Lee Rocker News!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my......don't like to read too much between the lines BUT what else could he mean?
A SURPRISE RECORD WITH SOME LONGTIME FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


It's been way too long since I've written an update for the Web site, but with the turning of the year it seems like a good time to start. My resolution for 2010 is to keep up on this Web site, write a blog and get someone to hook me up on this Twitter thing I keep hearing about. I do want to thank everyone who visits here and listens to my music for their encouragement and support through so many years.

2010 is looking like it's going to be a rockin' year with a new Lee Rocker record as well a a surprise record with some longtime friends. The Lee Rocker record is finished and is titled Midnight Radio. This one's a different kind of thing for me in the song choices and the instruments. All the songs are classic hits from the 1970s. This came about by me thinking back on being a kid growing up in the NYC suburbs, lying in bed at night long after my parents had gone to sleep and listening to this little transistor radio. The songs I recorded are some of the ones I would hear on those long ago nights. I cut versions of "Honkey Cat," "Ramblin' Man," "Come Dancing," "Drivin' my Life Away," "City of New Orleans," "Come Together" and some other tracks I had around that fit the bill. One of the other things that set this record apart from everything else I've done is that most of the songs are acoustic. I used banjo, dobro, harmonicas, auto harps, accordions and percussion, and I played most of the instruments myself. I was helped out by the bulletproof team of Buzz Campbell, Jimmy Sage and Brophy Dale on some of the songs and parts. Those guys are the best and I'm happy to work with em. We're getting the last details nailed down now and will post here on the website as soon as were ready to take orders for Midnight Radio.

Lots more is coming down the pike so check back here and keep in touch

Lee Rocker

Regards
Steve

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lee has a lot of friends. I hope it's the friends we're all thinking about

sorry about the move but, this is about another artist even if he works with Setzer now and then.

OHHH YEAAAH!!
Hope to see him here in Europe soon!

nice!! i wish he'd do a full tour as well , good to hear a new album is coming .

anybody listen to the new songs on his website?
Rock this town and Stray Cat Strut sounded like the original ones.
Wonder whowas playing the guitar and the drum?

Lee rules!

Brett wrote:

Rock this town and Stray Cat Strut sounded like the original ones.

As much as I like Lee's music this ain't true. That guitar is a clumsy attempt, totally different to Brian's delicate way of playin. No wildness, no raw, no recognition value, sorry, no.

i am talking bout the sound, and for sure it is not the same guitar like 1980, but the player used a lot of all these fine licks from the past.
And btw. my question was does anybody know who is the guitarplayer?

cheers

Brett wrote:

be cool

??

It's nice to hear anything coming from Lee Rocker but to put it straight, it's sad to hear that he's recorded a "new version" to Stray Cat Strut or Rock This Town. Come on, he has plenty of songs and a name of his own so that he doesn't really need to play Stray Cats stuff just to get people going to his shows, don't you think??? He has many songs like Rumblin' Bass, Little Buster, Shame Shame Shame, Jimmy Jimmy, Evil, She's Gone... just to drop a few, to fill a 2h set without any Cats song. He's talented, gifted... what else can we ask for??

I agree with SJP. Lee's built himself a great catalog. It would have been cool to get a teaser of the new stuff from his site.

There was a time when neither Lee nor Brian wanted anything to do with Stray Cats, as they were trying to forge ahead with their solo careers. So I'm keen to appreciate any recognition of the work that drew most of us to their fan base initially. Lee has been including a lot more Cats stuff in his sets in recent years, and I think he does a fine job with most of it. I even enjoyed his quasi-psychobilly take on Rock This Town on his Curse of Rockabilly / Racin' the Devil album. I actually prefer a reinvention like this one or Brian's big band arrangement over ones like the close-but-no-cigar streaming example currently on Lee's site.

With all the overdubbing and multi-instrumental talent Lee's displaying on his next album, I'm wondering if it's possible Lee played all the instruments on the Rock This Town and Strut he has on his website. The guitars don't sound like Buzz or Brophy. I guess if that's the case, I'm probably more forgiving of these versions than some of you.

