Published on Oct 1, 2001
Since the release of the new live Tesla album, I’ve been kind of
reminiscing about Jeff Keith and company, and how excited I first
was when I discovered them thanks to MTV. (You know, back in the
days when they actually played music videos from hard rock bands…
back when MTV
didn’t suck.) So into the Pierce Memorial Archives I went,
and came out with
Five Man Acoustical Jam, their 1990 release which predated
any
MTV Unplugged special.
Simply put, this disc (whose name is a pun on Five Man
Electrical Band, a group who had one hit in the ’70s… but more on
that later) took Keith and crew and dared to put them in a setting
unfamiliar to many hard rock acts: the world of acoustic rock.
Sure, plenty of bands had experimented with acoustical music at
some point or another; in the early days of their career, the
Grateful Dead used to do one acoustic set mixed with their
electrical work. (Maybe this is why Tesla segues into “Truckin'”
during “Cumin’ Atcha Live”.) But no band had really tried to
capitalize on their success by doing a series of acoustic dates,
then turning them into a live album.
Could Tesla – who had all of two albums under their belts at
this point – pull such a stunt off? The answer is a surprising
“yes”. Surprising not in the fact that they did it, but that they
did so with a surprising array of covers. As Keith points out on
stage, “We’re just fuckin’ around tonight,” but they did it with a
style that keeps the audience interested.
I first reviewed
Five Man Acoustical Jam back when it came out for my
college’s newspaper, and my biggest complaint then is my biggest
complaint today. This is supposed to be an acoustic performance…
meaning the introduction of an electric guitar solo during “Love
Song” is inappropriate. Simply put, it ruins the mood of the show –
even if this song marked the break between the show proper and the
encore. It also drowns out the work of the rest of the band, save
for Keith’s vocals and Troy Lucketta’s drum work. Sorry, gang, but
I’m a bit of a purist in this regard.
And it would be nice to say that all the originals from Tesla
work in the acoustic format. They don’t, but it’s not from any lack
of trying. “Modern Day Cowboy” tries to be as spectacular
acoustically as it was on
Mechanical Resonance, but this is a song which begs for the
power of electric guitars, especially during the solos. Then again,
other tracks like “Before My Eyes,” “Heaven’s Trail (No Way Out)”
and “Paradise” sometimes feel like they work even better in the
all-acoustic format.
Five Man Acoustical Jam‘s highlight is “Signs,” a cover
originally done by Five Man Electrical Band. (See? I
told you we’d get back to them. If you
must own the original version, pick up the album
Good-Byes And Butterflies.) If you expect to hear the
version that’s become a rock radio standard, you might be a little
surprised. You see, the radio version (which was made available on
the cassette single) features the words “blockin’ out the scenery”,
while the album version has people “fuckin’ up the scenery”. Just
be warned in case the kiddies come around on this track.
As for the other covers, Tesla holds their own well on tracks
from the Beatles (“We Can Work It Out” – which Paul McCartney would
perform on his own acoustic live album), The Rolling Stones
(“Mother’s Little Helper”) and even Credence Clearwater Revival
(“Lodi”). Why Tesla would have resorted to so many covers in this
show might be confusing – but it does help to create an almost
informal feel to the album, as if the band (along with a couple
thousand of your closest friends) were in your living room.
Five Man Acoustical Jam is interesting today because it
features Tesla at the height of their popularity, a point I
question whether they ever were able to hit again. If anything, the
album shows that rockers knew how to turn down the volume and
arrange their music for the acoustic guitar setting – and suggests
that Tesla helped to pioneer the “unplugged” craze which would
sweep music a few years later.