Greg Munro Presents Green Street Music Series

Posted 5/23/05

By: Bill Copeland

Greg Munro has done it again. Munro is the producer of the Green Street Music Series, a series of concerts held at The Lucky Dog Music Hall in Worcester. The Green Street Music Series features a band made up of local musicians from Worm town's and Boston's most successful bands and about 35 guest singers from other popular area groups.

Together, they celebrate the music of the most popular recording artists in rock and roll history. Last Saturday's show, dubbed Green Street Done Dirt Cheap, showcased the music of Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, and AC/DC. The house band, named Sick As A Dog, offered Roger Lavallee (Curtain Society) on guitar, John Donovan (Bees Knees) on guitar, Jodee Frawlee (Starr Faithfull) on guitar and vocals, Ed Barnett (Bees Knees) on drums, Ron Mominee (Curtain Society) on bass, Clark Brown (Symatic) on vocals, Duncan Arsenault (Curtain Society) on drums, Charlene Arsenault (Pet Rock) on keyboards, Neil Lucey (Thinner) on vocals and Dawn Sweet (Pet Rock) on backing vocals.

Technician Paul Dagnello has this concert perfectly set up to fill The Lucky Dog with sound, and Munro had plenty of smoke wafting over the stage at the right moments.

Munro selected a lot of good songs from Cooper, Aerosmith, and AC/DC, and he matched them with the right singer. The show began with the Alice Cooper set, and this was the best set for two reasons: Lucey and Frawlee. Lucey captured the tone and intensity of Cooper's aggressive and emotive vocal approach. Frawlee, a premiere guitar talent, played all of the leads in this set with astonishing accuracy and drive. Drums and bass came in with a loud bounce and that too gave the guitars and singers a solid back drop to play against.

Guest vocalist Thermos X. Pimpington (Voodoo Screw Machine), who donned bizarre costumes for his numbers, also took an impressive turn at delivering Cooper's attitude and gravelly vocal. An eccentric showman, he was a real hoot dressed up in an Uncle Sam costume with an exceptionally large hat for "Elected."

Mominee, with his smooth tenor, shined in his vocal spot in "I'll Never Cry," a Cooper ballad that took the nightmarish singer into the AM pop charts back in the late 1970s. Lavallee took on the poignant Cooper ballad "Only Women Bleed" with a voice that succeeded in tone if not completely in range. Guest singer Krista Van Guilder (Obsidian Halo), a tough sounding lady, pounded home the message of "I'm Eighteen," proving in grand style that a singer doesn't have to be a guy to handle this hard rock vocal material.

Next up was the Aerosmth set, and it was a little muddier than the finely orchestrated sets that came before and after. Frawlee relinquished her guitar duties to be the featured singer. With only two guitarists, the band couldn't completely recreate the loud, thick, wide sound for these songs. It sounded like Aerosmith lite. Only when Frawlee came back up to play
Aerosmith's version of The Yardbird's song "Train Kept A Rollin" did the music get expansive.

The band didn't really find its footing in this set until the fourth and fifth numbers when Channing LeBlanc (Make Juliet Smile) took to the microphone to kick out "Same Old Song And Dance" and "Sick As A Dog." LeBlanc was the only singer to pull off the tone and attitude that came close to what Steven Tyler does.

There were still a lot of high points here, though. Cathy Cah (Muscle Cah) belted like a dynamo on "Dude Looks Like A Lady" and Erick Godin (Chillum) brought the needed screechy delivery to "Kings And Queens," possibly the weirdest song Aerosmith ever recorded. Sweet stepped up to the lead vocal microphone and served the emotive qualities for "You See Me Crying" and "Dream On."

Frawlee, a premiere vocalist as well as an award-winning guitarist, did an acceptable job as featured singer. She pulled off "Make It," "Walking The Dog," "Toys In The Attic," "Walk This Way," and "Mama Kin" with the silky, rangy voice that has become her trademark. I only wished she would have picked up her guitar more often.

The AC/DC set brought the show back up to the same energy level as the Alice Cooper tunes. This set only required Lavallee and Donovan on guitars with Mominee on bass and Arsenault on drums. The appeal of AC/DC was their simplicity and the stripped down version of the house band captured that.

Featured singer Clark Brown has a heavy metal growl that worked well with songs originally performed by Bon Scott and Brian Johnson. He got the crowd excited with his vocal approach to "Hell's Bells," "Back In Black," and "Thunderstruck."

Barnett, a second featured singer here, was almost a vocal dead ringer for Bon Scott when he sang the AC/DC sexual double entendre "The Jack" and the last two numbers "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" and "Highway To Hell." However, it was Barnett's delivery on the slow build up in "Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" that showed he could travel the narrative arc of the tune.

Two other AC/DC highlights were pulled off by hard rocking women. Van Guilder came back to increase the voltage with a fiery take on "Shoot To Thrill" and Heather Rose (Stereobirds) passionately belted out "You Shook Me All Night Long."

Also performing were Steve Black (Snakes & Ladders), Shawn Revoltah (Group Action), Ken Ebell (Childhood), Chris Cah (Meat Depressed), Jessica Rawding (Cathy' s Clown), Chris Sonia (Cryptonym), Matt Zajac (Left Behind), Steve Cummings (Bottlefight), Rick Blaze (The Ballbusters), The General Krutov (Red Army), Dan Jenkins (Sumo), and Michael Sullivan (Wreckoning).

Anybody who hasn't already checked out the Green Street Music Series might want to visit The Lucky Dog website www.luckydogmusic.com The same crew will be presenting a 1950s sock hop on July 9th, featuring Cathy's Clown.
Green Street #8 will present the music of Elton John, David Bowie, and Queen this coming winter.

---Bill Copeland

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