I'm definitely chomping at the bit to hear the new album. Hopefully, he'll feature some of these tracks on the site soon. It seems like a lot of artists these days are cashing in on Classic Rock tribute albums (Def Leppard, Styx, Cheap Trick, Smithereens, Reel Big Fish, Poison, etc.) but I'm all for any new product from Lee that gets him out on the road to my neck of the woods.

One Man Band-a-billy

If Lee played the guitars on the tracks i`m much impressed.
I like very much the RtT-version of "curse of Rockabilly" that´s why the new one surprised me.

Is it you, Lee?

@christopher: probably a missunderstanding from my side. No offence.

Listening to 'Stray Cat Strut' he has overdubbed himself for the backing vocals. I don't know if that tells for the other instruments...

I don´t think Lee plays the guitar there.

I am sure it is Buzz and Brophy on guitars, and Jimmy on the drums, as usual. Those guys are really talented.

One of the finest and tighter bands out there today.

It is merely a guess....but I think Lee re-recorded Rock This Town & Stray Cat Strut just as Brian re-recorded the same songs for The Hits - a music licensing CD. These songs get used in commercials - I think Rock This Town was used in a car commercial.

Can "Brian Setzer -The Hits" be purchased anywhere ? Do they sound different from the originals or are they exact copys ?

You'll have to look for it on eBay. These re-recordings were not produced for release to the public, but rather people who are looking for music to license for use in advertising, or background music for movies and TV, among other things. So if someone calls Brian's current management looking to use these songs, they can offer up these versions. This way, Brian can get paid for these hits if they are used on TV, commercials, movies, etc. I presume he would get paid little, if anything, if the original EMI master recordings were used.

I believe it is Brian, Bernie, and Ronnie Crutcher on these recordings. I think they were recorded in October 2006, and I recall Ford using "Rock This Town" for an ad campaign some time in 2007 (or was it 2008? - time flies). I don't recall hearing these recordings anywhere else, but I'm sure they're out there.

They're not bad, but I wouldn't trade 'em for the originals. They're arranged to be as faithful to the original recordings as possible, but they're not quite as driving or energetic as the original 80s recordings. Slim Jim Phantom's high-energy bangin' and a-yellin' is as vital to "Rock This Town" as Brian's guitar. I miss that raw energy on these re-recordings. Definitely an intriguing piece for the collector.

Product-placement-billy

Thanks for the info, Rick. I must keep my eye out for 'em. I agree that it would be nigh on impossible to recreate the spirit and brilliance of the original recordings.

Enjoy .... The Hits

Thank you so much peeteycat for the link!

It's fairly fascinating to compare Lee's and Brian's new recordings to the originals. Is Lee licensing his versions too or did he just cut them for the heck of it? Though Brian's voice and guitar are unmistakable, there are several things about Lee's versions that seem a bit truer to the originals. The overall echo-drench and background hollering in Lee's are closer (btw, I've spent enough nights in bars listening to Buzz sing and play over the last 15 years to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that in Lee's tunes, the backing vocals, those hollers in RTT and the "meow," "yeah, don't cross my path" and "whoa no!" in Strut are all sung by Buzz, and I am certain that is him on the guitar). Lee seems to copy the singing style, inflections, cadence and even the vocal timbre of the originals more closely than Brian does. He employs a high, clear sound in his voice (like Brian had in the originals) that he simply does not use on his own stuff. You can tell he's not singing from the gut like he normally does.

But there are some very distinct differences too. I find it interesting that the bass solo in Lee's Strut is actually mixed a bit lower than the original - that's VERY uncharacteristic for Lee!! And for as similar as both Lee's and Brian's re-recordings are, neither drummer does the swingy rim clicking during the bass solo that you hear in the original...

....

Reading this back I just realized I sound like a frigging Star Trek geek, picking apart every detail of every scene of every episode. I'm going to stop now.

Thanks a million, Peeteycat for posting the music. I really enjoyed it. I think Runaway boys is the best. Sexy and 17 seems to me ,like the drums are outa synch with Brian, dont know.
I wish I could download them. Is that possible ?

This CD-R is on Ebay from time to time... they do sound slightly different but nothing compared to the originals. Bernie Dresel on Drums and Ronnie Crutcher on Bass ;-)

who does the yellilng at "Sexy+17" !!??