Monday
Oct232017
L.A. Guns, 'The Flood's The Fault Of The Rain' -- New Video
Monday, October 23, 2017 at 12:01AM L.A. Guns just released a video for “The Flood's The Fault Of The Rain”, featured on their new album, The Missing Peace. Watch the clip below. I swear, I love this band. One of the best from our beloved 80s and great new music today, too.
Reader Comments (18)
Now go check out footage of L.A. Guns playing Loudpark17 in Japan from last week... Phil's voice sounds exactly like it does on the records.
“The Missing Peace”, the new album from L.A. Guns, is WAY better than “Hollywood Forever” or “Tales from The Strip”, though I will say, “Underneath The Sun” from “Hollywood Forever” is much stronger than this track. If anything’s filler on “The Missing Peace”, it’s this song, though the guitar solo is amazing, almost as good as many of the others on the new album, particularly “Speed” and “It’s All The Same To Me”, “A Drop Of Bleach”, “Don’t Bring A Knofe To A Gunfight”.
But it does make you wonder if they perform “Underneath The Sun” since “Hollywood Forever” came out before Tracii rejoined. Reason I mention it is because Guns could really lay down a solo on that song far more extraordinary than anything former replacement, Stacey Blades OR the demoted (albeit honorably) Michael Grant.
And, yes, Gary and Mike, Phil’s voice is in fine form, let’s face it, he’s got a solid and unique sounding voice, he’s no Robert Plant. Still his voice is a key trademark of their sound.
But what is the REAL trademark of L.A. Guns? You guessed it ... One Mr. Tracii Guns. I still can’t believe he’s back in the band proving everyday what a waste of time it was for all concerned to even bother continuing the band in any shape of form while he was apart from Lewis for, count ‘em, 15 YEARS !!!
That said, Lewis is to be commended for keeping it together a decade and a half (!) despite all the personnel changes, Steve Riley bullsh*t and what I or anyone says about any of it. Why? Because he carried the torch for the name L.A. Guns through thick and thin, all of which made it a helluva lot easier for Guns to jump back into the fray rather than having to start over, undoubtedly spurred on by Slash and Axl hugging it out, figuring, what the hell, if those bastards can do it, so can we.
So, to sum up, “The Missing Peace” is KILLER, but maybe not so much this track. AND that “KILLER” distinction lies solely on the shoulders of Tracii Guns, replete with a 5 Star General’s 5 Star laden amulets emblematic of the 5 Star performance he delivers on the album. All Hail, Tracii Guns, L.A. Guitar Hero who was there since the beginning and has been able to not only live to tell about it but still deliver the goods beyond all expectations night after night !!!
But, The Raskin's do have a great point here. Plagiarism is theft.
And it gets even more interesting when L.A. Guns current bassist,
was the Raskin's bassist at the time their song was published & released in 2014.
Discuss amongst your selves.
http://metalsludge.tv/rhyming-and-stealing-the-raskins-allege-that-l-a-guns-have-stolen-their-musicrhyming-and-stealing-the-raskins-allege-that-l-a-guns-have-stolen-their-music/
Check out the writing credits...
https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-raskins-mw0002642786
"plagiarism" is a huge stretch.
Nice attempt at stirring the pot.
Next....
Great to have you back but Mike’s right — it’s hardly plagiarism.
Johnny Martin, the bass player wrote the music and took it with him to L.A. Guns and made it better. Together with Guns and Lewis, they made it better with new words.
The Raskins version with their words is amped up Power Pop, to put it nicely. So what if he brought it out of his tenure with The Raskins and repurposed it! It’s his legal AND moral right!
Now, with Guns and Grant on the guitars and new words for Lewis to screech, the song is BADA*S!!!
You clearly don't understand the way song publishing & mechanical rights works.
Non-Notification of other 2/3rds rights holders ist verboten. Nicht.
Ask Paul Black. When L.A. Guns released their 1st LP with songs he wrote, but Phil & Tracii re-wrote the lyrics, They got sued.. and lost. And eventually had to pay up. Being a repeat offender for this type of thing is frowned on by ASCAP & BMI. It lowers them down to the level of someone like Kristy Krash Majors.
And so what?? Re purposing your own riffs still does not constitute plagiarism
- did Megadeth plagiarise Metallica with the song "Mechanix"?
- did Gene Simmons plagiarise Back&Blue with the song "Domino"
This whole thing reeks of attention seeking on the part of the Raskins, which seems to have worked since we are discussing here.
