East Boston-bred Sal Baglio has been a leading light of the Boston rock scene ever since he formed The Stompers in the late 1970s. More recently, he’s been penning songs from a rock opera about rock ‘n’ roll aliens. The Amplifier Heads, led by Sal Baglio, have released their fifth long player ‘Songs From They Came To Rock’.
The Amplifier Heads is Sal Baglio and friends. The idea came from Executive Producer Norty Cohen who entrusted me to produce, arrange and write utilizing The Amplifier Heads along with very special guest vocalists and musicians.
Sal Baglio is writing songs like crazy these days. They Came to Rock is a soundtrack to a stage show.
“The term rock opera has come to mean different things to anyone's interpretation,” Baglio says. “There is a lyrical and musical line that follows through the record. Some fantasy, some fact.
The album is done under The Amplifier Heads umbrella but has lots of guest like: Barrence Whitfield, Sal Baglio, Jen D’Angora, Dan Kopko, Allen Estes and Samantha Goddess. The piece has been performed in Nashville and now has been put on wax by a cast that also includes Boston musical luminaries Jen D’Angora, Fairport Convention drummer Dave Mattacks, and screamer supreme Barrence Whitfield.
It’s such a great album, almost like a greatest hits compilation. Listeners love the heck out of "They Came To Rock" and "Space Cadette” and will love many more I’m sure.
I love this collaboration of such amazing individuals who have constructed a cosmic time portal to the sonic solar system of Sal Baglio! Just tighten your asteroid belt, you’re in for a rocket ’n roll ride!
Part of Baglio's brilliance was in picking the right vocalist for each song. Any aliens hearing Barrence Whitfield belt out the title track will immediately be scheduling return trips to experience the thrill of Earthling rock and roll. The legendary Allen Estes gives "They Heard My Radio" classic country vibes.
"Dead Star" sounds like a song that Dan Kopko was literally born to sing. "That Girl Betty" succeeds in recreating the Phil Spector wall of sound for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of the extraordinary vocal talents of Jen D'Angora and Samantha Goddess. I'm such a fan of Jen D'Angora as a songwriter and musician that I sometimes don't fully appreciate what a great singer she is. Her lead vocal on the old school rocker "Something Went Down" is something special.
“What I love about albums like `Songs From They Came To Rock` is that they are either going to annoy you or float your boat but for me it was the latter category and had me on that cruiser out at sea. It had a cosmic, galactic almost other-worldly charm about it and runs at around the thirty minute mark so won`t overtake your life to any significant degree.
“Wham bam bloody wham bam. Move your furniture, put on your blue suede shoes and get ready to go out off your head on this riff-roaring retro rocker. Boogie woogie yourself around and around, turn up the horns, play air guitar and sing your lungs out. Get my drift? Now open your windows and doors and let the neighborhood go bonkers too. Hells bells. Hallelujah.
“That Girl Betty” starts with a transmogrified “When She Walks In The Room” and then Jen D’Angora takes the song to sixties girl group sounding heaven. The album ends with “The Moon Rocks” done up in Sun Records era Elvis style.
Who are they, and what do they want? That’s a loaded question no matter the topic, but when it comes to aliens and why they’ve visited us here on Earth, the answer is relatively simple - They Came To Rock. And rock they have, as executive producer Norty Cohen’s immersive rock opera about an alien invasion and its undeniable connection to rock and roll gets the proper soundtrack treatment courtesy of The Amplifier Heads.
First debuting in Nashville three years ago and receiving praise from Rolling Stone, Cohen’s theatrical production of They Came To Rock details a story about friendly little green men coming to Earth - which they call The Vinyl Frontier - in search of the type of music heard through static and noise on their radio.
In style and sprit, the songs from They Came To Rock resemble what extraterrestrials actually would have heard if they'd be tuned into Planet Earth's airwaves in the mid-20th century. You'll hear everything from rhythm & blues to country to first generation rock and roll to '60s beat and garage rock to out-of-this-world '70s glam.
Musically, the styles cover the decade from the early days of primal rock’n’roll and doo-wop through to Sixties pop , psychedelia and garage, eventually reaching Seventies Glam. Some songs are more modern like: "Bienvenue", "Dead Star", "The Best It's Gonna Be". The fifties were the golden age of spaceship sightings for some reason.
“'They Came To Rock’ is prime Amplifier Heads. Driven by a kitschy 50s riff, it’s hard not to hear the influence of Ed Haas and his Munsters theme running through the centre of the track, but with the help of a glam rock stomp and really cheeky saxophone taking the reigns, this becomes far more complex.
With some great music joined by a mix of crooned and screamed rock vocals, the number certainly doesn’t think small - or, indeed, take itself too seriously - but, in a lot of ways, it wins purely on arrangement alone. Loaded with cheap B-movie aliens and the kind of captions that evoke fond memories of Batman ’66, the video is tacky, but knowingly so.
"The Amplifier Heads serve up a superb retro sound on ‘That Girl Betty’. Ideal for re- promoting their ‘Songs From “They Came To Rock”’ concept album, the track serves up an authentically old school banger that’s immediately familiar in the most knowing way.
Part of its familiarity comes from an obvious love of Phil Spector, but the way this blends a Ronettes sound with the guitar tones from The Searchers’ version of ‘When You Walk In The Room’ makes this feel extra cheeky. As with other Amplifier Heads numbers, there’s a musical strength that really works here, but this single’s jewel is its guest vocal performance. Supplied by The Shang Hi Los’ Jen D’Angora, the featured voice truly soars, with Jen turning in a great melody throughout.
Special mentions must go to ‘That Girl Betty’ with it’s Spector-ish sound and superb vocals, as well as ‘Space Cadette’ with it’s Kinks-meets-Slade riffing and stompin’ platform-boot beats. Like a cross between Orson Welles’ legendary ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast and Ziggy Stardust (with a small sprinkle of Monty Python along the way) this is a highly entertaining and enjoyable record that gets the balance between humour and songwriting just right.
"Is there a genre called “extra-terrestrial rock”? If so, Sal Baglio has mastered it. The Amplifierheads’ latest release, They Came to Rock, was created as a soundtrack to a rock opera about an alien invasion. It’s a trip through space and time - emphasis on trip.
Sal Baglio: I wrote a song titled “The Boy With The Amplifier Head” which was essentially about a kid who heard everything loud - and named the band after the song.
I play guitar because of my father. This month’s Songs From They Came To Rock is a soundtrack record.
I was born the year Elvis starred in and sang Jailhouse Rock. Seven years later I saw The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. BOOM! Melodic noise.
