Nicklebag double shot

Nicklebag 12 Hits & a Bump 1996 Mas Feedback 1997
Iguana Records

Quite a few years back I had heard a band called Nicklebag were opening for the then just going bigtime Deftones, and had heard it was a vehicle for Bernard Fowler (Tack>>Head, Rolling Stones) and Steve Salas (Decoding Society, Bootsy Collins). I never got to that show, but I did pick up both albums they released in the late 90s that were shamefully overlooked in the States.

Basically what you have here are two well connected session men who bring a bunch of their friends together, like:

Dave Abberuzze (Pearl Jam)
Doug Wimbish (Living Colour, Tack>>Head)
Bernie Worrell (Parliament-Funkadelic, various Les Claypool and Buckethead projects)
Bill Laswell (Herbie Hancock, Mick Jagger, and more dub and avant-tronica remix projects than you can poke with 2 sticks)
Ron Wood (Rolling Stones)
Carmine Rojas (David Bowie, Rod Stewart)
Darryl Jones (Sting, Miles Davis)
Jeff Bova (Iggy Pop, Wayne Shorter)
Brian Tichy (Derek Sherinian, Gilbey Clarke)

...etc. and jam on a bunch of covers and originals until you have enough jams to compile an album. Or in this case, two.

Now, such a random assortment could make for a big musical mess, or get overambitious and try to be overly arty, but this is not the case. This is big, muscular, funk informed riff rock done with conviction and a decided lack of restraint. It is about letting loose and having a really good time rocking out in a headspace somewhere between Led Zeppelin's In Through The Out Door and Parliament-Funkadelic circa Maggot Brain, with some Soundgarden and Tin Machine thrown in for fun.

Salas is just as capable a shredder as those in the Satriani/Vai camp, but has generally eschewed pure fretboard pyro for massive slabs of bloozy groove riffing. Fowler has a booming growl but can meld into any number of other styles at will (which was pretty much a requirement for his tenure in Tack>>Head) and can show great restraint when the song requires it. The various backing band configurations do not sound disjointed, with Laswell helpingthe overall production quality to stay copnsistent and the albums to flow from track to track.

Their originals are very derivative of their influences, which besides the aforementioned, is laden with Jeff Beckishness and Jimi Hendrixisms, and a lot of the same territory of various BRC bands from the last 2 decades. Some of the most fun cuts are the covers, which include Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Zeppelin, Garbage, and a stomping rendition of Funkadelic's Hit It and Quit It.

This is not pioneering stuff, but is fully enjoyable for those that enjoy anything from Lenny Kravitz and early period Stones to Follow For Now and Velvet Revolver.