I'm gonna close with Phil Lewis' reply to all of this, pasted below:
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LAG version destroys the Raskins. Yes its the same music but nobody heard the insipid wining that passed for singing before committing it to "peace" so it couldn't be further from a rip off. The original music was not a Guns/Lewis composition but that song is defiantly Classic LA Guns now .
###
PS - well aware of the Paul Black case.. there is a reason I had him sign my copy of the first L.A. Guns LP ;)
And while theft is heavily rampant in the music industry, it does often have positive results for the listener, at any rate.
Yes, Jimmy Page stole from lots of people from Willie Dixon to Jeff Beck and many in between but look at the results - music far more advanced than the originals from which he stole, i.e. Zeppelin’s version of “You Shook Me” vs. Willie Dixon’s (Zeppelin and Atlantic were later forced to credit Dixon and settled with his estate) and Led “Zeppelin I” vs. “Jeff Beck Group”.
And though Kristy “Krash” Majors May be a thief far worse than Page, had he not committed the crime we wouldn’t have gotten the Howard Benson produced masterpiece, “Leather Boys with Electric Toys” album.
Yes, it’s a sick rationale, but selfishly, my ears thank these sonic culprits for their crimes. And not to add to the admittedly flimsy argument for tolerance of musical theft, let us not forget Tom Petty’s blasé attitude toward Sam Smith with his theft (intentional or not) of “Won’t Back Down” for his #1 multiple Grammy winning hit, “Stay With Me” (though gotta say, the original is far better than the knock off and that’s not saying much since “Won’t Back Down” is pretty annoying, as well.). Petty said, “These things happen. No hard feelings.”
Interestingly, “Blurred Lines”, the 2013 #1 hit by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams is probably the most recent example of a blatant knock off yielding huge success. It’s such an obvious rip-off of Marvin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up”, yet still quite listenable, if you go for that sort of thing - disposable brain-rester pop.
Still, The Raskins / Johnny Martin situation is a different argument as it’s a far different story to steal from yourself. Listen to Cheap Trick’s first four albums where you can hear Rick Nielsen aping himself, referencing riffs or a lyric here and there in a game of puzzles and humor.
But come to think of it, Nielsen also steals but has never been sued, since Cheap Trick’s theft is interpreted as more of a “homage” to their influences rather than blatant thievery. Again, those albums (and some of the better subsequent ones, i.e. “One on One”) serve as virtual encyclopedias of Classic Rock with all of their little sound bites and in some cases, complete appropriating both sound and structure of Beatle’s songs along with those of The Who, Kinks, Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, et al.), albeit with humor, intelligent wit and sarcasm.
Hell, the music of Cheap Trick gets appropriated, too! C.C. DeVille of Poison totally fessed up to Nielsen he knicked “She’s Tight” for “Talk Dirty To Me”. And he also lifted The Sex Pistols’ trademark riff which is also a lift of Johnny Thunder’s ORIGINAL trademark riff from The New York Doll’s “Personality Crisis” and used it all over the “Look What The Cat Dragged In” album.
So, Johnny’s story is different. When he left The Raskins for L.A. Guns, he packed up his music in his suitcase but left The Raskin’s insipid lightweight lyrics on the bed. End of story.
Still, that doesn’t give Phil Lewis an excuse to rag in The Raskins. It’s okay for me to dismiss their lyrics but it’s not a rational argument to reason it’s an L.A. Guns sing because it now has better lyrics. It’s an L.A. Guns song because Martin joined the band and brought it with him. Though The Raskins are wrong, Lewis comes off as arrogant and conceited when blasting them from his position.
We could go on and on but put simply, Rock & Roll is a study in influence and adaptation, from Chuck Berry to The Stones to L.A. Guns and beyond.
Case closed.
This is an odd situation for me, as I personally know all of the players, EXCEPT the Raskins Bros.
I've known Tracii since he was in Jr. High, & Phil since his Girl daze. I think he's capable of some brilliant stuff, but I think it's all neatly contained on Girl's "Sheer Greed". I didn't wish to express an opinion other than to point out the incident & say "discuss amongst your selves.".
I'll amuse myself with brilliance like the New Darkness CD, & my own stuff. I consider tboth the new L.A.Guns record AND the Raskins as completely disposable. Enjoy them if you like. No skin off my neck. :)