Ride the Wild Tom Tom

dB's | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 22, 1995)
• Original Release Date: August 17, 1993
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B000003T04
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #394,812 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

In his liner essay for Ride the Wild TomTom, former dB's member Peter Holsapple jokingly describes this collection as "the equivalent of our Basement Tapes," and that statement actually describes the contents fairly well, especially when one remembers that Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes were mostly recorded as a goof. A collection of rehearsal tapes, demos, early single sides, and inside jokes, Ride the Wild Tom-Tom is hardly a definitive portrait of The dB's, but anyone looking for a ragged-but-right look at the band's formative days during Chris Stamey's tenure with the band will eat it up. Along with early versions of "Soul Kiss," "Modern Boys and Girls," and "A Spy in the House of Love," Ride the Wild Tom-Tom features a highly individual cover of The Grassroots' "Let's Live for Today," a commercial jingle for the East Coast music magazine New York Rocker (the band was using their offices as a rehearsal space), and the mock-punk onslaught "Hardcore Judy." Committed dB's fans will find this to be hoot, and while it's hardly the best introduction to the band's music, the quality of Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple's songwriting shines through on even the jokiest numbers. -All Music Guide

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A band you should know, March 15, 2001

By 

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ride the Wild Tom Tom (Audio CD)

My feeling about reissues and anthologies is: anything to get the band back in front of the past and present and future fans. I'll echo everything the other reviewers have said. A tremendous and tragically neglected band. I will add a slight observation. Whether you like the first couple of albums or the albums that followed those will largely depend on how you feel about Chris STamey versus Peter Holsapple. I liked Chris Stamey but utterly loved Peter Holsapple. So, for me, the two albums that followed the first two (i.e., the albums after Stamey left and Holsapple became the sole songwriter) were the better albums. I would also like to strongly disagree with the first reviewer, for whom THE SOUND OF MUSIC is their best album. I vastly prefer LIKE THIS to any other dB's album. Just one great pop song after another, including my two favorite dB's song s("Lonely Is (As Lonely Does" and "Love is for Lovers") and their lone hit ("A Spy In the House of Love"--though it was a hit for another band, and not the dB's).

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Viva La dB's!, November 4, 1998

By 

Owen "semi-pro amateur" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ride the Wild Tom Tom (Audio CD)

It's too bad you almost already have to know who the dB's were before you dig into this disc of seminal material culled from demos and rehearsals referred to as the "great, lost dB's album". This is one of those packages that Rhino (as always) has done a great job on, but like the dB's main influence, Big Star-if you go out and get the Chris Bell Solo album or 3rd/Sister Lovers before you've heard the studio albums that established them, you're kinda lost without it. This is also a drag, because as far as I know, the super albums that the dB's made for Albion/CBS ('Stands for Decibels' and 'repercussions')and re-issued by IRS in the early part of the 90's are, again out of print. Please, do yourself a favor if you love good pop music and are interested in a band whose influence can be heard in bands ranging from R.E.M. to They Might Be Giants, bug your local record store for those first two albums. Better yet, write to Rhino for info on if they will also re-issue them, in which case this collection here makes a nift-o addition.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent; get it., December 31, 2001

By 

Steven D. Miller (Sebastopol, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ride the Wild Tom Tom (Audio CD)

Not only a good intro to the dBs, it's a great disc from start to finish.