The James Gang: Bang or Miami

Really? that's very interesting, bRETT. I had always assumed it must have been the last Troiano album which they wanted to call Bang, but the fact it was 6 months earlier also makes sense. That is great info, many thanks. I did wonder how far they got with the title before the Music execs got worried. Seems they even pressed a few with it on the label. Cool.

 

My pleasure, wish I still had it. It was a Record Club of America copy (you remember them...You'd sign yourself up and get ten albums for a buck). So I'm guessing the tossed the albums with the scrapped title over to the club. Not forgetting though, that Passing Thru WAS the second/last Troiano album.

 

I'd love to see a copy of that...the photo w/Troiano instead of Tommy's face pasted on it.

I was never quite sure which was the second/last Troiano album. I've read it both ways. I think Dom's playing is very underrated. Granted, his style of more of a funk/jazz sound. Walsh wasn't like that. But with Walsh, he also played keyboards. I like Straight Shooter. Passin' Thru is rather weak.

I once heard a Troiano era audience recording and he really was tearing it up.

Going slightly off topic, I'd love to see a complete release of the 1971 Carnegue Hall show. The 1971 live album is half of the show.

I doubt any other era of The Gang had any shows multitracked....sadly.

 

Try post 18!

 

Some interesting info here:- From Kenner (Note he refers to "Gang Bang" as the title)

Donnie really worked hard at his craft. He was always trying to learn new stuff and was always growing musically, and he would take that wherever he went. He had a pretty "nose to the grindstone" kind of work ethic, and that could drive some people a little bit crazy if they weren't used to doing that. Jimmy and Dale were not the most rehearsingest guys on the planet, and I gather that there was a little bit of friction between he and Burton Cummings, because you've got two pretty strong egos at work there creatively. I guess they bumped heads a little bit, but I think there was still a lot of mutual respect there, too.

The label didn't really seem to give a flying **** [about the direction of the band]. We never really heard much flak from the record company about that, but Jimmy and Dale were not predominantly writers. Joe did most of the writing in the band. We did, in hindsight, probably **** with the sound a little bit more than we should've. Even Jimmy and Dale would say, "You know, this is very R&B." A few people that followed our careers that listened to it afterwards said, "Well, you almost turned them into Bush!" At the time, you're young, you're full of piss and vinegar, and you figure that this is the stuff you like and here's an opportunity to do it. This is something that Donnie and I discussed years later. I said, "We really shouldn't have screwed around with it as much as we did. We probably should've adapted a little bit more to it." After Donnie and I took a break from each other... he left and I stayed, because I kind of liked what Tommy Bolin was doing. If Donnie and I had been a little bit more flexible and open-minded, we would have, if we were smart, come up with an album for Straight Shooter that was more along the lines of what we ended up doing on Gang Bang, which was unfortunately a couple years later. I think we probably should have leaned more towards a rockier sound to what we were doing. But no, we had to be R&B!

We were still playing, but in those days, you needed current product out, and that's where Dunhill had the band by the cojones, because... "OK, if you want to play that game, well, you're not going to be recording. Good luck with your career." Before we got to record again, the venues had gotten smaller and smaller, because we didn't have any current product out, and the rock and roll audience has a tendency to move on. It started to pick up again once we were able to record the Gang Bang album, but as far as being a headliner... we could co-headline, we could support, but it was really tough. The days of us being a headline act on our own were pretty much gone at that point. You really needed a major hit to resurrect that, and we just didn't quite get there with the Gang Bang album.

A friend of ours, Ed Caraeff - a really close friend of Donnie's - shot that cover. I think we shot that with the intent that that would be the album cover when we got around to recording. Then, everything went into a major hold pattern because we weren't going to be recording. When that got resurrected with Tommy, everything was there. It was funny, because Tommy said, "Well, here's my head on Donnie's body," and basically, that's what we ended up doing, because that was going to be the cover. Ed did some creative artwork there, and Donnie's head came off and Tommy's head went on. I have the album cover from when it was on wax, but I have an original print of the cover with Domenic on it. I don't say anything to anybody, but there are some very astute fans out there that will go, "Well, isn't that... no, wasn't Tommy, isn't that...?" "Yeah, you're right, it is. It's Domenic, it's not Tommy." "Yeah, but how, when, where...?" It's kind of a hoot for me to look at. It reminds me of all the **** that ended up happening because of this one legal piece of paper that didn't get picked up. It led to a really bad chain of events in the long run.

