Daily Bandcamp Album – Riff Cannon – Mercury Mountain
“If a rock band chooses a name like Riff Cannon either has the balls to keep the promises or is planning to commit suicide at the first gig! In the case of the Bostonian Riff Cannon band, promises have a lot of chances to be fulfilled!
Riff Cannon is a young band that released its debut full-length album, Mercury Mountain, in summer 2009.
The band’s sources of inspiration listed in myspace are as varied as the sounds contained in the debut album: Black Sabbath, Neurosis, Leafhound, Captain Beyond, Atomic Rooster, Cave In, Bloodrock, Hawkwind, Sleep, Torche, Dead Meadow, Pink Floyd, Electric Wizard, Witchcraft, Thin Lizzy, Om, Queens of the Stone Age, Led Zeppelin, Earth, Deep Purple, Groundhogs, Cactus, YOB, Witch, Pentagram… The album is highly enjoyable and varied and tracks cover styles from bluesy fuzzy stoner to heavy doom to space rock. I must say I enjoyed the riff-rich juicy, dirty stoner-doom tracks more than the spacey ones, although the latter are nice as well. I mean, they say “riff” and I want “riff” …
Definitely a band to check out!”
Reviewed by Mari (SludgeSwamp)
nuff said
Vinyl Shopping in the Big City
JJ over at The Obelisk does a great feature whenever he visits a record store that he write about it. I think it’s a cool idea. I don’t get out to record stores to often myself so there isn’t anything to write about unless you want to hear about my mouse clicks on Amazon or Ebay. I’m going to “borrow” JJ’s idea and write about my recent experience to one of the few record stores still left in the Chicago area.
Yesterday, Sunday October 17th was a special day for a few reasons. Not only was I able to visit Chicago’s own Reckless Records Madison Street location, a special guest was in town. Ripple-Effect’s own Racer X. After meeting up on North Michigan, Ave and having some great deep dish pizza, it was off vinyl hunting.
The store is located at 26 E. Maidson St in the heart of downtown Chicago. Nearly two hours were spent sifting through most of the vinyl racks and cd bins, some treasures walked away in our arms. The store is half the size of their North Broadway location but still packs a good amount of product. When you walk in, the cd section will be to your right, straight ahead on the far end of the store is the counter area as well as where they keep most of the product. The wall to your left has their jazz, country LPs and attached to the walls themselves are shelves filled with DVDs and VHS tapes (remember those?). The center area is where they keep the rest of their vinyl. It’s divided up between rock, metal, garage, punk, space, Rap/R&B. Bigger groups/artists have their own section within their category. Individual members of those groups that have side project or solo albums get grouped in with their main band. An example would be Pete Townshend’s solo stuff being grouped in with The Who’s material. Then they have a small section of 45’s next to everything else. The bargain bin is underneath the main vinyl with every LP costing a reasonable $0.50. That’s where our adventure begins.
Racer X was all over the bargain LPs from the get go. I looked around a bit before I joined in. The first and only bargain find for me was Savoy Brown’s 1974 album, Boogie Brothers. Savoy Brown are a British blues rock band from London that are still around today. In what was started as a side project from Savoy Brown and quickly became a southern rock influenced band became a group known as Foghat. Best known for their hit “I Just Want To Make Love To You” off of their self titled debut was my next find for a reasonable $2. The next find, and I wasn’t expecting to come across it, was the 1972 album from a group called Cactus. I came across their final (until 2006) album ‘Ot ‘N’ Sweaty. Cactus was originally formed with Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck. Wikipedia can educate you more on them if interested.
Sticking with the southern rock theme I came across Molly Hatchet’s 1979 Flirtin’ With Disaster album. For an original pressing at a cost of $3, how can you pass that up? The visit wouldn’t be complete without a CD would it? Of course it could but today I had to walk out with a used but in mint condition Wooden Shjips’ 2007 self titled debut album for a reasonable $5. One last look around before checking out paid off for me when I discovered my highlight purchase that I somehow missed the first time through. I came across a 1973 LP called Sufficiently Breathless by a band called Captain Beyond. It was the most expensive priced item I bought at $9 but still reasonable. 
Reckless Records has been around since 1989. It’s one of the few chains of record stores still around in the city. Their prices are reasonable for older and used stuff. New stuff is priced higher but it’s also on par with the prices you’d find for new elsewhere online. If you’re in or near Chicago, check out one of Reckless Records‘ locations and lose yourself in everything they have to offer.
The Soda Shop Needs Help
As Jake posted on Facebook a few days ago, we’re looking for help. Him and I focus a lot on the rock side of things and we tend to neglegt the doom and sludge portion. Because of that we’re looking for a contributor or two to help add give those two other genres a little bit more exposure. Here is what we’re looking for:
Some writing experience preferred but not required. Please submit a few samples of your work. Samples may be cut and paste into an email, a URL or any other form.
We’re looking for people passionate about the doom and sludge genres of music. If you don’t absolutley love doom and sludge then still feel free to submit but keep in mind that doom and sludge is out top priority.
Must have both a Facebook and WordPress account. Knowledge of both also required. No HTML experience required but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Contributors will be required to review doom and sludge albums and post the reviews on The Soda Shop blog and post links on The Soda Shop Facebook page. Whenever possible, post about doom and sludge related news onto the blog and Facebook page. Keep in mind, this is more or less done in your spare time. You put in what time you can and contribute as much as you can. We aren’t looking for someone that’s going to post something once every few months, please don’t bother if you’re that type.
Now this doesn’t pay money. We’re all as broke as the next person. We can pay you by giving you our thanks and from time to time, free music. Look at it as more of a way to unleash some of your creative side. We’re not as big as Rolling Stone so we don’t see they type of traffic and submissions they do. Perhaps with your help though we can get there.
After all that your still interested, well send an email to bill.goodman@thesodashop.us with your name and samples.
The Soda Shop 