The Iron City Houserockers were an American rock band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, led by singer/guitarist Joe Grushecky, that existed from 1976 until 1984. Lumped into the heartland rock genre, critically praised but commercially unsuccessful, the band's fans view them as one of the great "shoulda-beens" in the history of rock and roll.
Started in 1976 as the Brick Alley Band by
Grushecky, a high school special education teacher in Pittsburgh, the band was a
fairly typical bar band. The band was distinguished by Grushecky's taut,
focused songs about life in the open hearth and a distinctive,
harmonica-and-guitar driven sound owing much to the Rolling Stones and the J.
Geils Band, but which also seemed to borrow a lot of the thrashing fury of punk
rock. Most of the members of the Iron City Houserockers came from a
genuine blue collar background: Art Nardini was the son of a mechanic and a part
time college student, Joe Grushecky was a coal miner's son, and Gil Snyder's
father was a construction worker. In 1977 they signed to Cleveland
International Records, headed by former Epic Records A&R chief and Pittsburgh
native Steve Popovich. Popovich christened them the Iron City Houserockers, but
this caused some problems when touring outside their native Pittsburgh—when they
played Cleveland their tires were slashed. The band's debut album Love's
So Tough was released in April 1979. With dense, no-frills production by
Popovich and Marty Mooney, AKA the Slimmer Twins, the album successfully
captured the band's live sound. "Hideaway" (the first single) and "Dance
With Me" were viewed as standout cuts.
The band's follow-up album Have a Good Time but Get out Alive! was featured by
Rolling Stone magazine as its showcase review with the headline "New American
Classic" and The Village Voice called it the strongest album by an American band
in 1980. The tandem tavern-set tracks "Old Man Bar" and "Junior's Bar"
were especially praised. Production was credited to the Slimmer Twins and Mick Ronson, with arrangements by Ian Hunter and Steven Van Zandt. According to the
notes within Pumping Iron & Sweating Steel: The Best of the Iron City Houserockers, Van Zandt left after producing three songs due to musical
differences between himself, Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson.
The Houserockers' third album, Blood on the Bricks, is a bit more restrained,
but a lot richer and more consistent; for the first time, Grushecky's ballads
measure up to his faster anthems. Produced by American soul-rock legend
Steve Cropper, the album crackles with restrained intensity. The 1983 edition
Rolling Stone Record Guide praised it as the band's best album, although it had
good marks for all of them.
The band then changed its name to simply The Houserockers to avoid the
geographic limitation the "Iron City" moniker had put them in. It also
shed harmonica player Marc Reisman, and saw Gil Snyder adding synthesizers to
his trademark piano and organ. The subsequent album, Cracking Under
Pressure, like all the band's previous efforts, drew critical raves - but didn't
sell much. The band was dropped from MCA Records shortly after the album's
release, and broke up a few months later.
Joe Grushecky went on to a modestly successful career on his own, often under
the name Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers. He has co-written several
songs with fellow heartland rocker Bruce Springsteen and made a number of
on-stage appearances with him.
The Iron City Houserockers' first two albums, Love's So Tough and Have a Good
Time but Get Out Alive! were released on compact disc in 1999. Blood on the
Bricks and Cracking Under Pressure are still unreleased on CD, although cuts
from both albums are present on Pumping Iron & Sweating Steel: The Best of the
Iron City Houserockers.
Lineup
Joe Grushecky - rhythm guitar, vocals
Eddie Britt - lead guitar
Art Nardini - bass
Gil Snyder – keyboards, accordion
Ned Rankin - drums
Marc Reisman - harmonica
- Source
Material from Wikipedia.org
- Photo by Todd Brunozzi