When the Phil Brontz article was published, Bill Toms and Hard Rain were in the studio working on a mysterious project. They were so optimistic from the get go about the writing, the recording sessions and the project itself. I love Hard Rain and couldn't wait to hear the new CD. Bill Toms is a great songwriter and the group of men in that band are just a strong force to be reckoned with in simple words.
It was during the time after I left my long-time marriage and in between the months when I moved to the foothills of the mountains that I received the envelope from Bill Toms in the mail containing the CD. My son and I were staying with my mom who had liver cancer from those 4 glasses of wine she drank in her lifetime. Life wasn't exactly a bowl of cherries all things considered. I remember feeling just energized when I opened the envelope. My little boy loves Hard Rain too, so he was up for a ride in the car to listen. And listen we did.
I really liked "The West End Kid" from the first time I heard it. It became the official soundrack for my divorce. Music has always been therapeutic to me. This CD was the motherlode of emotional stability and hope that things would get better. I teased Bill Toms that I probably couldn't control myself at a live show and might grab his microphone to sing "I don't live there anymore.." I wasn't kidding. I was pretty serious!
i enjoy writing about Hard Rain. I am a fan. I wish Bill Toms all the heart felt luck in the world since he is out there now in New York and places in between trying to promote his music. That this CD broke into the charts, even if it's 100+, is awesome to me. It's a great CD. It is so professionally polished and well written and my personal pick for CD of the year 2005.
One giant Pittsbugh music icon poked fun of me on his website because I wrote in this following article that "The West End Kid" and that man's yet unreleased CDs aren't CDs meant for gathering dust on the city's radio station shelves. I stand behind what I wrote then, perhaps even more strongly today than when I wrote it a few months ago. Stations in other cities are playing Bill Toms and Hard Rain. Why NOT Pittsburgh? These are hometown musicians who deserve better promotion and support from the industry and it's just a shame they just don't get it. What they're writing, recording and producing are great projects, not some half assed music that doesn't deserve to be played on commercial rock stations.
So if some writer out here in the sticks can help get Hard Rain, Norman, Jimmy King, The Silencers and other burgh bands on the radio, so be it. I'd listen more to commercial radio if there were more songs like the ones on this CD and others being played.
I love Hard Rain, did I mention that? jt
_________________________________________________________________________________
Pittsburgh songwriter Bill Toms has good feeling about 'The West End Kid'
By Julie Toye
For the Herald-Standard
11/25/2005
PITTSBURGH - Noted Pittsburgh songwriter/guitarist Bill Toms said he has "a good feeling" about the release of "The West End Kid," his band Hard Rain's fourth CD recently released on Moondog Records.
"Sometimes the big picture is laid out in front of you when everything is complete. I guess when we were mixing and putting the songs in order, the direction and character of the CD came together," Toms explained when asked to pinpoint when the "good feeling" first came to him.
"The West End Kid" is a journey from desolation to redemption, Toms said.
"The characters are longing for help and looking for hope at the beginning of the CD," said Toms, who was inspired by an old newspaper article hanging in the band's rehearsal room about a Pittsburgh boxer.
"We would rehearse in a building owned by our dear friend Perry Petrone, who has since passed away. On the wall in the hallway leading to the rehearsal room, there was a picture of Perry's relative who was a boxer in the '50s called 'The West End Kid,'" he continued.
"I never read the article, but formatted a story with that vision. There is always truth in my songs. You can find a piece of myself and Perry within this song," he said referring to the title track that has received some airplay on WYEP FM.
"The turning point is in the middle with, 'I'll Take My Pride,' when we say I will take dignity over material and fame. The last song 'Walking with an Angel Tonight' takes the author to the light he has been searching for with a little help," the songwriter/guitarist said of the concept that developed as he wrote the songs.
Unlike all of Hard Rain's previous releases, the new CD features no acoustic instruments and delivers some of Pittsburgh's finest written, performed and produced rock tunes released in recent years.
Songs such as "In the Paradise," "I Don't Live There Anymore" and the funky rocker tune, "I'll Take My Pride" deserve their place on the top shelf of Pittsburgh music classics. Watch patrons of packed bars stop drinking and talking among themselves to take all of "I Don't Live There Anymore" in and relish the moment. The energy or magic generates from the disc as well.
Just the same, electric versus no acoustics in this CD's case also does mean it features pretty trademark electric guitar work from Toms and Tom Breiding and excellent saxophone work from Phil Brontz on songs such as "This Is Nowhere," "I Was In Love With You" and "I'm Walking With An Angel Tonight."
click to continue