminally overlooked songs in all of rock & roll, “1000 Miles Away” is like the greatest Kinks song ever that Ray Davies forgot to write. There’s not one second of this 4:30 tune that I don’t love. It’s not only one of the great “on the road” songs of all time, it’s one of the great rock & roll songs, PERIOD. NOBODY does songs that build from a whisper to a shout like this anymore, and I miss ‘em like I miss great guitar solos. And I think the gravity Colin could bring to this song after all those years & DECADES in the Watershed van makes this a perfect song for The Bowlers to cover.
“SLOW DEATH” / THE FLAMIN’ GROOVIES
Okay, I’ve gotta fully admit, right up front here, THIS cover selection would likely have to have been done by the Gawel/Parks/Cochran/Johnson version of The League Bowlers. I think the raggedy six-string electric guitar genius presence of Mike Parks might be required for the Bowlers to get down & dirty enough to fulfill their cover duties on this song. Still – with heroin overdoses killing more than 100,000 people in the United States from May 2020 to April 2021 - this song (originally released in 1972, FORTY-NINE YEARS AGO) remains sadly relevant and timely today, and I think the boys should give it a go.