Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 09:52:09 EDT From: Dez (100702.123@COMPUSERVE.COM) Subject: Paladins Paladins - Million Mile Club (CAD6015) Contrary to what some people have intimated, this isn't a terrible record. It's well-played blues rock - perfectly competent. But also utterly pointless. I've no problem at all with this kind of music - live it's a perfectly agreeable accompaniment to knocking back a few pints, and I've got records by Muddy Waters and the Butterfield Blues Band. But even when East-West by the latter came out thirty years ago, this stuff was old hat. In 1996 it is so cliched. There isn't a riff, phrase, solo or lyric that the world hasn't heard a million times before. I reckon a night out to see the Paladins live at some dive bar wouldn't be such a terrible experience. But listening to this stuff at home is just a total waste of time. 4AD can sign who the fuck they like, of course - I'm not going to argue the case on those grounds. But to reject the Kelley Deal 6000 LP, drop Insides and Spoonfed Hybrid in favour of this is bizarre to the point of masochism. Because this will sell about as well as The Happy Family. Interesting point. Promotion in the UK has been non-existent. It's as if Alma Road is embarassed to be releasing this (who can blame them). I would guess this has been foisted upon them by the Los Angeles office (or Warners) - perhaps in revenge for the mighty Gus Gus who will be unmarketable in the US. The worst record ever released by 4AD remains, in my mind, Mass's Labour Of Love. But at least that's funny. The Paladins win hands down when it comes down to the most witless signing. Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 02:13:33 -0500 From: Jeff Keibel (redshift@INTERLOG.COM) Subject: Paladins PALADINS "Million Mile Club" 4AD, CAD6015CD/46367 You know 4AD is expanding their net when they sign greaser hot rod buffs like the Paladins from San Diego, California. Recorded live in such after-hours hotspots as The Belly Up Tavern and the Fort Spokane Brewery, this trio guitar, double bass and drums kicks the door down, turns your stereo up and drinks your liquor before splitting with the silverware. Guitarist Dave Gonzalez's gritty, blusesy vocals can seem somewhat one-dimensional over a whole album, while the band's sloppy-drunk-with-funk approach is hardly new, but when it works - as on their cool cover of "Let's Buzz" or their own "Years Since Yesterday" - it works well. There are many English bands who would kill to swagger like this. *** Sid Griffin as reviewed in Q Issue 124, January 1997 Jeff Keibel Scarborough, ON redshift@interlog.com Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 21:19:34 -0500 From: Jeff Keibel (redshift@INTERLOG.COM) Subject: Kiddeo Extracted from CMJ New Music, Feb. 1997, Number 42: Turning Over The Odometer Singer/guitarist Dave Gonzalez is calling from a payphone somewhere between Jackson, Mississippi, and New Orleans. Though the Paladins have been together for nearly 17 years, the rootsy rock band still travels budget-stlye, which means in a van and stopping to use pay phones for this stripped-down trio. I call him back. "Man, we make so many phone calls it's unbelievable", says Gonzalez. It's unbelievable how in the red we are". When he talks about the business of this hard-working band - rounded out by bassist and co-founder Thomas Yearsley and drummer Jeff Donavan - and the music business in general, Gonzalez has a bit of a begrudging tone. But when the conversation turns to the music he loved growing up and still worships - B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, George Jones, Carl Perkins - his voice is full of joy and enthusiasm. Touring behind the aptly titled live album "Million Mile Club" (4AD), Gonzalez admits that any rock-star aspirations he had in 1980, when the seeds of the band were sown, have been shot down. "I'm kind of a realist", he proclaims. First, the band gigged around its San Diego , but soon branched out. "We were touring Las Vegas, Bakersfield, even before we had a record out. We printed our own 45 ("Honky Tonk All Night") and sold it at the shows ourselves. We would go into the local record stores, ask them to come to the show. Now people still come to our shows and ask us to sign that first single." The Paladins have been compared to everybody from Cream to Hendrix to Zeppelin, and that's fine by Gonzalez. "Everybody hears it their own way", he explains, "They find parts of what we do to relate to what they know." Still, in the beginning, the Paladins were alligned with bands of their ilk, such as The Blasters and Los Lobos, but were also pigeonholed - not entirely accurately - as a rockabilly band. But Gonzalez says that the Paladins "liked the soul sound that came from Memphis, but also the West Coast blues that were jazzier. It's so overwhelming to go into used record stores; I'm still being influenced. I pick up records to study them for ideas for songs and production He's thrilled that "Million Mile Club" - the band's fifth release - captures the trio's raw, honest, sweaty sound, the slap of Yearsley's stand-up bass and the rumble of Gonzalez' hollow-body guitar. The band taped every night of a West Cost tour, ardously culling the best for the record. "We were driving between three and seven hours a day, playing to 500 people, 50 people, so the record was super hard to mix. It's not the world's most hi-fi recording, but it's the real deal", he concludes. "It's a real good testament to what we are, what we do." - KATHERINE TURMAN Paladins' "Million Mile Club", co-mixed by 4AD's Ivo Watts-Russell, is out right now! US - 46367; UK - CAD6015/CAD6015CD...