Saturday, July 18, 2009

RALEIGH'S RIGHTEOUS FOOL: FUN AND GOOD.



Righteous Fool from Mann's World on Vimeo.



FILMED BY KAREN A MANN.

It did my head and heart a lot of good to see Righteous Fool play last night at the Dive Bar here in Raleigh. As some people might know, Righteous Fool are a new band, a trio that features both Reed Mullin and Mike Dean, the drums and bass duo of..you guessed it, Corrosion Of Conformity. Playing guitar for the band is Jason Browning, a fellow who also played with Bad Brains vocalist HR in some of his solo projects.

So played they did, and I was impressed. I sighed with relief! Not only that, given the fact that there is so much history flying around the air with Mike and Reed, the idea of them doing a new band RIGHT NOW with Jason is really cool. It sure sounds like that these guys are doing exactly what they should be doing at this point in time. A lot of the songs are good. Some of them are pretty tricky to boot. Jason is a more then capable guitarist, even wearing a Shudder To Think shirt (a favorite band of mine)to seal that deal. A "Peter Green, Not Eye For An Eye" version of "Green Manalishi" cemented everything. I was smiling ear to ear while kneeling in front of Reed's kit next to Andy Freeburn and thinking how cool this was. Watching Reed and Mike jam in the year 2009. Wow. Cool.

If anything, Mike is a better bass player now then ever, and Reed certainly hasn't lost anything. Naysayers will poo-poo the band because it isn't the second coming of "Rabid Dogs" but anyone else who likes good heavy music EVEN IF IT HAS A GROOVE TO IT should have no problem enjoying Righteous Fool. I sure did.

Before I left I went up to Reed and gave him a goodbye hug and my compliments and he said in response, "I'm having fun."

"..but it is also good!", I replied.

And he just added, "yeah..but I am having fun!"

So there you go. Righteous Fool. Both good and fun.

2 comments:

Gray said...

thanks for posting this. mike dean and reed mullin could have my dad playing guitar for them, and they would still rule all over the place.

i just tripped over our blog after being a fan of your art for some time, and it's fucking killing it. great shit. as a former north carolinian (winston-salem...new start posse represent!) it's great to read these old stories and hear about these bands that were so important to me too. keep it up.

i look forward to you covering some Bloodmobile and Subculture....bring it on! oh yeah, and Stillborn Christians...No Labels...Confessor (what? did i just say that?), Ghost Story, Antiseen, Buzzoven (nee Sewer Puppets), and on and on.

hail north carolina!

The Thing That Should Not Be said...

WOwzer. That was GREAT!! Can't wait to hear 'em knock out a proper recording.