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Fly on the Wall

Spit Shine

Fatherhood has been good for Saliva-frontman Josie Scott. In an interview with The Edmonton Star, the Memphis musician discussed his desire to balance family life with rock-and-roll and offered some advice for aspiring songwriters.

“If I say to you, ‘That bitch broke my heart,’ you can probably identify with me,” Scott told the Star. “But if I say, ‘We were horseback riding and … she shoved me off the horse, and I broke my arm,’ you’d probably cease to identify with that. … The key ingredient is bridging the gap between your heart and mine.”


Raiford Museum

A few months ago, Robert Raiford, the mighty godfather of Memphis disco, hung up his sequined cape and locked the door to his world-famous dance emporium. Now the Memphis Business Journal is reporting that Raiford’s Hollywood Disco will likely reopen.

Local businessman John Maher told MBJ that Raiford will soon return to the DJ booth. “We want to try to duplicate what Raiford did,” Maher said, as if such a thing were actually possible.

Do a Study

The Albany Times Union recently sat down with Carla Sofka, an academic who has spent much of her career studying death and loss but who recently has turned her attention to “celebrity mourning.” Sofka offered four possible reasons why some celebrities — Elvis in particular — live on decades after their deaths.

First, perhaps the celebrity made a contribution that continues to resonate long after his death. Second, “a lot of people lived vicariously through [their favorite celebrity].” Third, “people like John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe died young and in mysterious ways and people are still interested in the conspiracy theories.” And the fourth reason, according to Sofka, is “the sheer amount of money there is to be made off of famous dead people.”

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Music Record Reviews

Blood Stained Love Story

With diminished commercial returns for their last album (2004’s Survival of the Sickest), with mainstream rock moving away from the macho metal swagger they specialize in, and with frontman Josey Scott pursuing an acting career, local radio-rock stars Saliva seemed to be finished. But, with the departure of guitarist Chris D’abaldo reducing them to a four-piece during recording (D’abaldo has since been replaced by Full Devil Jacket guitarist Jonathan Montoya), Saliva returns with album number four.

The opening “Ladies and Gentleman” displays a silly braggadocio we’ve come to expect from Saliva (“Like nothing you’ve ever seen before … your jaws will be on the floor … after this you’ll be begging for more … zzzzzz …”), but what follows is a blandly professional hard-rock record that never equals the good silliness of previous career highlights, such as the sugary pop-metal of “Your Disease” and sports-arena-worthy boom-bap of “Click, Click, Boom” from the debut Every Six Seconds or the idiosyncratic Southern boogie rock of Survival of the Sickest‘s title track.

In those moments, Saliva sounded like themselves. But similar virtues are few and far between on Blood Stained Love Story. The rap-rock meets hair-metal “King of the Stereo” may boast a chorus that would have fit in on Dirk Diggler’s album (“The whole world is waiting for the/King of the Stereo/This is too damn hot!”), but at least it’s goofy fun. But on Blood Stained Love Story, Saliva sound torn between being themselves and desperately trying to conform to the contours of contemporary hard-rock success. “Black Sheep” is the kind of menacing metal they might have played at the New Daisy a decade ago. “Never Gonna Change” sounds like they’re hoping radio listeners will mistake them for Nickelback. The vaguely rootsy “Here With You” actually sounds personal. And “Twister” sounds like they’re trying to convince themselves they can be an alt-rock band.

The end result is an album-long personality crisis unlikely to reverse the band’s commercial decline. — CH

Grade: C+