'Good Time Magazine' Review - Santa Cruz California - May 1983 by Steve Hastings
In terms of cheeses, South Bay rockers have all the prestige of Velveeta. So, to the rescue comes Big Cheese Records, a South Bay independent label intending to bring respect to its local acts through top quality recordings and attractive packaging. Since January, Big Cheese has had eight vinyl releases, with plans for more than a dozen within this year.
The aging of Big Cheese takes place at Soundtek Studios in Campbell, a new state-of-the-art facility headed up by producer-engineer Bob Berry. Not coincidentally, Berry is also the lead singer-songwriter-keyboardist-de facto leader of Hush, a veteran rock band whose EP was the first Big Cheese release. Berry’s assistant, Greg Noga, leads the band Back Alive, which has a four-song EP on Big Cheese entitled, First Time. Berry and Noga produced The Album by Fragile, due for its official release this month (release party two blocks away at the Smokey Mountain nightclub).
Berry, who engineered at San Jose’s Tiki Studios before building Soundtek, has a reputation as a top producer in the southlands, and these releases will add to that reputation. The recordings are commercial quality, and slick graphics make for a neat packaging. Skeptics might snicker that American slices are also nicely packaged – but what about taste?
So far, the music is less than Krafty. If these bands weren’t so obsessed with trying to sound KOME-mercial, I could recommend them. Hush admittedly is out to please its high school fans, particularly with such Van Halen-ish anthems as “We Came Here To Rock.” Fragile attempts some keyboard-synthesizer sophistication, and on The Album’s first track, “Do You Know (What Love Is About),” Vocalist Jane Bray, a recent addition, can sound girlish as well as gruff. But Fragile’s music becomes predictable after a couple of cuts.
Only Back Alive seems to grasp a more worldly musical view. Although heavily influenced by the British invasion music of the mid-sixties (Back Alive plays a four-set tribute to the era in its club shows). Noga and bassist Scott Lamb co-author some exciting pop tunes. Nothing like this since the Yardbirds.
To reach beyond Campbell, Big Cheese will have to emphasize the more unusual cuts like Back Alive. True, the world consumes a lot of Velveeta, but finely aged cheddar is appreciated much more.
Steve Hastings – Good Times - May 1983 