The gatefold of this second LP features Ted and the
boys swilling a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label during a Shirts Off Party™ with a flashy TED MULRY GANG rainbow banner hanging over their heads. The
back of the jacket shot of the band loses the bottle and adds a shirtless woman
crouched at Ted’s knees reaching up at his patchwork crotch!! That’s class!!! Struttin
is the reason the phrase tasty licks exists.
The album’s chock-a-block full of honeys, babys, mamas, and
lay-days. As it was powered by “hamburgers
and drinks” (as the "thanks to" note on the back contends) and solid songs ranging from "Lies" to “Crazy” to “Train” to “I’m Comin’
Home,” it’s truly impossible to hear this without hearing it all. The two guitars of Les (the other resident songwriting genius
of the band) and Gary are chugging and chopping their way in the left and right
channels while Ted’s bass and coochie-cooing vocals are backed by Herm’s tight
beat right smack-dab-dipped in the middle of the Oreo mix. I’d say there’s one rawk dud in the whole kit
and caboodle, that’d be “Give Me Your Lovin’” closing Side One, but otherwise the
tag-team songwriting by Ted and Les is either supremely fantastic and/or … well, jaw droppingly
misogynistic (reference the hokey punch line ballad "I'm Free" for proof of the doof in the pudding). Speaking of which, the track I’ve shared here, “Dinah,” a traditional cockney ditty raunchafied into a hokey honkey jam, otherwise features at one point Ted’s best Beatles "All Together Now" (as interpreted by a Noddy Holder impression) and the entire repertoire of the Paul Hogan Show’s
sound effects department. Blasting this
album on the car stereo while waiting at a stoplight with the windows down on a sweltering summer day might
sound like a good idea at first … but as soon as someone pulls up next to you it's just not. Still, this is one of the best of the best of the best!!!
TMG mania!!!!!!!!!!!
The ’75 and ’76 back-to-back chartin’ hits!
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