CD Review. New York City rock and roll in Nevereven's Kilter - By N.L. Belardes
You want to play rock and roll in New York City. You get a group of guys together; you toss together dreams like a big friendly salad full of leafy greens. You build a repertoire of songs, and even make a CD in a band called Nevereven. Your genre is straight-up rock and roll. And then just like New York is a city that survives even the biggest of global attacks, your little band has to weather some break-up storms. In fact, I just read in Nevereven’s recent blog:
Well, well, well. It wouldn't be a summer without some summer events now, would it? First off:
Remember the acoustic shows we were talking about? Yeah...not happening. It was a long shot...but they're not happening.
Remember us keeping the same line-up for more than 6 months? Yeah...not happening. Braden is gone and we're finding new guitarists. We wish him well.
Remember us giving up? Yeah...not happening. We have shows already lined up for August, new reviews on the way and hopefully much more stuff on the horizon.
Bands...if you want to trade shows after August, we're game.
Till then, Kenny is playing 15 in Europe, Scott is delivering the hot buns, and I'm enjoying a clear head for once in a long time.
-gary
With that said I received a CD in the mail from caffeine free Pepsi drinker and frontman of Nevereven, Gary Pickard. Gary wanted me to do a CD review and of course I was up for it. It’s just I kept putting my review of their six-song CD on the backburner. You know how time flies when you’re having fun in Buck City: having lunch with Buck Owens everyday, playing remote control cars with Brian Head Welch of Korn, helping land the space shuttle out in the nearby desert. It’s a tough job to be a Bakersfield celebrity. But even so, rock and roll is here to stay. So when I spin a bit of an older CD like Nevereven’s Kilter, the first thing I ask is, “When do I get to hear the really new stuff?”
But then such thoughts leave my mind and I start to think, this is a CD from the heartland near Ground Zero, right on the front lines of terrorism vs. America. Instantly I wanted to hear some good rock tunes, didn’t matter what they are about. I was pulled in to the distant thought of music from New York close to what I call in my novella Thick White Crust, 'dia de los rascacielos'.
It doesn’t matter that Nevereven has gone through more changes than shuttle tiles and my own endless book edits. The heart of the music in Gary Pickard’s and Kenny Grohowski rock and roll dreams for a band is still right there in 2003’s Kilter…
Enter the world of Nevereven, a band of hard-rocking guitar pop riffs with catchy tunes and hopeful lyrics of a world of unbroken love. Track one, “Starshine” is a bright love song, a love ballad ready to take human love to a new level. “You call my name, the voice that echoes softly in my mind. I can see the starshine captured in your eyes…you make it seem so bright…” You can say that Nevereven as a band is ready to take their music to a new level. This is an anthem song that builds relationships with listeners and shouldn’t be forgotten when they move on to new material.
In a post-terrorized society rocked by big cataclysmic events, rock and roll needs to be hopeful. Nevereven brings such hope through another love ballad, “Lay Me Down’. It’s almost as if they’re saying that people need to focus on some serious love during a time of crisis. The song begins with a catchy, dancy guitar riff. “Lay Me Down” is just as energetic of a rock song as “Starshine”. It takes the idea of despair and acts on it to say, “Now is the time you have to…reach deep in your soul… I will bring your fears to light…you and I can turn your night to day.”
“You were always close at hand. You would always understand,” sings Gary Pickard as he explores the life path in a song titled, “Chance”. You love someone; you take a chance. People say they feel the same. It’s two-way trust and Gary explains such simple relationship-building ideas in how to trust one another even after a break-up. I got into the song in the guitar solo that took the song’s melody and flung it into a spinning, grinding guitar bridge… And then just after the solo Gary let’s out a wail of hope, “We can find a way to be together again.” I wonder if we really want such used up love. But then such love could be just for a city like New York that many people may have loved to hate and hated to love, yet did…
Track four, “Walking the Line” really rocks us hard. “All the world’s a freakshow cause all the world’s a stage,” Gary sings. I would want to write something similar if I were in such a great American melting pot of a city where millions converge daily in the hustle of big city fast life. “You can’t get away…” goes the lyrics just before a wail of a solo that would have any hard rocker doing some serious New York style head banging. I’m rocking out at my computer right now as I type this. This is my favorite song on the CD.
After a lengthy intro, “Guardian Angel” talks through lyrics of being down and out, with multiple problems and is a song that pleads with a guardian angel metaphor to help the narrator make it through the day. We can meet someone, anyone and with a special connection can suddenly feel like that guardian angel is near. Security and guidance—we all need it to get through life… Once again, it’s the rock riffs that transform into powerful solos that get me. It’s what rock is all about—the template of verse chorus verse chorus, bridge solo and so forth… gotta love power pop rock…
The final track begins with an acoustic guitar then pours on some electric power chords. Gary’s voice comes in like a secret that’s just been exposed, “There’s no need to be alone…just remember all that you’ve been…fly away from here…take my hand.” This is a love ballad supreme filled with hope. Remember 2003 was less than two years after horrendous acts of terrorism. A soldier from Bakersfield, California recently died as a result of such a chain of events and this city was in an uproar over one man’s funeral. Think of what New Yorkers still go through. The destruction of two towers, the ensuing jet disaster, and the tragedy of so much love lost. We may take for granted simple hopeful love songs here in Bakersfield; but in New York, what would such a song mean to certain individuals? Nevereven’s music offers power pop in a straight-up rock format, but with a hopeful New York City twist, as these guys hail from a city that has quite a powerful tug of energy on its people…
Nevereven will be playing this Sunday at the Viper Bar in Hauppauge, New York at 7pm
Well, well, well. It wouldn't be a summer without some summer events now, would it? First off:
Remember the acoustic shows we were talking about? Yeah...not happening. It was a long shot...but they're not happening.
