The 1986 Listening Post - The Del Lords - When Johnny Comes Marching Home

The Del Lords - When Johnny Comes Marching Home

#505

November 20 1986

The Del Lords

When Johnny Comes Marching Home

Genre: Roots Rock

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Heaven

Drug Deal

Against My Will

No Waitress No More

No, this isn’t as fantastic as their debut. You spend your life getting ready to write your first record and you pour your heart into and then you put it out and it sells…however many it sells and you tour and then…it’s time to write another one. 

And that’s hard. That’s why I never wrote another record after our first. 

This one doesn’t suck. In fact, it’s perfectly fine for what it is but what it is is just the next record from a band that should have made waves a few years before and been at least as well known (to listener like me) as X or The Blasters. But the guys can’t get past their 80s production and they sound like…well…they sound like Gin Blossoms. 

But without Doug Hopkins’ alcoholic self-bloodletting. 

The Del Lords were of the wrong time. Too late or too early. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/johnny-comes-marching-home/1437296678

The 1984 Listening Post - The Del Lords - Frontier Days

The Del Lords - Frontier Days

#58

March 20 1984

The Del Lords

Frontier Days

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live

Double Life

I Play the Drums

Burnin' in the Flame of Love

In the cow-punk/roots rock revival derby I was on team X & The Beat Farmers. The Blasters were great, of course but I had made my allegiances. I loved me some Dave Edmunds, sure and of course, Rockpile and soon enough I would fall for Mojo Nixon’s schtick.

All of that might’ve been different if I had heard of The Del-Lords. 

This tasty assortment of determined and solid rock and roll missed me entirely. It’s infectious and terrific. Side One is a smorgasbord of singles ready could’ve been hits. Turn the record over and, well, you’ve got more good songs. 

This band, from the guitarist for The Dictators reminds me that the rock landscape is littered with albums from bands who were great at what they did and never really got a fair shot. 

The production suffers from, well, 80s. They aren’t reinventing the wheel but, in a world where the fucking Hooters could have hits, the Del Lords were short changed. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/frontier-days/1437293872