Tag Archives: wolfmother

#776: Wolfmother – Love Train

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Every time I hear ‘Love Train’ by Wolfmother I’m reminded of the times when it was the band’s new single and its video was making the rounds for the first time on MTV2 in the UK. 2006 was the year. Wolfmother seemed to come out of nowhere when the group’s video for ‘Dimension’ was also played endlessly on that channel. That was the first ever song of theirs I heard/watched and I guess its fair to say that became a bit of a fan. They wore their 70s hard rock influences on their sleeves but the music was amazing. I got their album as a result; I haven’t gone through it in a while.

After ‘Dimension’ and ‘Woman’ were released as singles, ‘Love Train’ followed. It wasn’t as commercially successful as its two predecessors but showed, at least to me, that they could be just a bit versatile and could lay on the funk on their music if they wanted. ‘Train’ is carried by this groove and riff that I’m sure probably came from some jam the band were doing in their spare time. The lyrics aren’t very substantive and I’m sure the music is meant to be the main thing to focus on, but from what I can hear the narrator hasn’t been in the game for a while and is looking to get back to it some time soon.

There are a load of copies of Wolfmother’s first album which have a totally different tracklist to the one I own, and that don’t have this song on there. The record was initially released only in Australia in late 2005; I guess either the band didn’t finish the song in time for it to be included, or they hadn’t even thought of it in between the time they released the album in their home country and its international release. Whatever happened, ‘Love Train’ exists, I’m glad it does, the music video you can see up there.

#673: Wolfmother – Joker & the Thief

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I haven’t listened to any new Wolfmother material in years. Not saying I was the biggest fan of the group in the first place. But when two original members left and the new album then was going to be called Cosmic Egg, that’s where it lost me. The albums they’ve made since the self-titled debut may well be quite for all I know, but probably wouldn’t hit as hard as that first record.

‘Joker & the Thief’ is a track from that album. It was also released as a single, the last one – at least in the UK – if I remember right. Its video (above), featuring the cast of Jackass due to its inclusion in Jackass Number Two, was played regularly on MTV2. That’s pretty much how I got to know it. But it was another hit in a long run of great singles from the band that urged me to get the whole album.

After seeing/hearing it so many times on television, it’s quite difficult to get down into the nitty-gritty of what makes the song good. It’s just a great hard rock song. A bit Led Zeppelin-like in the way they take a character and describe them in a way that makes them seem far out and cosmic. I also like that there’s no bass guitar in the track, instead being replaced by a keyboard that works equally as well. It’s quite different to what you’re normally used to.

My iPod #275: Wolfmother – Dimension

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Yeah. This was the Wolfmother I liked. The one that showed up on ‘New Music’ for about thirty seconds in 2006. That seemed to be the year of the Australian bands; The Vines released a new album, Jet did a few months later. But it was Wolfmother that got us all excited. They were bringing back the rock of the 70s… and “Dimension” was our first glimpse of this new band. (Well, it was mine – Australia had known about them since late 2005, and they’d released two other songs there too).

“Dimension” opens with a scream (which may make a few laugh just because it doesn’t sound like a lot of effort is put into it) before launching into a groovy riff that plays throughout the song. If the guitar isn’t playing it, then the bass is whilst lead singer Andrew Stockdale (who was somewhat of a cross-up of Marc Bolan and Robert Plant) sings about getting lost in a desert and then ending up in another dimension. How he ends up there, we don’t know. But he makes a reference to ‘purple haze’ and ‘all these things we must try’…. so I may have to assume that it’s about drugs.

But the song really impressed me when it showed up on MTV2. The three members had a good chemistry, even though it’s not really a live performance it looked like the group were on time with one another – like they never missed a beat. They followed it up with some other top bangers too, that I ended getting a physical copy of their debut for my birthday/Christmas. I don’t get physical CDs so much nowadays (scratch that…. I don’t get physical CDs at all) so that’s saying something.

Too bad the drummer and bassist left. Then Wolfmother changed, and released the new album….. “Cosmic Egg“. Nooooooo. The first album will do, thanks.