Railroad Jerk – Natalie

I love the opening riff to this song! It sounds like a riff from the old 70’s ZZ Top with a little Stones thrown in…. but a little rawer. I have to thank my blogger friend CB who mentioned this band. 

In 1989 singer and guitarist Marcellus Hall  formed the band in 1989 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with bassist Tony Lee and drummer Jez Aspinall. Within a few months, guitarist Chris Mueller also joined.

I hear a mixture of The Cramps and  The Stones. This was on their 4th album The Third Rail  released in 1996. The band recorded demos for a fifth Railroad Jerk LP which was to be entitled ‘Masterpiecemeal’. This final LP was never released. Dave Varenka and Marcellus Hall went on to form the band White Hassle.

It’s not a lot about this band, not even the song’s lyrics so I’m including an excerpt from AllMusic. 

Railroad Jerk skewer blues, country, rock, and noise into a messy, bohemian post-punk celebration of roots rock. Formed in 1989 by guitarist/vocalist Marcellus Hall and bassist/vocalist Tony Lee in Trenton, NJ, the duo added drummer Jez Aspinall and guitarist Chris Muller by early 1990; the group recorded their self-titled debut for Matador Records in 1990. After its release, Aspinall left the band and was replaced by Steve Cercio; Muller was kicked out of the band and replaced by Alec Stephen. The quartet released their acclaimed second album, Raise the Plow, in 1993; after its release, Cercio left the band and was replaced by Dave Varenka. Railroad Jerk released its third album — its most highly-praised yet — in spring of 1995. Third Rail, the group’s fourth album, also received positive reviews upon its fall 1996 release.

Advertisement

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

26 thoughts on “Railroad Jerk – Natalie”

  3. Yeah definitely a bluesy form of the Stones! Weirdly the opening guitar riff reminds me of the keyboard riff from Stevie Wonders Superstition. I know, weird

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. It reminds me of Whiskey Train by Procol Harum but yes…I can see it to Superstition also…it’s the accent on the single notes…so no it’s not weird.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. I’ve said it before…you surprise me Bruce…yes I like simplicity like this…it sticks with you….the accents on the single notes.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. CB recommended these guys and I like them a lot. That simple riff draws me in.

      Graham I know you have been busy trying to get your site right…If you have a moment…could you check out yesterday’s post and tell me if you have heard much or anything from them? I thought of you when I made the post…jangly power pop.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      2. I know how that is…catching up.

        Certain posts I write…I usually think of certain readers that might know the subject or like them.

        Looks like I have to catch up with you. I just found two posts of yours that I never noticed…I’ll get them tonight.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. The Gabriel one was an accidental repost – it’s an old post that duplicated, I deleted the wrong one, then had to rescue the old one out of the trash and republish it. It’s weird you didn’t see the quiz on Thursday though – that was before I switched.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Ok…probably because I look for you on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday…but it’s still odd I didn’t see it.

        Liked by 1 person

      6. Wow… oh ok gotcha…I should have known that. Of all the countries that WordPress commenters are from…I follow quite a few from New Zealand…I’ve learned more about your country in the past 4 years than I ever knew before.

        Liked by 1 person

      8. You do cover a little like The Beths and others. I follow a few…some of them have moved away but a few are still there. Not all music blogs though. Jeremy and you were the first two I followed I think.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. There is a lot of things going through there. Thanks for looking…I did also…I couldn’t find a thing. That is why I usually cover the best known song from bands like this because usually there are lyrics but I like this one a lot.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: