About Drone

This entire record ROCKS!!!!!! Reviewer: Colden Hoffield It is my job to listen to music all day every day. Once in a while a CD will come across my desk that makes me stop what I am doing and turn it up. Drone by Johnny Young not only made me turn it up, It made me GET up and play the disc for everyone in the office! This CD is a future classic! I have since seen Johnny Young live and was blown away! Johnny and bassist Christo have an increadible chemistry onstage. The songwriting on the record is stunning. Combining ripping guitar riffs, groovy bass lines and thought provoking lyrics, Johnny Young has succeeded in creating a must have record

Muzikman@musicdish 3/2001
Think of Black Sabbath, step it back a few notches, add some hooks and groovin' bass, and you have
Johnny Young. This power trio stays at maximum warp drive, without any breaks. There are twelve tracks
at your disposal. And it's unadulterated, unscathed rock and roll. This album will really grow on you as it
goes into hyperdrive. By the time "They Eat Their God" closes out the CD you will wonder what hit you.
It won't hurt, you will just want some more. With crunching authoritative chords on lead guitar, and with a wild and nasty rhythm section, Johnny Young will blast their way into your eardrums, and leave them
ringing for hours. How else can I put this? This group kicks ass and takes no prisoners, it's as simple as
that. Ah, rock and roll is poetic justice, isn't it?

Johnny Young – Drone - ATNZONE - January, 2001
THIS is the kind of rock it’s always a pleasure to get in the mail. Melodic, hard, not heavy, not death, not wholly negative, just a Great Band playing the dark riffs of power guitar stuff that starting coming together in the 70s with Kiss and those folks. Being a Queen fan, I understand the magic of getting a huge sound out of only 4 people. Johnny Young does it one better. He’s on vocals, guitar. Christo Strone does bass. Lex Dunbar bangs those damn drums. Anything else you hear was laid on after the fact. And judging by the sound, there’s a hot lot of it, complete with a few more vocals. No wonder Mick Taylor grabbed Mr. Young to be his singer on a world tour.

Well, the guitar work is top notch, and then up a notch more. If he were in the 60s, by now he’d be hailed as one of the greatest singer-guitarists, along with Clapton and Hendrix. After all, songs like ‘Mud’ bring out his black side more than usual, and with the typically blinding electric guitar intro, you the listener are kicked into a dynamite blast of guitar licks that doesn’t stop. 12 songs.

Sometimes the lyrics are a bit straight forward, but it happens a lot in harder rock. From ‘If I’ Johnny promises that ‘if I was Doctor McCoy, I’d cure the world of disease / if I was your love slave, you’d be the only one I please’, which is pretty much the Point of being those people, eh? Okay, that’s nitpicking. Cause in other areas of just the same song: ‘if I was a politician, I’d take the money and run / if I was your only savior, I’ll save you when I’m done’. But it’s the EXCITEMENT that Johnny Young causes on that spot in between your ears that really shoots you up big time. With studio musician skill, he slides every ROCK song into the bar with that flaming guitar and shaggadelic vocal style like Eastwood controlling a western set.

JERSEY BEAT #63
JANUARY 1999

JOHNNY YOUNG - Shed Your Skin (Menagerie Records, 440 Fifth Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11215)This potently primordial 12 track debut CD offers a blisteringly effective post-modem hard rock combination of 80's heavy metal's mighty caveman stomp and 90's alternative rock's carefully wrought melodic accessibility. Lead singer Johnny Young's gritty, raspy, soaring voice savagely tears its way through each hard-hitting song. The crunchy, power chord-ridden guitars, putty, bottom-heavy drums which never let up on the chunky, surging beats, and a thickly plodding bass create a powerful, pulverizing sonic thrust which thankfully eschews all-out abrasiveness in favor of a much more tautly harmonic and controlled approach to banging out a tune that gains considerable strength from its tightly focused intensity. The band's harshly down-to-earth, confrontational, unsentimental sensibility caps things off perfectly. A righteously dead-on serving of no-bullshit, straight-with-no-chaser rock'n'roll fury.
-- Joe Wawyezniak

Johnny Young: SHED YOUR SKIN - Little trio on this CD in from Brooklyn.
This is a KEWL rawkin' thang. Young has been blind since age 17, but he hasn't let that get in his way at all! This music is FULL of punch & energy, & a sensitivity not often heard these days! Young's lead guitar/vox are thoroughly complimented by th' power-driven bass by Christopher Strone & th' butt-kickin' drums of Emilio Vicini. If th' word "alternative" (when used to describe rock music that's supposed to be "different") has sorta' turned you off - think AGAIN! This is th' REAL thing! Second cut in, "One Call", is a fave, but none o' th' rest are slackerz', either! Strong lyrical bent, with real style, not jus' another punker with a case o' wannabe! Wanna' get yer' blood SURGING? GET THIS - it's MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED & gets th' PICK of this issue for "best rawker"! If yer' don't get another R&R album this year - you jus' GOTTA' have this one! Independence with GUTZ'! Contact at 440 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215, or via e-mail to johnelle@erols.com Rotcod Zzaj
-- Dick Metcalf, aka Rotcod Zzaj -- Improvijazzation Nation November 1998

JOHNNY YOUNG - SHED YOUR SKIN
It's pretty obvious from the opening track "Change" on this album that here we have quite an undiscovered talent ready to move into the spotlight. A great slow start to the song slides brilliantly into a great bit of heavy riffage to get your attention, alternating between the soft & loud sounds.

The further you venture into the album, the more this style makes itself obvious, perhaps working an old theme, but with new feeling. "Mariner" is a perfect example, some cool heavy stuff right from the outset, as does my favourite track "Taste", which may be the heaviest thing here, verging on metal, but tending more towards hard rock.

Also interesting are "World Is Dead", "Had" & the closing track "Heaven's Gate", sort of a commentary on the religious cult of the same name, utilising a wicked grunging riff & a great chorus as well. A well rounded album that should appeal to a wide variety of fans of out & out rock.

For more information, contact Johnny Young at 440 Fifth Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215, USA
-- Terry Allen

Worldwide Record Reviews - Nov 1998Johnny Young:
I like the texture in the vocals! It's a good production. Johnny where did you ever find the model for the cd cover? Anyway, It's modern rock with a weaved style of lyrics and music. Straight forward to deep thought. Soft to hard. An interesting blend of classic to modern rock and roll. Go New York!
--Kere

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