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MUSIC: Vic Ruggiero Something In My Blind Spot
August 31st, 2008 by Aaron Shay · 2 Comments

Music review by Aaron Shay
Imagine that Van Morrison is singing in a band with Lou Reed and that they're playing songs that Neil Sedaka wrote while drunk and manic depressive. Now imagine that this event was recorded in 2008. Also, imagine Morrison with a heavy Bronx accent. That's what Vic Ruggiero's solo album Something in My Blind Spot sounds like.
The album was recorded in Germany and released by the German record company moanin music, and has seen a limited release, making it difficult to find. It features Lisa Mueller from the German ska band Black Cat Zoot on a handful of songs, doing adorable duets with a spotless American accent.
Vic Ruggiero is best known for his keyboard work and singing for popular ska band The Slackers, and has also performed with the legendary Rancid on two albums. I'll try to ignore his participation in the rock-rap travesty known as The Transplants in light of his relatively honorable history and apparent awesomeness.
This solo album is extremely well-done. The instrumentation isn't intricate, but it's impressive due to the fact that Ruggiero played all of the instruments – save the horn section, courtesy of Fanfare Kalashnikov, and the drums, provided by Andrei Kluge, another ska musician. That leaves guitar, banjo, bass and keyboard. That's a pretty good repertoire of instruments to be skilled with.
Listening to this album is an eerie experience. The composition, the singing… so much of this album sounds like it should have been recorded some decades before. The biggest problem with that perception is the good recording quality, and also the song, It You?... This one's taken straight out of Tom Waits' 2004 album Real Gone. The rest of it is a big old throwback.

an old friend of the Slackers THE WIX, aka Chris Qualiana...
a woman responsible for so much good music and art is in need.
Please visit Criscare.org to support the Wix...
without her, i believe there would be no Slackers, neither would there be so many songs you know and love...
Hellcat Records and Give 'em the Boot Compilation would not have existed the way you know and love them... Dropkick Murphys, The Pietasters, Hepcat, the U.S. Bombs... the entire first roster of Hellcat Records... you have her to thank for this... i can go on and on...

So, please visit Criscare.org and read her blog and donate what you can to help her...
she's got Multiple Sclerosis, the same disease my mother had... please give something back to someone who has given us all so much... i don't exagerate... i have her to thank for my career as a working musician.
Without cris "the wix" qualiana, you might never have heard the name Vic Ruggiero or the Slackers...

http://youtu.be/-0Nc1FhjzIE

phil tremeolo king writes: After my camera was stolen on the train from Del Rio to LA, in despair I resorted to using my phone to record this footage from the train, set to the ( unreleased)Tremoflex9000 version of Vic Ruggiero's 'Rider on the Rail' .
musicians: Vic Ruggiero banjo and vocals, Phil the Tremolo King guitar and back up vocals, Jordan Aley drums, Christian Kueffner accordeon

Pod cast link
http://www.united-academics.org/blog/7405/ua-podcast-journal-of-social-s...

http://www.top5tracks.com/2012/03/vic-ruggiero-the-slackers/

Arms Aloft Social & Musical Roadshow tour itinerary....

Kevin Seconds
Kepi Ghoulie
Franz Nicolay (March 20-April 7)
Vic Ruggiero (March 20-22, and March 26)

March 20 Philadelphia, PA @ Balcony @ Trocadero
March 21 Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Upstairs
March 22 New York, NY @ Pianos

March 26 Washington, DC @ Black Cat Backstage