Skip to main content

April Wine - I Like To Rock

April Wine. There. I said it. Lately, when no one's looking (or listening) I like to take a quick swig of their intoxicating (or adrenalizing?) mid-70s Canadian adventure rock... especially when I'm washing dishes. It's my guilty pleasure. But it shouldn't be and I want to be upfront about this.

Recently I was reading some Chuck Kosterman. The way he framed things really struck a chord with me. "The term 'guilty pleasure' is simply ridiculous; there is simply no band or artist (or movie or hobby or…) that exists that one should feel guilty for liking; to say otherwise implies that a) allowing “insecure” people to dictate your likes and dislikes is alright and b) being involved with certain aspects of life is somehow unacceptable, based on an unreliable, and often times bizarre, scale that you are keen on following."

I first heard about April Wine while reading "Trouble Boys," the recent Replacements biography. Turns out Bob Stinson was a big fan of their guitar riffs and an early incarnation of the Mats even covered some April Wine. Of course, I'd always seen their records at the thrift store, but imagined they were a late 70s soft rock clone of Player or Ambrosia. The Replacements connection prompted me to explore their tunes. Listening to their classic albums (Nature of the Beast and Harder... Faster!) I drew immediate connections to some of my favorite 70s rock bands like Thin Lizzy and Sweet. Right across the Atlantic on the stormy shores of Nova Scotia, they weren't too far from their U.K. rock brethren. There's something totally unambiguous and unpretentious about April Wine's sound. But, at the same time they're not as simplistic and bland as Bad Company or Foreigner. April Wine is somewhere between Grand Funk Railroad and Rainbow.

"I Like To Rock," was filmed at the late, great Le Studio in Morin Heights, Quebec. Unfortunately, the studio was burned down last year. You might recognize it from Rush's Tom Sawyer video.


This live version features an extended drum solo!

Comments

Trending Tracks

U.K. - In The Dead of Night

In the late 70s, as punk and post-punk bands spiraled towards their new wave destinies, prog dinosaurs stood paralyzed in the shadows. Bands like the Sex Pistols were meteors, igniting a global firestorm that would trigger prog's extinction. The British music press (Melody Maker, Sounds, NME, etc.), once proponents of prog darlings Genesis, Yes and ELP, now bashed any band releasing songs in odd time signatures and singing about aliens and whales. The punk revolution had turned the U.K. music industry and press on its head within a year (1976-1977). For me, this is one of the most interesting times in pop music. Although prog groups saw their audiences rapidly dwindle (Yes audiences had dropped from 20,000 to 3,000 by 1980's Drama tour), many record labels had built fortunes on the works of prog artists and were willing to foot the bill for some interesting transitional experiments. Yes' Drama , ELPs' Works , Genesis' . ..And Then There Were Three... were p...

Asia - Heat of the Moment (Live)

By the end of 1981, prog rock was in deep trouble. Punk rock's offspring had traded in guitars for synthesizers and learned to write catchy pop songs. Prog pioneers who had redefined rock and roll's sound throughout the 70s, with their bold use of Moog and ARP synthesizers (Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, etc.), now stood on the sidelines scratching their heads as Adam Ant lookalikes scored hits with their own brand of synthesized music. The new wave had arrived and proggers were beached. The only prog group that had managed to successfully make the jump to the 80s was Genesis. With Phil Collins out from behind the drums and singing love songs, the group scored hits with "Follow You, Follow Me," "Turn It On Again," and "Misunderstanding." Genesis wasn't new wave, but they had successfuly shed the odd time signatures and existential lyrics of the 70s and attracted a mainstream pop audience. But Genesis was just the beginning. Following the...