So why is Brother Meat’s Live at the Horizontal Boogie Bar on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Live at the Horizontal Boogie Bar is the “highest” ranked album produced by a “local” band you’ll find on this here best 1,000 albums ever project.
By “local,” I generally mean bands hailing from New York City or what’s referred to as “upstate New York,” which I became aware of while at college at Binghamton University – located roughly halfway between NYC and Buffalo – back in the day.
Brother Meat’s sole studio album, Extraordinarily Moist and Delicious (#819 of best 1,000 albums ever), is very good and well produced – particularly for a local band from that era – but this live album, which very few humans on the planet have heard (sadly), is an entirely different matter.
I saw Brother Meat perform live many times in Binghamton and Ithaca (where the band was based out of), and they radiated an energy, vibe, and unique sound – big, meaty guitar hooks and hard rock-meets-funk – that place them in their own legitimately special category.
That Brother Meat never broke into the mainstream takes nothing away from how great they were at their peak. And Live at the Horizontal Boogie Bar, recorded in Rochester, New York in 1994, represents the band at its very best.
Live at the Horizontal Boogie Bar was lost to the sands (and whims) of time for a very long time, but several years ago I stumbled across a Brother Meat presence on SoundCloud, and was overjoyed to find the album in its entirety, along with all kinds of other cuts and musical paraphernalia.
I’ll begin with “House,” which is flat out one of my favorite songs of the 1990s. It serves up an exhilarating Led Zeppelin-meets-Aerosmith all-timer guitar riff with a fun, funked up alt rock twist that I can never get enough of. And the chorus is the cherry on top.
And trust me when I say that this song absolutely crushed when Brother Meat played it live at the likes of West Side Cheers in Binghamton or The Nines in Ithaca.
Another unique aspect of Brother Meat is that singer and guitarist Jason Connelly would at times switch over to drums, with The Brother leaving his sticks to take over lead vocals. This always produced a wild vibe shift: Brother-fronted numbers are always hellaciously fun.
Exhibit A: the incredible, booming cover of Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker.” There’s something about this one that makes me madly nostalgic for the 1990s.
Very nearly as good is “Hot Rod Guy,” which I always assumed was a cover song but I could not track down the original. In any event, it absolutely rocks.
And if that’s not enough, the album closer is a powerhouse cover of Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend.” I enjoy this version about 1,100 times more than the original.
Also, please remind me to ask about the Glyph Investment Plan.
With Connolly back on the mic, “Spot” represents the more “serious” alt rock direction the band was headed in at the time versus their party funk-based roots.
“U Got It” is a really fun slice of those roots, if you’ve an interest (which, of course, you should).
Some stats & info about Brother Meat – Live at the Horizontal Boogie Bar
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Alternative Rock, Rock Music, Funk Rock, Dance Music, Hard Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – not rated!
- When was Live at the Horizontal Boogie Bar released? 1994
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #125 out of 1,000
Brother Meat’s Live at the Horizontal Boogie Bar on SoundCloud
A lyrical snippet from Brother Meat’s Live at the Horizontal Boogie Bar that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
There’s a woman in the house, and she won’t come out.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.