The American Midwest. The farm belt. Heartland. Breadbasket. Flyover country. Call this region what you will, but it has often been held in derision by those in other parts of the U.S.A., especially the cultural arbiters of the East and West Coasts. While the sweeping social changes of the 1960s were having an obvious impact on the youth of New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the Midwest had more in common with the South in that it still may as well have been the 1950s in many places, including the cities.
By the mid 1970s, however, this region had more than caught up with the hipper parts of the country, at least in terms of popular music. Indeed, the Midwest enthusiastically embraced the nascent hard rock, heavy metal, and boogie rock movements on both sides of the Atlantic that had been greatly influenced by late 1960s power trios Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Furthermore, it also produced some of the era’s most commercially successful, though not necessarily artistically significant, groups of the decade, including REO Speedwagon, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Kansas and Cheap Trick, to name just a few.
As the promotion of such performers became more of a business endeavor, these outfits eventually became lumped together in the arena rock bag, which paved the way for the rampant corporatism of the music industry that continues to plague us to this very day. The silver lining to that particular cloud, however, proved to be the opportunities that the system created for the second - and third-tier Midwestern bands who often functioned as the opening acts at concerts staged in college town football stadiums and the Enormodomes of larger metropolitan areas. Groups of this variety often had their own rabid local followings and, in some cases, the wherewithal to record their music and release singles and albums on independent labels, which were still relatively numerous at the time.
One of the best examples of these underappreciated bands is Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s Truth and Janey, who arrived at their name by combining the title of the first LP by the Jeff Beck Group (essentially a power trio plus Rod Stewart) and the cognomen of guitarist Billylee Janey. Formed in 1969 and utilizing only the first part of their eventual name, they soon settled on what would become their most enduring lineup, which also featured bassist Steve Bock and drummer Denis Bunce. The band’s two 45s from the early 1970s found them with one foot in the newly developing heavy metal subgenre and the other in blues and 1950s-1960s rock, as indicated by cover versions of the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb,” Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2’s “Pontiac Blues,” and Chuck Berry’s “Around and Around.”
At about the same time, they added the second half of their moniker. The year 1976 marked the release of Truth and Janey’s debut long player, No Rest for the Wicked, which now apparently changes hands for as much as $800 in the collectors’ market. The fact that it has been reissued three times since the mid 1990s has done much to maintain interest in the group and to introduce them to a new generation of fans.
The live fifteen-track double LP Erupts! serves as a respectable companion piece to its studio counterpart, having been recorded not long afterward in April 1976 at a concert in Davenport, Iowa. Evidently, this is not the same Quad Cities-area show from the same year at which they played alongside Blue Öyster Cult, but I would imagine that the performances are of similar caliber. The band had clearly benefitted from constant gigging during this phase in their career, which is reflected in their seemingly effortless ability to transform straightforward songs into eight-minute bone-crushing jams. Throughout the proceedings, Billylee Janey demonstrates that he was arguably at the height of his powers as he shreds through one title after another.
Material from No Rest is well represented, with that album’s title track, “The Light,” “A Child/Building Walls,” “Ain’t No Tellin’” (which remains the only example of a Mississippi John Hurt song receiving the heavy metal treatment that I know of), and “My Mind” all making appearances here. While none of these renditions are bad, the studio versions often prove to be superior because the performances are generally more focused. While it’s difficult to fault the musicianship of Janey, Bock, and Bunce, the longer numbers nevertheless occasionally overstay their welcome in similar fashion to Cream’s extended live interpretations of their hits.
The remaining material that clocks in longer than five minutes can be assessed in much the same way, although I have a marked preference for “Birth of the Heart” over “Tunnel of Tomorrow.” Truth and Janey revisit their early singles with takes on “Under My Thumb” and “Around and Around,” although the latter ranks as one of the worst treatments of a Chuck Berry tune that I’ve ever heard. In sum, Erupts! is a decidedly mixed bag.
While I often found myself nodding in approval to Janey’s blazing fretwork and was never tempted to lift up the stylus while listening to these records, the music didn’t really stick with me in the same fashion, as would material from a five-star album. More enthusiastic reviewers have compared these performances to Grand Funk, Robin Trower, and Johnny Winter. Having never been a big fan of any of those acts, I shouldn’t be surprised about my ambivalent feelings regarding this set.
The presentation is up to the usual lofty standards of anything released by Lion Productions. The vinyl certainly qualifies as a high-quality pressing, and the gatefold is lavishly illustrated with several period photos of the band. Any kind of liner notes would have been nice, but there is plenty of reading material on Truth and Janey out there on Internet, for those in need of more information. And as much as I love the cover photo (which is also reproduced on an accompanying small poster), it’s the same one that has been used for various versions of No Rest, albeit with a slightly different color scheme. To avoid confusion, they should have kept the same artwork featured on the original thirteen-track CD release of Erupts! from 2003. Essential? No, but historically-minded metalheads will probably enjoy this album a lot more than I did.
Tracklist:
A1. No Rest For The WickedA2. One Down One To Go
A3. White Bread
A4. My Mind
B5. Hard Road
B6. Under My Thumb
B7. Around And Around
B8. Ain't No Tellin
C9. The Light
C10. Birth Of The Heart
C11. Universal Light
D12. A Child
D13. Building Walls
D14. As I Am
D15. Tunnel Of Tomorrow