CANNED HEAT: FRIENDS IN THE CAN (2003)
1) Same Old Games; 2) Bad
Trouble; 3) Black Coffee; 4) Getaway; 5) It Don't Matter; 6) Let's Work
Together; 7) 1,2,3 Here We Go Again; 8) That Fat Cat; 9) Home To You; 10) Never
Get Out Of These Blues Alive; 11) Little Wheel.
Okay, let's see who these guys were in 2003...
Fito on drums, ensuring the «right» to be called Canned Heat; Greg Kage still
on bass, as well as lead vocals and songwriting for one track (ʽThat Fat Catʼ —
an anti-capitalist rant that does not work too well when the proletarian
protagonist introduces himself as "a fine-lovin' bitch-chasin' hound
dog"); Dallas Hodge and John Paulus on guitars; Stanley Behrens on wind
instruments and harmonica. Any of these names ring a bell? Only to remind us
that Robert Lucas is out of the band, and since he was pretty much the best
thing to happen to the post-Wilson, post-Hite Heat ever, this means that we're
quite inevitably back to square one. In fact, you can tell that from the title:
the minute you begin subscribing to the «...And Friends» ideology, it's as if
you've officially put yourself on the
barroom circuit, regardless of whether you have already been cruising it
surreptitiously or not.
And who are the friends, by the way? The eerie
thing about the list on the back cover is that some of these people were
already dead in 2003 — like John Lee
Hooker (died 2001), or Heat's own Henry Vestine (died 1997). Others are not so
much friends as legitimate past members (Harvey Mandel on a re-recording of
ʽLet's Work Togetherʼ; Robert Lucas on... another
re-recording of ʽLet's Work Togetherʼ, appended as a bonus track — was this a
sort of «let's get all of Canned Heat's guitarists to re-record one song for
us» game?), and a few members of John Lee Hooker's band. This is sort of
ridiculous — surely they still had at least one or two friends left in the big
leagues? Where's Eric Clapton with ʽFurther On Down The Roadʼ? Where's Buddy
Guy with ʽMary Had A Little Lambʼ? This is more like Old Ghosts And Sidemen In The Can.
Anyway, musically this is indeed a big letdown
from the tightness of Boogie 2000: a
mish-mash selection from several different sessions that had no reason to be
released, since most of it consists of very basic, very perfunctory blues-rock
— professional, but never exciting. Only three tracks stand out: the
aforementioned ʽThat Fat Catʼ, mainly because of the hilariously bad lyrics;
ʽNever Get Out Of These Blues Aliveʼ, with Taj Mahal on guitar (the coolest
moment comes at the end, when the band stays around to jam a little bit and
they overdub a piece of an interview with John Lee Hooker where he uses his
deepest bass rumble to share a few memories about how great it was for him to
be backed by Canned Heat in the old days — a bit creepy); and ʽLittle Wheelʼ,
from an older session with John Lee Hooker himself on vocals and Henry Vestine
on lead guitar — rougher sounding, almost lo-fi quality, but ten times as
passionate as almost everything on the rest of the album (I think it was 1989,
when Hooker was making his own «...and friends» album, The Healer).
Of course, one or two tracks are hardly enough
to make a recommendation, so just stay away unless only for completism' sake —
focus your efforts on locating Boogie
2000 instead, if you want decent proof of blues-rock not yet being
completely dead at the turn of the millennium. These Friends In The Can are quite a sorry lot in comparison: not exactly
thumbs-down worthy, since everything is kept clean and professional, but
instantly forgettable.
I remember this album fondly... especially the vocals of Stanley Behrens, who has some likeness to Alan Wilson's voice. But you're certainly right that it's inconsistent!
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