Iron City Houserockers

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The Iron City Houserockers were an American rock band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, led by singer/guitarist Joe Grushecky, that existed from the late 1970s until 1985. Lumped into the heartland rock genre, critically praised but commercially unsuccessful, the band's fans view them as one of the great "shoulda-beens" in the history of rock and roll.

1 History
2 Lineup
3 Discography
- 3.1 Albums
4 External links

[edit] History

Started in the late seventies as the Brick Alley Band by Grushecky, a high school special education teacher in Pittsburgh, the band was a fairly typical bar band, distinguished by Grushecky's taut, focused songs about life in the open hearth and a distinctive, harmonica-and-guitar driven sound owing much to the Rolling Stones, but which seemed to borrow a lot of the thrashy fury of punk rock.

Released in 1979, their debut album Love's So Tough suffered from rough, cheap-sounding production but showcased the potential of the band's sound. "Dance With Me" and "I Can't Take It" were viewed as standout cuts.

The band's follow-up album Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive) is recognized by many as a classic [1]: raw and impassioned, it is not a perfect album, but its flaws are both fascinating and much less than the sum of the high points. The tandem tavern-set tracks "Old Man Bar" and "Junior's Bar" were especially praised. Production was credited to Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson, although much of the album was produced by an uncredited Steven van Zandt.

The Houserockers' third album, Blood On The Bricks, is a bit more restrained, but a lot richer and more consistent; for the first time, Grushecky's ballads measure up to his faster anthems. Produced by American soul-rock legend Steve Cropper, the album crackles with restrained intensity. The 1983 edition Rolling Stone Record Guide praised it as the band's best album, although it had good marks for all of them.

The band then changed its name to simply The Houserockers to avoid the geographic limitation the "Iron City" moniker had put them in. It also shed harmonica player Marc Reisman, and saw Gil Snyder adding synthesizers to his trademark piano and organ. The subsequent album, Cracking Under Pressure, like all the band's previous efforts, drew critical raves - but didn't sell much. The band was dropped from MCA Records shortly after the album's release, and broke up a few months later.

Joe Grushecky went on to a modestly successful career on his own, often under the name Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers. He has co-written several songs with fellow heartland rocker Bruce Springsteen and made a number of on-stage appearances with him.