Iron City Houserockers

about

Started in 1976 as the Brick Alley Band by Grushecky, a high school special education teacher in Pittsburgh, the band was a fairly typical bar band. The band was 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 and the J. Geils Band, but which also seemed to borrow a lot of the thrashing fury of punk rock. Most of the members of the Iron City Houserockers came from a genuine blue collar background: Art Nardini was the son of a mechanic and a part time college student, Joe Grushecky was a coal miner's son, and Gil Snyder's father was a construction worker.[1] In 1977 they signed to Cleveland International Records, headed by former Epic Records A&R chief and Pittsburgh native Steve Popovich. Popovich christened them the Iron City Houserockers, but this caused some problems when touring outside their native Pittsburgh—when they played Cleveland their tires were slashed.[1] The band's debut album Love's So Tough was released in April 1979. With dense, no-frills production by Popovich and Marty Mooney, AKA the Slimmer Twins, the album successfully captured the band's live sound. "Hideaway" (the first single) and "Dance With Me" were viewed as standout cuts. The band's follow-up album Have a Good Time but Get out Alive! was featured by Rolling Stone magazine as its showcase review with the headline "New American Classic" and The Village Voice called it "the strongest

top songs

albums

Have a Good Time but... Get out Alive

Love's So Tough

Have A Good Time... But Get Out Alive

Blood On the Bricks

Blood On The Bricks (Deluxe Edition)

Pumping Iron & Sweating Steel

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Pumping Iron

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Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive)

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Friday Night

Have a Good Time But Get Out Alive

Cracking Under Pressure

Have a Good Time but Get Out Alive!

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