We’ve flipped the switch on three more streaming releases from the Strangers vault:
1. Mobilehomecomingqueen album – released in October 1995: This was The Strangers’ final studio album. I had left the band by this point but I have a couple of co-writes with singer Bart Ferguson, namely Sugar Spike and Revelation Tears. Mobilehomecomingqueen was recorded in Vancouver BC in late 1995 and featured the band’s last full-time lineup of Bart Ferguson, Allen Bush, Ned Failing, Rob Post (bass) and Julian Webster (lead guitar), with production duties shared with Don Gilmore (later known for work with Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne and Good Charlotte). The album showcases the band at peak musicianship, layered, groove-driven, and emotionally sharp, delivering 14 of the best latter-era originals including Truth and Lies, Kerosene Dream, Stuck Again, Shotgun Valentine, Continental Breakdown and Honest Child. The album title was dreamed up during one the band’s multi hundred mile drives between gigs. Mobilehomecomingqueen would become the band’s swan song, landing a few months before their farewell shows in 1996. Listen here and anywhere else you stream music.
2. Live at the Great American Music Hall – March 17, 1993: This St. Patrick’s Day show at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall was a turning point for The Strangers. Performed in front of a packed house, it was professionally recorded on 16-track tape by Lisa Richmond and has since been regarded as one of the best snapshots of the band’s early five-piece era. While much of this show wound up on the Life on the Road album, this live scoop showcases the other songs played from that era that could have been on Life on the Road but were set aside at the time. This includes the Henry Smith classics Katie Mae and Cascadilla Bridge, Allen Bush treasures Shut Out the Moon and Winds of Change and an 18-minute rendition of Mystery of Mysteries that encompasses Pass It On from the Dreams of the Land album. This gig was also on drummer Ned Failing's birthday, natch! Listen here and anywhere else you stream music.
3. Live at the Great American Music Hall – January 5, 1995: And finally, at this show at the Great American Music Hall nearly two years after the Life on the Road live recording, The Strangers kicked off 1995 with a career-highlight performance alongside Calobo and Sweet Virginia, drawing another full house and finally earning a coveted write-up in the San Francisco Chronicle “Pink Section” that said, “The Strangers are probably one of the hardest working bands on the scene, calling themselves a ‘well oiled traveling machine that performs 250 to 300 dates a year.’ The San Francisco based band has made three albums, including its most recent, the aptly named ‘Life on the Road.’ The Strangers play what they call ‘harmonic rhythm and groove,’ a label broad enough to take in both the band's sweet acoustic/vocal harmony side as well as its danceable country-folk-rock side. All sides of this five piece group are worth checking out.” The show featured a tight, high-energy set that blended old favorites like Josephine and White Knucklin’ with newer, edgier material like Shithead, Mercy, and All Your Enemies. Listen here and anywhere else you stream music.
