Alastair Greene – Standing Out Loud
11 Tracks – 39 minutes
Alastair grew up in Santa Barbara, California. As a youth he took piano and sax lessons. His grandfather, Chico Alvarez, was a trumpeter for the Stan Kenton Band and provided the inspiration for Alastair to pursue music. Alastair did not take up the guitar until he was in high school, but then his desire to play the guitar was driven by heavy rock in the vein of Van Halen and Iron Maiden. But he moved into the blues as he started listening to records from B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Johnny Winters, The Allman Brothers and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
He received a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music in Boston, where he studied for two years. He returned to Southern California in the early 90’s and formed the Alastair Greene Band in 1997. This album is his eleventh solo release. His 2018 album release, Live From the 805, was nominated for Rock Blues Album of the Year by Blues Blast Magazine.
Alastair currently resides in Austin, Texas. In addition to his own solo career, Alastair toured with the Alan Parsons Live Project from 2010 to 2017, had brief stints with Starship featuring Mickey Thomas, and more recently Sugaray Rayford in 2018 to 2019.
With this record, Alastair said he strived to capture the blues rock sound from the 1960’s and 70’s that he grew up with and was particularly drawn to the early sounds of the Rolling Stones and ZZ Top. To capture the sound, he traveled to Nashville to work with co-producer J.D. Simo, who he knew was into making old-sounding records. Drummer Adam Abrashoff and bassist Todd Bolden rounded out his trio that recorded eight songs in four days. An additional three songs were recorded when he returned to Austin with drummer Kevin Hall and bassist Mark Epstein forming the trio.
Ten original songs with one cover that concludes the album kicks off in blistering fashion with “You Can’t Fool Me” certainly a kickback to the boogie groove of ZZ Top. “Slow Burn” does sound like a song that Mick Jagger would deliver. He sings that “She was no friend of mine; I knew it would take time” but he knew “that I could…if I gave it time”. “Only Do” gets the boogie going and gets Yoda into the mix with “there is only do, there is no try”.
Next, he tells her she is going to be “In Trouble”, as he describes an incident with an out-of-control woman in a bar while noting “that what you want is what I have”. “The Last to Cry” slows things down slightly as he examines “why I have been so down” noting you “are holding me too tight, tying me down”. “Trouble Blues” gets back into a boogie groove as he “turns into the darkness, hope it goes away”.
“Am I To Blame?” gets back into the hard driving rock sound as he tells her to “leave me alone” and “don’t mess with this guy”. The title song, “Standing Out Loud”, says “she is never home, always away”. and cites “whatever I do, I am up to my neck in the blues”. In “Temptation”, he declares “the devil is on your shoulder, living in your ear”.
The first songs are all relatively short, but with the last original song, “Rusty Dagger” he extends the song to almost six minutes. The song starts very slow and smooth as he says, ” I know you are hurting, I am hurting too”. “Your words are like a rusty dagger, cut so deep leaving a scar”. His guitar builds in the middle of the song, but drifts back into the slower blues tone from the beginning. The album then closes with “Bullfrog Blues”, a song previously recorded by both Rory Gallagher and Canned Heat. He tricks it out with an acoustic start, but then jumps into the full-blown electric version more in keeping with the previously known versions.
Alastair’s vocals are on the money throughout and stands against the backdrop of the high intensity blues rock that he delivers throughout the album. His trios stand up to the blaze of the 1970’s power trios. And of course, his fiery guitar is always out in front of every song.
