Green On Red - Gas Food Lodging (Great Alternative Rock 1985)

Much like their pals the Dream Syndicate, Green on Red used up nearly all their psychedelic influences early on, and 1985's Gas Food Lodging found Dan Stuart and company veering into country-inflected roots rock that dovetailed nicely with the populist themes Stuart had begun to explore in his lyrics. Opening with "That's What Dreams," a tough but moving first-person tale of a working man struggling to hold on to his dignity, Gas Food Lodging takes a long look at the sometimes-fractured state of the American psyche during the Reagan years, as seen through the eyes of a low-budget rock band out on the road. Of course, Dan Stuart's America is populated by drunks, losers, drifters, and psychopaths, but there's a genuine measure of compassion in his portrayal of this collection of lost souls, and this lineup of the band -- with Chuck Prophet IV on guitar and Chris Cacavas on organ -- created evocative music that added depth and detail to Stuart's grubby vision. Gas Food Lodging set a template for the music Green on Red would make in the future, but they rarely hit their targets as squarely as they did here; there's an emotional weight and a ring of truth to this material that missing from much of the band's later work, and while closing with "We Shall Overcome" might seem like an especially obvious gesture, through sheer bloodshot sincerity this band makes it work -- and makes it genuinely moving. Gas Food Lodging is too loose and deliberately ramshackle to support the title of masterpiece, but calling it Green on Red's best album will do nicely.

AMG Review by Mark Deming

Green On Red - Gravity Talks (2nd album 1983)

Green on Red's tinge of psychedelia was provided by Chris Cacavas' organ. But already, the band had traded in most psychedelic references for an Americana influence, along the lines of John Fogerty spiked with Roky Erickson. Completists might find they need Gravity Talks, but better work comes on the band's next record, Gas Food Lodging.

AMG Review by Denise Sullivan

Green On Red - No Free Lunch (Alternative Rock 1985)

The critical hosannas lavished upon the album Gas Food Lodging earned Green on Red a major-label deal, though, with appropriate irony, this very American band found themselves contracted to the British branch of Polygram. The label's American imprint, Mercury, picked up their option several months after the group's big-label debut, No Free Lunch, was released in the U.K. An EP running a bit under 24 minutes (a later reissue padded it out to full length with a 13-minute blues workout on "Smokestack Lightning"), No Free Lunch covers territory not dissimilar to that on Gas Food Lodging; nomadic musicians on the road ("Keep on Moving" and the title cut), out-of-work sad sacks ("Honest Man"), families confronted with death and loss ("Jimmy Boy"), and the struggle to believe in something despite it all ("Time Ain't Nothing"). The band even throws in a pretty good cover of "Funny How Time Slips Away," and their performances are noticeably tighter and sharper than on their previous albums (the time on the road after Gas Food Lodging seems to have paid off), while the engineering by Steven Street and Simon Humphries is crisper and better detailed than the sometimes muddy tone of Gas Food Lodging. But while the band sounds game, the songs are good, and Dan Stuart is in unusually strong voice (with the exception of "The Ballad of Guy Fawkes," where he lapses into a curious fake Brit accent, perhaps in tribute to his new corporate sponsors), at only seven songs No Free Lunch seems oddly incomplete, sounding less like a self-contained short work than an album that somehow didn't get finished. There's nothing wrong with what's here, but it's hard not to wish the band had made more of it at the time.

AMG Review by Mark Deming