There was a time when being referred to as a bar band was something of a compliment. I'm talking about the early- to mid-1980s here, which weren't all about new wave, college rock and rap, despite what the compilations coming out now try and tell you. This is when bar bands led by Bruce Springsteen, George Thorogood and Huey Lewis held sway over the airwaves, and the Del Fuegos were Middle America's idea of "alternative."

To be a bar band meant that your music possessed some kind of vague authenticity, that you had respect for rock and roll's blues-based roots and weren't above throwing in a "Wooly Bully" cover to get the beer-swilling crowd moving. Bar bands weren't overnight successes; they built their followings by paying dues on the road. And they inevitably named their backing musicians, possibly to give a more democratic feel to the often dictatorial world that is the reality for working bands. Bruce had his E-Streeters, Huey had his News and George had his Destroyers. Well, now there's a new entry in the bar band canon: Tina and her B-Sides.

Though they only have a couple of albums out, they've been around for a while, perfecting what is said to be a fantastic live show, making their way from the clubs to... well, they're probably still in the clubs. Because the audience for this music has shrunk, as "real" rock and roll has fallen from something that drove the younger set wild to being lumped into that most flaccid of music categories, the dreaded "adult contemporary."

Tina And The B-Sides try and shuck this label from the get-go by incorporating some funky trip-hop style drums on the opening "In My Own Time." It does have a decent beat, but as the song builds it sounds a little too much like the earnest stylings of a Melissa Etheridge or a Bonnie Raitt-- not a bad thing in itself, but not something that lends itself to this groove. The beats pretty much drop away after that, and we're left with songs like "Deliver Me," "Fall From Grace," "No Holdin' Back," and "I Am Forsaken," which all sound exactly like you'd think songs with these titles would-- acoustic guitars, plodding rhythms, impassioned, throaty vocals, and the gospel hue appropriate to these songs of loss and redemption. Real rock and roll. And real boring, in my book.

Me, I'll take the Blues Explosion's or Royal Trux's take on this sort of material, viewing it from an angle that takes into account the last fifteen years of world history. But you might be different, and if you're into Raitt or Etheridge by all means give Tina a chance. I guarantee you she deserves it.

-Mark Richard-San