'LIVE AT THE BRIDGE'

featuring Dave Tice and Mark Evans

No artificial colouring or flavouring. Performing Live, Dave and Mark are captured at their best!

Album available now for $20 plus P&H.

Email your request to purchase

LAY DOWN WITH DOGS

Dave Tice Solo Album

featuring Peter Wells, Paul and Dee Demarco, Mark Evans, Mal Eastick, John Russell, Ric Mellick, Paul Wheeler, Steve Edmonds, MIke Gubb and "Spider".

Executive Producer Simon Carey

Produced by John Bee and Dave Tice

Recorded and mixed by John Bee

Recorded at Beez Neez and Sound Level

Mixed at Beez Neez Audio

Arrangements Dave Tice

LAY DOWN WITH DOGS CD REVIEW

Drum Media June 20, 2000

Last weekend saw a legendary local vocalist DAVE TICE launch his long awaited and long overdue, debut "solo" cd Lay Down With Dogs at the Bridge Hotel in Rozelle. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mr Tice, he was the throat behind Buffalo, The Headhunters & more recently JR & The Bar Kings. The debut "solo" cd is nothing short of a KILLER, featuring a HUGE 16 tracks of Tice penned & co-penned originals, plus a couple of selected covers. Not only does Lay Down With Dogs feature the unmistakable vocal tones of Mr Tice (he also shows his blues harp & guitar talents too), the cd also features an outstanding lineup of special guests which help make the cd what it is, a classic. These include Tice's "duo" partner Mark Evans on bass & acoustic guitar, guitarist Steve Edmonds is the main guitarist, while Pete Wells & Mal Eastick make guest appearances, along with John Russell on Dobro, Paul Burton also on bass, Mike Gubb & Rick Mellick on Organ, Paul DeMarco on drums & Daryll "Spider" Smith and Dee DeMarco on backing vocals. The cd's cover also features a collage of photos & biography of Tice's career which also makes it a great read. If you missed out on the cd launch last weekend, you can head along to the Bridge Hotel in Rozelle every Thursday night to see and hear Tice & Mark Evans in duo mode from 12 Midnight (following Ray Beadle & the Vipers performance). You'll no doubt hear the tracks from Lay Down With Dogs & you may well be able to purchase your copy of the cd too.

Drum blues Andrew Williams

JR & THE BAR KINGS
Sippin' & A Slidin' (Fullmoon)

Drum Media, 23 March 1999

If the rule has to be that you can't play the blues until you've lived them then the lineup on this album bears witness that there are white guys can play the blues with as much gusto and invention as any player the Americans care to throw at us. Ostensibly a vehicle for slide guitarist John Russell, who first surfaced in the early 70s with a band called Flake, Sippin' & A Slidin' is as much a showcase for another 70's survivor, singer Dave Tice who fronted Buffalo back then and the Count Bishops in the UK at the end of that decade, as well as respected piano man about town Don Hopkins. In fact, the first two tracks also showcase the songwriting talents of the guy in whose studio the album was recorded, Jeff Cripps obviously well acquainted with what makes a blues swing, on the brass-propelled Saturday Night, or rock, on the similarly brass-laden Tonight The House.

And like all good blues records, there are all the colours of the blues here, from the straightahead boogie blues of Russell's 12 Bar Victim, replete with Tice in gloriously growling voice and tasteful harp from Ron King, to the raw harmonies and honkey-tonk blues of Not My Own. That rawness adds the necessary authenticity that is so often lacking in 90s takes of the blues, whether local or international, living as it is in the shadow of the oh so smooth Stevie Ray Vaughn, so often copied but never captured.

And that rawness recalls the Australian heritage of blues that spurred these guys on in the first place. They may have got into the blues with the Rolling Stones (rebelling against the "squeaky clean" Beatles), here represented by a kick-arse cover of What A Shame, and discovered the originals behind the Stones, here acknowledged with Russell's tribute to John Lee, but these guys ultimately got into the blues as it worked for them, right here in Australia, with an Australian guitar sound and edge that eventually the rest of the world discovered through the likes of AC/DC. Russell has that edge still, nearly 30 years on from his halcyon days with Flake, and now he's got the life experience to thumb his nose at the sceptics. Just check out his subtle dobro playing on Ring That Buzzer or the gin-soaked slide solo in Damned Good Lie and ask yourself why Russell isn't up there with Dave Hole touring the States on an American label. Then again, where have you been these past 20 years John Russell?
Michael Smith