Oh, so I drank one, it became four And when I fell on the floor, I drank more...

10/21/10

beeradvocate.com rating- A-

Stone Brewery Smoked Porter-Community Beverage, Queens, NY- 22 OZ. bomber into Pub Glass- 5.9% ABV- Dark, dark brown but not quite black. Head was 2 fingers with strong retention with a deep butterscotch color. Pretty thick lacing. I smell roasted coffee in this porter. The body was lighter bodied than I expected but definitely more of a medium bodied mouthfeel. And this was fairly strongly carbonated which I also did not expect. This tastes pretty good. I would more describe it as roasted than smoked but maybe as it warms I will get more smokiness present. Not very strong on the alcohol and I don't detect any real heat. I could easily put this bomber back unlike last weeks bomber which was way more challenging.

On the turntable is "Strangeways, Here We Come"- The Smiths- Recorded in Wool Hall Studios in Bath England and released in 1987. I am not a Smiths expert but I do consider myself a fan. I came late to The Smiths. Growing up I was certainly exposed to them but they were a bit over my head. I was reintroduced tot hem by a friend when I was about 26 and I certainly appreciated them more. What I needed to do was get past my own preconceptions and bias towards what I believed to be "mopey" music. Despite the dour image The Smiths may or may not espouse alot of their music is quite energetic though not what I would define as heavy. This is their only LP I own. All the rest of their albums I have on CD. Around 2000-2001 it seemed like a lot of young bands started citing The Smiths as one of their primary influences and these days Morrissey is basically considered a saint. That is all well and good but I find it hard to believe all these people were such Smiths fanatics back in the day, it seems like a bit of revisionist history on the part of some people but that is just my opinion. This album is certainly not their best but much like the Final Cut, discussed in a previous post, this album doesn't get much mention when discussing there catalog. I bought it around the time I started listening to The Smiths only cause I found it for cheap in comparison to their other LP's which I had on CD anyway. Not much more can be said about the wit and lyricism of Morrissey. He belongs to a rarefied group (Dylan, Brian Wilson, Van Morrison, etc.) whose lyrics can be analyzed and interpreted in volumes of books without exhausting the subject. What truly hooked me on this band was Johnny Marr. When I first listened to The Smiths in high school his style was a bit lost on me but once I started to play guitar in college my opinion of what makes a good guitar player drastically changed. This change allowed me to appreciate Mr. Marr in a new light.Johnny Marr in the last decade has gotten some much deserved recognition for his immense talent. I actually got to see him play live with Johnny Marr and The Healer's (I also saw Morrissey solo) which was a bit of a disappointment except for his version of "A Light That Never Goes Out." From what I have read he was the primary musical arranger for the group and needs to be mentioned in the same breath as K. Richards and Jimmy Page, to name a few, in his ability to fuse together guitar parts. He had a knack for weaving together voicing's, arpeggios and instrumentation into a definitive style which complimented both the complexity of Morrissey's lyrics and the versatility of his vocal range. The rhythm section of The Smiths also is often neglected. Andy Rourke is a wonderful and melodic bass player with a definite sense of funk necessary for any good bass player. Mike Joyce the subject of much of Morrissey's wrath is a good drummer at the very least and compliments the band well in my opinion. The songs on this album are a bit of a departure from their earlier material and seem to have more of a brooding, atmospheric quality and certainly less direct, The second side of this LP is certainly not as strong as the first but it still remains an enjoyable listen throughout and is notable for me as one of my first forays into the W. 57th Street Holiday Inn Record Fair.