Stray Cats - Gonna Ball
#495
October 1981
Stray Cats
Gonna Ball
Genre: Rockabilly Revival
4 out of 5
Highlights:
Little Miss Prissy
Cryin’ Shame
Rev It Up and Go
Lonely Summer Nights
Half of this album will comprise Built for Speed in 82 and now that we’ve covered both the 1981 records…maybe we should just consider Built a compilation album and not cover it since we all know that it’s a classic and will be little more than a return to what we’ve already heard.
Usually I complain when a band opens with a cover but with Gonna Ball I don’t think it’s that simple. These guys weren’t reinventing a sound as much as they were bringing it up to speed for the era. For example: “Little Miss Prissy” has it’s feet firmly in the Eddie Cochran aesthetic but the razorblades guitars are decidedly 1981, in fact, I’d say it sounds more like what we are gonna hear from the likes of Izzy Stradlin in a few years.
Listen to “Wasn’t That Good”. Yeah yeah, it’s a cover but it’s also a harbinger of a sound that Brian will be one of the ushers of 20 years later. I could cut the rug at The Derby to that track as it butts up against “You & Me and the Bottle Makes Three” by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy or “Ding Dong Daddy” by Cherry Poppin’ Daddies all night long.
Gonna Ball plays like a collection of singles which is what a lot of Stray Cats albums play like. Is it as explosive as Stray Cats? No, it plays more like a companion piece. Like this is the set of B-Sides to all those A-Sides but you loved the B-Sides as much (or more) than some of the main singles cuz, hell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2tvYqrHIvY&list=PLlvn8uktX5LuIvoFBrPuHTJVGxbObU-X3
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