The Black Velvets - 'The Black Velvets' (Vertigo)
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By: Thomas Hannan
There's a lot of money in being in a covers band, you know. To make cash from music whilst living outside a major city, it's near enough the only way. Tribute bands - ever been to Torquay? Full of them, packing out reasonably sized pubs up and down the high street. Making an absolute packet too, compared to the hundreds of local bands around the area struggling for gigs with their own material. Granted, it might be shit, but at least it's theirs, right? And here are some chancers in what are essentially costumes, making all the money, getting all the adulation for being something they're not. It's depressing, it's soulless - it's where the money is.
Listening to the Black Velvets is very much like listening to a covers band. They've studied their hair metal, their cock-rock, the Guns 'N Roses hairdos and have nailed each one. Maybe they really enjoy the music, or maybe they can smell a quick buck, it's difficult to tell. The important thing is that even after listening to an album full of it, you still can't decipher the truth. These are songs you haven't heard before, just being played with all the vacant emotion and choreography of a tribute act. The riffs might not be staples of the bar circuit, but if you heard them there, you'd certainly not think them out of place.
To address The Black Velvets directly - don't take this as a mindless insult. I'm saying you have a career, a fruitful one at that. If we saw you in the Torquay Town House, we'd probably think you were pretty good - for what you do. People just don't like to be asked to take this seriously. There's just so little to it, so much pomp about something that leaves you feeling so hollow. When the very subject is addressed in the closing 'You're Not Giving It All' (sample line: "you're a waste of time, your music is a crime, a lack of inspiration... I don't believe you're giving it all"), you won't know whether to laugh or cry. How can they address those words to some other band without playing their own damn song as if it means the world to them?! Come on! This is rock and shitting roll, mate!
My Dad got to see Jimi Hendrix - standing next to a mountain, chopping it down with the edge of his hand. That was rock and shitting roll. That would have made you feel alive. 'The Black Velvets' can do little more than placate. It's a condensed history of every hook a down-tuned guitar has knocked out in the past 20 years, except a lot less exciting than you remember it being. Where it aims to be GN'R (as 'Not All The Time' blatantly strives for), it ends up being closer to 'Be Here Now' era Oasis ('3345'), just with a shinier leather jacket and a beefier guitar sound. Granted, if they'd have got there first, a few of these riffs would be corkers, 'Get On Your Life' for example might qualify if the Foo Fighters hadn't written 'Times Like These' long before it. But that's just the problem. They did.
What will be offered in its defence? The usual stuff, the claim that it's all good fun, the idea that a chunky stadium rock riff will always lead to a good time - but please! Give me 'Appetite for Destruction', chuck 'Electric Ladyland' my way - we can all have an even better time! We can set our guitars on fire and play them with our sodding teeth! There's just not the room for this. There's a minimum amount of soul required for admittance on to my stereo, and with no apologies for sounding too dictatorial for a minute, there should be for yours too. Live music pubs up and down the country aren't so choosy. I've got some numbers if you need them. I wish you luck, in pure honesty and with all sarcasm aside. Just please, in all politeness, let us be. I'm following the originals. I'm going where the grass is green and the girls are pretty - they mean it there.
Artists in this article: The Black Velvets
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