I was just listening to my Tom Petty CD, and I thought it would be cool to write an Epinions review of Shake Your Money Maker by the Black Crowes.

Not that listening to Tom Petty is in any way related to reviewing a Black Crowes CD, I just wanted to show how cool I am for listening to a Tom Petty CD. It's the anthology, that double-disc from last year... pretty cool, if you ask me...

Oh yeah, the Black Crowes. Pretty good band. In fact, darn good band, if I may be so bold. These boys rock. Nobody was doing this in the early 90's, churning out good old-skool rock an' roll. Everyone was either experimenting with dippyarse computerized stuff or being moody, wearing flannel and staring at their shoes, and we all know how much I HATE THAT TYPE OF MOODY SHIZNIT!

Wait, no, my favorite group is Pearl Jam. Well, whatever, these Black Crowes boys are great 'uns. They're the greatest rock band ever, in fact. They have this charismatic lead singer named Mick Jagger, and dirty boogie rhythms, and this rockin' gee-tarist named Keef...

Oh, what? Really? Oh, okay. I've been informed that I was actually talking about the Rolling Stones and not the Black Crowes. But there are similarities to be drawn between the Stones and the Crowes... their names for example. They follow a strict policy of naming their bands: The (Adjective) (Nouns). Coincidence? I think not, especially considering this music sounds like the illegitimate child of the Rolling Stones, and we all know that the Rolling Stones probably fathered quite a few illegitimate children in their day, before they all turned like 60.

But the Black Crowes aren't derivitave, no sirree bob. Okay, yes, yes they are, they're derivative as hell, but that doesn't stop them from rockin'! And they don't rock out anywhere else as much as they rock on Shake Your Money Maker, which is the best Rolling Stones album since Some Girls, and the best Black Crowes album since... well, since they didn't have any before this 'un.

Shake Your Money Maker is all play and no work, at least for the listener, who certainly need not overexert his/her (must be PC) braincells to decipher all the song's hidden meanings. Songs about being hard to handle, chainsaws buzzin', seeing things for the first time, jealousy, and... uh, heroin addiction. Yeah. But, even with such cliched topics (is there any possible way to make that word sound like "cli-shayed" instead of "clisht," like it's supposed to?), the band makes it work 'cause they're so dang good. Chris Robinson sings like nobody else, not you, and especially not me because the heigh of my vocal ability is the occasional Axl Rose squeal, the last one of which was perfected that time my cousin kicked me in the pants. He's also tall, too. Jeez, that is one tall mofo. I guess that's why Kate Hudson digs him, the lucky quack. Anyway, yeah, he sings real good. He sings with soul, like the food. Listen to "Seeing Things"--jeez, that's like a friggin' gospel song. "You won't find me down on, on my KNEES! No, no, no, no, nononono! Won't FIND ME OVER BACKWARDS BABE... not to PLEASE! Oooohhhh yeah-hey-yeah... 'cause I'm seeing THANGS for the first time!" Chris Robinson is one cool hippy, and he sings real good.

He's got a brother, too, didja hear? His brother is named Rich, best known for a Hardee's commercial back in '76, but he also plays in a band too. Same band his brother's in, the Black Crowes. The very band we're discussing now. (Never get into a verbal conversation with me, you'll get more lost than I was that one time in downtown Toronto.) Rich is good too. He's a rock guitarist, just like his bro Chris. And he does all sorts of, well, guitar stuff. Yeah, that's what he does. And he's good at it! Best straightforward rock guitarist in a long-butt old time. Steve Gorman's a good drummer too. That guy can drum like a mofo--jeez, he's good.

And how about these songs? These are good-butt songs. Not good butt-songs, you understand. They are not good songs about butts. They are good-butt songs, "butt" in this case being a substitute for the stuff Epinions won't allow me to say. "Twice As Hard" makes me happier than a fly swarming around a big ol' pile of fecal matter, and that's just the first track! "Twi-yi-yice as ha-ward, as it was the first time I said goodbye-yi!" I love that song. I loaf that song. And "Jealous Again"--ho' crap, that's a great rock song! "Seeing Things" is the best one. It's all soft and gospel-y, but dang that song has soul! Like the food!

"Hard To Handle," was, I believe, the album's biggest hit. And that wasn't even their song, it was Otis Redding's. An olllld Otis Redding song. But a good 'un. People always have more success with Otis Redding songs than Otis Redding actually did. "Respect," anyone? That was Otis Redding's song, but Aretha Franklin had to go squeal it out and make everyone love her version of it. Jeez, someone needs to tell that woman to be quiet. ANYway, the Crowes' version of "Hard To Handle" is MUCH better than Meat Loaf's version. Meat Loaf never actually recorded "Hard To Handle," but if he did, it wouldn't be as good, because it would have lots of horns and pianos and people talking and it would be about 12 minutes long. The Crowes' version is only three minutes long, and it's good because it, well, just is. Attitude and soul, baby. And a cool guitar solo.

"She Talks To Angels" is good, too. More soul! Lots more soul! Just like the food! "SWEARS she talks to the A-HEY-YAY-YAN-GELS.... SWEARS that they call her out... OUT BY HER NAME!" Notice the caps--the caps indicate those parts with soul in them, which is pretty much the whole song. Beautiful melody, too, and actually kind of a touching topic, about someone addicted to drugs. (When I initially typed this, I misspelled "drugs" as "drungs," which I thought was pretty funny.) Which, when you think about it, is a mite hypocritical, since the Crowes were known to smoke quite a bit of the wacky weed in their day. I myself don't do drugs, but I am a known hypocrite so I can let them off the hook. "Thick N' Thin," that's a cool rock song. There's a car crash and everything on it. Chris Robinson is tall.

AND there's two bonus tracks on the newfangled special edition version of the CD that I have. One of them is called "Don't Wake Me" (bit of a yawnfest if you ask me), but the other one is called "She Talks To Angels", and it's acoustic! Yeah, that's right, acoustic--just like the first one was, only without the organ. Actually, the acoustic version is just piano and acoustic gee-tar, and it's got bucketloads of soul in it. Like the food. And Chris Robinson starts soulfully wailing at the beginning, rather than in the middle like the regular version, so you get more soul for your buck if you buy the remastered edition.

Unfortunately, any track that I have not mentioned here pretty much blends together with the next one and/or the previous one. But, since I lurve the songs that I DID mention so dang much, I'm giving it five stars anywho. If you've got a problem with that, tell me and I'll pretend like I'm listening to you. "Seeing Things"... what a great song.

Uh-oh... I think I'm getting a little ferklempt.

Tawlk amongst yerselves... I'll give you a topic: The Black Crowes are neither black, nor actual crows. Discuss!


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