Bux - 1976 - We Come To Play

Bux

1976

We Come To Play

01. Crosstown Girl

02. Highway

03. It's Your Baby

04. If You Want Love

05. White Lightning

06. Come on Down

07. Buy Me a Bottle

08. When Your Time Has Come

09. Next Train

Ralph Morman - Lead Vocals

James Newlon - Lead Guitars

Punky Meadows - Lead Guitars

Mickie Jones - Bass

Wiley Crawford - Keyboards/Lead Vocals

Rocky Isaac - Drums

The East coast rockin' quintet known as Bux (formerly Daddy Warbux) featured future poutin' Angel guitarist Edwin "Punky" Meadows, as well as bassist Mickie Jones, plus under-rated front man Ralph Mormon holding down the vocals before the singer eventually joined The Joe Perry Project in 1979. The Bux boys didn't hang together long, but they did manage to kick out one LP during their brief ride on the American seventies hard rock scene.

Bux delivered a straight-shootin' set of rock 'n' full-tilt boogie throughout the nine song We Come to Play (Capitol Records), that was originally recorded in 1973. Officially released three years later, the LP was produced by the legendary Jack Douglas, who seemingly lived in the studio during the high-times seventies, never seeing the light of day as he worked with numerous hard rocking bands, including Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Rick Derringer, Cheap Trick, Moxy and Starz.

By the time Capitol Records finally marketed We Come to Play, the group had already split-up. Eventually pushed-out to cash-in on the moderate success of Angel, with the white-clad Meadows and Jones in the fold, the nine song effort opens with the highball rollin' "Crosstown Girl", and adds "Highway", the cowbell-clunkin' "If You Want Love", the funked-out moonshine-runnin' "White Lightning" (eventually covered by Angel in 1977 for their On Earth As It Is In Heaven LP), "Buy Me a Bottle", "When Your Time Has Come", the Southern-fried "Come on Down", and the five-minute album closer "Next Train".

Mormon's strong vocals rule the recording, that packs grit and swagger, while Meadows adds low-slung-cool six-string work. The nine song LP is a Bux shot of '70s hard rollin' action.

Daddy Warbux formed in 1972, featuring a line-up of drummer Rocky Isaac, bassist Mickie Jones, lead guitarist Edwin "Punky" Meadows, singer Ralph Morman and rhythm guitarist James Newlon. Collectively these guys had plenty of music experience; long term stalwarts of the local music scene having played and recorded in a variety of bands including The Cherry People (Isaac), The English Setters (Meadows), and The Fallen Angels (Isaac and Meadows).

Daddy Warbucks spent several years playing clubs throughout Maryland, Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia and around Boston. In 1973 the band's constant touring paid off when they scored a recording contract with Capitol. Teamed with producer Jack Douglas, the band headed up to New York where the album was recorded at the Record Plant. For whatever reason Capitol decided to shelve the collection, subsequently dropping the band from its recording roster. Playing throughout the DC areas under their Daddy Warbucks name (briefly morphing into Foxie), within a year infighting saw the band call it quits. Jones and Meadows subsequently reappeared in the Washington, DC-based Angel. With Angel signing with Casablanca Records and starting to attract critical attention, in 1976 Capitol elected to posthumously release their shelved LP. One of the mysteries I've never figured out - if they were working under the name Daddy Warbucks, who decided to release the collection credited to "Bux"? Sure it was shorter and the cover photo showing them posing in front of the New York Stock Exchange kind of made sense with that name, but was it any better from a marketing perspective when nobody knew who the hell they were? Someone out there will have the answer ...

You've heard the phrase "damn with faint praise"? I think that's pretty apt for "We Come To Play." With Morman and Newlon responsible for writing the majority of the nine tracks, this was a workman-like set of '70s hard rock and boogie rock. Anyone who enjoyed a weekly dose of early Aerosmith (blame producer Jack Douglas), Bad Company, Back Street Crawler, Kiss, etc. was likely to find the album entertaining. As reflected on tracks like 'Crosstown Girl' and 'If You Want Love' Morman had a voice that was well suited to this musical niche - powerful, if slightly shrill. Meadows was clearly a talented lead guitarist, if much of his work seemed formulaic. There were occasional moments of sunlight. 'When Your Time Has Come' was a nice Free-styled slice of blues-rock. The close 'Next Train' found the band slowing things down with a melodic mid-tempo ballad. Finally, the only song to feature Newlon on vocals, 'It's Your Baby' had a great melody and an interesting lyric relating to one of the threats of the rock and roll lifestyle. The other standout was Meadows. True, a lot of his work was formulaic. You could have easily have mistaken something like 'White Lightening', or 'If You Want Love' for a Joe Perry solo. Still, check out his voice-box effect on 'It's Your Baby'; or his slide guitar on 'Come on Down.' To their credit, Bux didn't waste any effort on studio sophistication, rather this must have captured what their live bar band, bread-and-butter sound was like. I'm sure that with a couple of cold beers it got even better. The end result was an album that was perfectly listenable, but time after time if felt calculated. I kept finding myself playing "where did I hear that before?"