Remember us keeping the same line-up for more than 6 months? Yeah...not happening. Braden is gone and we're finding new guitarists. We wish him well.
Remember us giving up? Yeah...not happening. We have shows already lined up for August, new reviews on the way and hopefully much more stuff on the horizon.
Bands...if you want to trade shows after August, we're game.
Till then, Kenny is playing 15 in Europe, Scott is delivering the hot buns, and I'm enjoying a clear head for once in a long time.
-gary
With that said I received a CD in the mail from caffeine free Pepsi drinker and frontman of Nevereven, Gary Pickard. Gary wanted me to do a CD review and of course I was up for it. It’s just I kept putting my review of their six-song CD on the backburner. You know how time flies when you’re having fun in Buck City: having lunch with Buck Owens everyday, playing remote control cars with Brian Head Welch of Korn, helping land the space shuttle out in the nearby desert. It’s a tough job to be a Bakersfield celebrity. But even so, rock and roll is here to stay. So when I spin a bit of an older CD like Nevereven’s Kilter, the first thing I ask is, “When do I get to hear the really new stuff?”
But then such thoughts leave my mind and I start to think, this is a CD from the heartland near Ground Zero, right on the front lines of terrorism vs. America. Instantly I wanted to hear some good rock tunes, didn’t matter what they are about. I was pulled in to the distant thought of music from New York close to what I call in my novella Thick White Crust, 'dia de los rascacielos'.
It doesn’t matter that Nevereven has gone through more changes than shuttle tiles and my own endless book edits. The heart of the music in Gary Pickard’s and Kenny Grohowski rock and roll dreams for a band is still right there in 2003’s Kilter…
Enter the world of Nevereven, a band of hard-rocking guitar pop riffs with catchy tunes and hopeful lyrics of a world of unbroken love. Track one, “Starshine” is a bright love song, a love ballad ready to take human love to a new level. “You call my name, the voice that echoes softly in my mind. I can see the starshine captured in your eyes…you make it seem so bright…” You can say that Nevereven as a band is ready to take their music to a new level. This is an anthem song that builds relationships with listeners and shouldn’t be forgotten when they move on to new material.
In a post-terrorized society rocked by big cataclysmic events, rock and roll needs to be hopeful. Nevereven brings such hope through another love ballad, “Lay Me Down’. It’s almost as if they’re saying that people need to focus on some serious love during a time of crisis. The song begins with a catchy, dancy guitar riff. “Lay Me Down” is just as energetic of a rock song as “Starshine”. It takes the idea of despair and acts on it to say, “Now is the time you have to…reach deep in your soul… I will bring your fears to light…you and I can turn your night to day.”
“You were always close at hand. You would always understand,” sings Gary Pickard as he explores the life path in a song titled, “Chance”. You love someone; you take a chance. People say they feel the same. It’s two-way trust and Gary explains such simple relationship-building ideas in how to trust one another even after a break-up. I got into the song in the guitar solo that took the song’s melody and flung it into a spinning, grinding guitar bridge… And then just after the solo Gary let’s out a wail of hope, “We can find a way to be together again.” I wonder if we really want such used up love. But then such love could be just for a city like New York that many people may have loved to hate and hated to love, yet did…
Track four, “Walking the Line” really rocks us hard. “All the world’s a freakshow cause all the world’s a stage,” Gary sings. I would want to write something similar if I were in such a great American melting pot of a city where millions converge daily in the hustle of big city fast life. “You can’t get away…” goes the lyrics just before a wail of a solo that would have any hard rocker doing some serious New York style head banging. I’m rocking out at my computer right now as I type this. This is my favorite song on the CD.
After a lengthy intro, “Guardian Angel” talks through lyrics of being down and out, with multiple problems and is a song that pleads with a guardian angel metaphor to help the narrator make it through the day. We can meet someone, anyone and with a special connection can suddenly feel like that guardian angel is near. Security and guidance—we all need it to get through life… Once again, it’s the rock riffs that transform into powerful solos that get me. It’s what rock is all about—the template of verse chorus verse chorus, bridge solo and so forth… gotta love power pop rock…
The final track begins with an acoustic guitar then pours on some electric power chords. Gary’s voice comes in like a secret that’s just been exposed, “There’s no need to be alone…just remember all that you’ve been…fly away from here…take my hand.” This is a love ballad supreme filled with hope. Remember 2003 was less than two years after horrendous acts of terrorism. A soldier from Bakersfield, California recently died as a result of such a chain of events and this city was in an uproar over one man’s funeral. Think of what New Yorkers still go through. The destruction of two towers, the ensuing jet disaster, and the tragedy of so much love lost. We may take for granted simple hopeful love songs here in Bakersfield; but in New York, what would such a song mean to certain individuals? Nevereven’s music offers power pop in a straight-up rock format, but with a hopeful New York City twist, as these guys hail from a city that has quite a powerful tug of energy on its people…
Nevereven will be playing this Sunday at the Viper Bar in Hauppauge, New York at 7pm
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Tuesday, August 09, 2005.
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