 

Thanks! I missed that initially.

 

Unfortunately, that will probably never happen. You may recall that in the mid-70s ABC purged their vaults:

Source: http://www.bsnpubs.com/abc/abcstory.html

.

 

Yup, I know all about that. Sad story, no doubt. It's wishful thinking...those tapes may have survived. There was a live Three Dog Night set from a few years ago that used multitack sources from 1972/73 so maybe the Gang show survives. Hopefully so.

 

One can always hope. And I can think of at least a dozen other ABC releases I hope survived that stupidity.

.

 

Let's build a time machine froma tractor trailer truck, figured out when it happened and do a dumpster raid.

Not that I ever go diving into dumpsters...

 

Well, well, well. Lookie here.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JAMES-GAN...c_on_Vinyl&hash=item27c2d38a7a#ht_1234wt_1185

Note the sellers description...
MISPRINT. LABEL SAYS THE JAMES GANG BANG. BUT ALL SONGS ARE CORRECT FOR THIS ALBUM.BANG IS A DIFFERENT ALBUM IM NOT SURE HOW THIS COULD HAPPEN BECAUSE IF IT IS A BANG LABEL THEN THE SONGS WOULD BE FROM BANG NOT PASSIN THRU.

Thanks bRETT, for that little nugget.

 

Gotta say, I am somewhat on a Bolin discovery. Teaser as my only reference. Had Miami for a few months now and just put it on last night....I've listened to side 2 five times now and believe that I have a love for Tommy and his unique style of arrangement. A tinge of jazz for sure and he is very proficient with a slide. Really amazing stuff. Mind blown to find something new to my ears that I dig, been a long time since that has happened.

 

Tommy was a sensational talent. If Teaser and Miami are all you have at the moment, you should pick up Bang, Cobham's Spectrum, Mouzon's Mind Transplant, Private Eyes, and Deep Purple's Come Taste The Band.

 

Miami

 

Regarding the Bang title and photo, the other thing to throw into the mix is that the original Label was ABC who rejected it, but by the time Tommy Bolin joined the gang, they had a new record deal with Atlantic, who were obviously less concerned about the it.

 

I paid to go see the James Gang just after Joe Walsh had quit. Nobody knew Joe Walsh was gone, and the band and ticket sellers certainly didn't make it known.
The concert sucked, it was way too loud (in fact it seems like they set the sound to be loud and distorted intentionally to mask the bands sound), was NOT what I paid for, and as a result I boycotted everything with the name James Gang on it afterward.
I have heard some of the albums from after Mr Walsh bailed, and I didn't hear anything that appealed to me in the least.
And they certainly don't sound like the James Gang.

 

I can see why The James Gang is viewed by some as "not the James Gang" post-Joe Walsh. If not for Tommy Bolin, I would probably have little to no interest in the post-Walsh output. But, for a fan of Tommy Bolin, this band (whatever you want to call it) is a great way to hear some of his greatness and to explore his talent. Bolin's songwriting, arranging, and dynamic guitar work are over Bang and Miami. In some ways, I don't think of it so much as The James Gang in a traditional sense, but I simply refer to it as The James Gang as a technicality because they kept the name -- it was a band that Tommy Bolin was in and that is why I enjoy listening to some of the post-Walsh era.

 

Copies of Passin' Thru with the wrong title on the label show up on Ebay from time to time.

 

I see there is a Zepher lp reissued on green vinyl out there, is it a legit reissue anyone? Might need to hop on one since every copy I've ever seen used is 40 bucks and road rough!

 

and its clear to see why ABC felt inclined to reject 'The James Gang Bang', whereas Atlantic were more OK with just 'Bang'

 

Its an 'official (sanctioned by David Givens) release', but not heard reports about sound quality/pressing quality. As it is on Cleopatra Records/Purple Pyramid, exercise caution as they have come in for some criticism here.

 

I read they actually tried to get Tommy Bolin to handle more of the vocals but he declined to be the only vocalist.

 

Saw this incarnation twice and really enjoyed both shows, Bolin rocked. Kenner was an underrated singer.

 

No Joe, no go.

 

Bolin had a better voice, buy Kenner was not as bad as some make him out to be. What ever happened to Kenner? He seemed to have disappeared shortly after his tenure with The James Gang.