Geordie "Can You Do It?" 1973-1975(orig) 1999(comp)***

A Geordie is a person from the Tyneside region of North East England, best known for its coalmines and its inhabitants' distinctive olde English accent. These Geordies must have been very proud of their origin, as not only they've taken their name from it, but one of them also poses on the album cover wearing a Newcastle Utd shirt and holding a Newcastle Brown Ale beer on his hand (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne being, of course, the Tyneside's principal city). I think it's future AC/DC singer Brian Johnson, but it's impossible to be sure because he doesn't wear his usual hat. Now that I realise it, I've never seen him without his famous flat cap. These days he probably only takes it off in the shower or something. Now, Geordie could be called a hard rock band, if only in the wide sense. There are guitars and Johnson's screaming vocals have just a hint of metal at this point, but the music is pretty basic boogie rock'n'roll stuff. It'd actually be more accurate to describe them as blue-collar glam rockers a la Slade or Sweet rather than a metal band. The first two songs on this CD, "Can You Do It" and "All Because Of You" from their 1973 debut, were both Top-20 hits. The former is somewhat close to AC/DC, while the latter is more teenybopper material. "Black Cat Woman" balances between hard rock and parody. "House Of The Rising Sun" from their second effort is among the better versions I've heard of this often covered song, "Electric Lady" and "Natural Born Looser" are a couple of heavy rockers and "Geordie Stomp" stoopid-but-fun glam boogie. "I Cried Today" is a pitiful attempt at reggae while "We're All Right Now" and "Francis Was A Rocker" seem to want to combine T-Rex and Status Quo. "Going to the City", "Rock 'n' Roll Fever" and "You Do This to Me" are pure Chuck Berry-ish rock'n'roll and the set closes with hard rocker "Ten Feet Tall", a taste of the future when Brian Johnson would join AC/DC as Bon Scott's replacement..

**** for Can You Do It, All Because of You, House of the Rising Sun, Natural Born Loser

*** for Black Cat Woman, Electric Lady, Geordie Stomp, Francis Was a Rocker, Going to the City, Rock 'n' Roll Fever, You Do This to Me, Ten Feet Tall

** for I Cried Today, We're All right Now