About This: Bonney & Buzz are back with their second CD for Double Crown - a 17 track classic called Bang It Again! The duo features Bill Bonney of The Fentones ("The Mexican" and "The Breeze & I") and Pete "Buzz" Miller ("Can Can 62" and "Totem Pole"), who was also half of the popular Shig & Buzz duo. They are joined by a bunch of accomplished musicians on drums, bass and percussion. You'll find seventeen surf / Euro-instro classics, including "Raunchy", "F.B.I", "Last Date", "The Breeze & I" and more! "Bill Bonney (The Fentones) and Peter "Buzz" Miller (The Jaywalkers) impressed with their first joint effort Rock-Ola (see Pipeline 70) and are back now to Bang It Again! Having first delivered an all original set, this time around they turn their attention to 17 hits from the days when instrumentals still meant something in the music business. "Amazing Grace" was a tune that Buzz learned on his very first guitar, it may seem an unlikely opener but the guys rock it up a treat with a pumping beat and slip a Bach prelude in as the break. "Goofin' Around", from Bill Haley & The Comets, is another rocker with Buzz tearing it up and Bonney banging away at his upright bass. I can't remember another guitar version of "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" but it works well with driving passages between the the sensibly retained creamy strings of the Sounds Orchestral version. "The Green Leaves Of Summer" gets a galloping rhythm and some fabulous dramatic guitar embellishments from Buzz, if The Alamo was remade as a spaghetti western then Dimitri Tiompkin's score could be heading this way. There's a nod to trad jazz with "Bad Penny Blues" where Buzz's searing, sawing guitar sounds like a fuzz violin in places, and then "Czardas" gets a refreshing arrangement with the lead played on acoustic guitar. A pretty "Last Date" and dramatic "El Bimbo" with it's flowing electric guitar take us on to The Jaywalkers' hit. Anyone would be on to a loser in trying to recreate the excitement of the original Can Can 62, and sensibly, Bonney & Buzz don't try. "Can Can" has keyboards and no saxes but the coda does add an effective final flourish. They also give "The Breeze & I" a twist with a ska-like organ stabs behind a fabulous lead, rather a shame because that guitar is soooo tasty. "Honky Tonk" swings rather jazzily as, less surprising, do "Swinging Shepherd Blues" and Thelonius Monk's "Blue Monk" before a lovely lowdown dirty take on Freddy King's "The Stumble" and an excellent pulsing "Raunchy". Can you imagine a 7 1/2 minute version of of "F.B.I". ? No neither could I, but the guys pull it off with a range of guitar sounds including a six-string bass solo from Bill. Finally Pete provides a neat closer with a lovely unaccompanied version of Duane Eddy's "Along Came Linda". You'll love it, and I'm sure Duane will be moved too. It's a fine end to an excellent album that should prove even more popular than Rock-Ola." (PIPELINE)
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