The Plot Vs Damage Control
First up is the eponymous album from The Plot. Rumors are that these recordings were just made for fun, but after a bootleg of the recordings was leaked, they decided to go ahead and officially release them. “You and Me” kicks the album off and is a catchy rocker that is a little heavier than UFO, but not as raw and gritty as his Amphetamine album from a few years earlier. Bringing to mind early GnR and Aerosmith, “Need Her Bad” is a bit more ragged and has a really cool breakdown in the middle. Rocker “Take Another Shot” and the slower “Miss You Tonight” are a couple of really solid tracks that both add a little blues to the mix and have a bit of a Stones vibe. After starting off with a short slide guitar intro “Shake Down”, a definite album highlight, shifts into a rocker that is again very reminiscent of early Aerosmith and includes some great guitar work. “Señorita” is a slower track highlighted with some really nice acoustic guitar, but then halfway through explodes with a Schenker solo before taking it back down a step at the end. On “Just My Luck” Way revisits his punkier side (a la Amphetamine), but it’s a little more polished and a little less ragged. Another highlight is “Wild Wild Things” which jumps back and forth between being a punchy rocker and a laid-back acoustic guitar driven tune. The disc closes out with a couple of high energy tracks with the Bo Diddley beat driven “Ain’t Got You” and the hard driving “Might As Well Go Drinking” which brings to mind Motorhead.
The collaboration between Robin George and Pete Way initially started with them getting together when Robin was recommended to work as a
producer for Pete's band Waysted. That
eventually evolved into them playing songs back and forth for each other and
then Damage Control. The band released two
albums, a self-titled debut and its follow up Raw, which comprise the other two
discs on this box set. While the majority
of the music from Damage Control was more blues based rock, which was largely a
bit of a shift for George and Way, they still managed to add a lot of elements
that gave it some diversity. Opening their
debut release are a couple of gritty, down and dirty, blues rockers with “Dead
Man Walking” and “Savage Songs”, the latter of which opens with some really nice
bluesy acoustic guitar. “Kicked Out” is
a reworked version of “Crazy” from Way’s Amphetamine album, which is a little
more polished and has more crunch and less grit. The slow burning “Selfish” has some nice
acoustic Spanish guitar from George and is also reminiscent of his early
solo work. “Born Again” and “Take
Another Shot” brings to mind Free and Humble Pie, respectably, with the latter
also throwing in a touch of glam guitar and a little cowbell. Way then dips into his past again for “Victim,” a
slow bluesy rock ballad that is a remake of Amphetamine’s “Hole”. Two of the best tracks on the album are up
next with “Raw,” a straight-ahead rocker with fuzzed out guitars, and “One Step
Closer” with its relaxed, funk tinged blues groove and psychedelic guitars. The Faces come to mind on the slow burning
bluesy rocker “Redundant”, and “Seven Golden Daffodils” is reminiscent of Humble
Pie. Closing out the disc is “Bitching
Blues”, a blistering boogie rocker reminiscent of The Faces with some
outstanding slide guitar work.
On Raw, the second Damage Control release, the band is pared down to a trio with George and Way handling all the vocals in place of Spike. Of the thirteen tracks here, ten of them are re-recorded versions of songs from the debut. Musically the re-recorded tracks aren’t really that drastically different from the debut, but the vocals this time around are of course much cleaner than Spike’s gruff vocals, giving them a fresh sound that ends up making them quite distinctive. The three new tunes are all great and make welcome additions. “Pray For You And Me” is an all-out rocker that would’ve sounded great live, and “Slaughtered” has a nice laid-back bluesy shuffle and a great combination of acoustic and electric guitar. The final new track is actually a new version of “Spy”, an old-school Robin George tune that originally appeared on his solo debut album Dangerous Music in 1984 and has been a favorite of mine since I heard it back then. The version here is a little rawer and bluesier but maintains the infectious pop-tinged rock of the original and has a great guitar solo. While it seems like these three releases fell under the radar of a lot of Pete Way fans, as well as fans of the other contributing musicians, they are all well worth checking out and thanks to this box set are readily available for everyone to enjoy.
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