What a lovely surprise! I didn’t even know that anybody made bands this cool, anymore! It’s just really, really good, and pretty, and heartfelt, honest songs about frustration, desire and wanting, the conscience at war with the big programming, lust in the dust, innocence and experience, when one’s heart keeps calling, that involuntary, helpless, human cry for love. I dig it, deeply. Some of you know I’m an 80’s kid and I make no apologies for that-everything the sports mook, video game, unboxing products on youtube, I-Phone mainstream always mocks and skewers for being too earnest, or sincere, or corny and retro, I still cling to all that stuff quite shamelessly, so when I finally get some extremely rare, alone-time to listen to music, it was a bit of a struggle to play something modern and new, rather than the double cd greatest hits of an artist who soundtracked my youth that I stumbled over at the Goodwill a few days ago, for one dollar. Upon first listen to PinkLips, I am instantly captured by the gypsyish violins and snarly female vocal. You know that band, Nouvelle Vague-how gorgeous and seductive their music always is? Yes! I immediately like the PinkLips. “Gutter Starz” is reminding me of the Nymphs, the Pretenders, Patti Smith, the Divinyls, and Lydia Lunch. This is super cool, very fresh and even energetic sounding, extremely listenable, mesmerizing music. “Polly Vinyl” is another supremely satisfying smash hit. Remember that Alphabet City band from the early 90’s-Piss Factory, starring Lizzy Avondet? It kinda has that same intensity and edgy angst. The music is just flat-out exquisite-it sounds so big and full, almost like a major label band, like say, Kaiser Chiefs or the Pogues. “Now I Wanna Be Ur Dog” is just soundtrack perfect, gripping.
Breathtakingly cool-exactly like what you always wanted but never fully got from Royal Trux. Takes me back to dangerous mid-eighties after hours bars, when regular, everyday poor people were still allowed to stroll around loose and free in that city, just like….citizens! I love the vocalist-she is the weary and jaded voice of distrust and suspicion that’s still willing to risk all for a glimpse of something soulful or sincere, I am a bit like that myself, sometimes. Think: Niagara from Destroy all Monsters and Dark Carnival meets Inger Lorre from the Nymphs. She is a real cool tomato-bratty, smart, fully alive and vital, wide awake, with an amphetamine urgency and awareness, the driving, sensual sounds on this shiny disc are dark and sexy, like the Lords Of The New Church or Patti Smith Group. The presence of divinity. Kissed by the flames. Ridiculously and unexpectedly soothing and stirring. They even delve into haunting night time terrain, visiting the dusky blue sonic geography of Mazzy Star, Lana Del Ray and Chris Isaak, making hazy stabs at pained yearning and starlight signaling and spaghetti western spookiness. They know what they are doing. You can see the little hotels on the side of the road, the cactus, the old, faded landmarks blurring by them. PinkLips are terribly beautiful. “You Not Me” is a bit like Sonic Youth or Hole minus all the mainstream ambitions and relentless posturing and careerist baggage that always turned me off and left me feeling cold. It’s all about hot emotion, fast driving, the desert highway, and big skies above. This is a perfect band, really, and I generally hate everybody ,nowadays. All the contemporary groups just mostly remind me of loathsome johns at the strip club throwing dollar bills in the air. PinkLips are warm and soulful, brainy and authentic-a merciful, much needed, well deserved antidote to all that detestable, fake pushbutton bullshit product-art. “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is cool. It gives me a glimmer of hope that someone out there in the current climate is still even hip(!!!) to these old ideas. “Why” sounds like some hotwired indie, as if PinkLips are jumpstarting all your favorite old junk store treasures and forgotten aspirations, with a rusty screwdriver. It is very good stuff. Almost like a meaner, updated Nymphs. “I’m Not there” is gorgeous, golden, unusually soulful. Full of brave feeling. I love it! Special thanks to the dear friend who rightly sensed I’d appreciate the PinkLips. He was right.
Electrajets Make Absolutely Epic Psychedelic Glam Masterpiece!
Cried so much his face was wet, so I knew he was not lying… (-Bowie)
To be joyous is to be a mad man in a world of sad ghosts… (-Miller)
Do ya like good music? Do ya like T. Rex? Brevity and under-statement have never really been my mohair suit and electric boots, so if you have a short attention span, or require a refreshing libation or more ice cubes, now is the time to jump off the night train, as I got plenty I wanna convey to my brothers and sisters and friends of the revolution, about halo-headed electric warrior extraordinaire, guitar star, novelist, and all around NYC bohemian hip-cat, JEFF WARD, and his highly talented Electrajets cohorts. Jeff is a poignant, provocative, and impactful artiste in multiple mediums, a fantastic communicator, a seductive story-teller and romantic raconteur, and I’ll be starting today’s rant, at the beginning, when I was 19 or 20, and still working at a rural smalltown record store in soybean country, miles from nowhere. We sold all those cool, eighties, English import, music magazines, back in the dizzying days of hairspray and cowboy boots, when all us dumb, hick kids were still so super-excited about Izzy Stradlin, an Americanized, fast-food drive-through version of our much beloved, Andy McCoy, and initially, we even mistook Nazareth cover band screecher, Axl, for a ginger haired, Midwestern, anti-authoritarian Mike Monroe, before he got crazy drunk on over-night super-fame and promptly turned into Donald Trump (“YOU’RE FIRED!”) in bicycle shorts.
One day, while perusing Kerrang!, I saw a tiny black and white photo of a U.K. band called GUNFIRE DANCE in a column about fresh blood up and comers. I wrote to their address and was thrilled to receive a torrent of lively correspondence from the Gunfires-handwritten letters on cool Gunfire Dance stationary, glossy publicity pix, and cassette demos. I immediately took to their energetic style of trashy rocknroll and commenced much enthusing about their catchy tunes, “Bliss Street” and “Suit & Tied” in my crappy home made fanzines. We were crows of a feather back then, they became my imaginary friends, I felt like their faraway country mouse cousin, as I had my own dodgy Gun Club covers band in the lynchmob loony Midwest, ridiculously sucking in my cheeks and pushing out my lips, infuriating the apemen, like the gawky adolescent Edward Scissorhands I was, puke stains adorning my frilly pink blouse. Something in my eyes has always enraged the klans-people with authority. The locals really wanted to kill me. They are bred and boot-camped to be hateful and hostile, and will never hesitate to burn you at the stake. Since corporate punk bands rebranded music as sports in the nineties, middleclass, gentrified people in that town pretend it is a punk paradise, but 3 of my childhood pals were murdered there and I lost track of the suicides, it was not a nice place. It’s like Whack-A-Mole in the hick states, whenever a new or weirdish voice rises up, the prevailing status-quo always gets frantic that their long established ruling-class pecking-order is somehow being potentially subverted or threatened, so they always go to absurdly nutty extremes to sabotage, shut-out and silence anyone with a walk, or style, or beat, of their own. Even and especially in piss-puddle nothing, humdrum, dried-up and dreary, sports bar drunken, dying mall towns. Nothing is more offensive to the fortunate son, future Trump voters, and Bill O’Reilly listening squares of the flyover states, than offensively effete girly men consorting with unusually desirable female Depeche Mode or Sisters Of Mercy aficionados. It’s always just high-school sports, country club membership, woodsy suburban street names, ugly clothes, terrible top 40 music, cover bands, television, and oversized white trucks forever and ever with super-sized buckets of draft beer and BBQ chicken wings on oversized, Fourth Of July sundecks, forever and ever, Amen. Alan Grayson once said , “they can’t kill us all!”, but I have never felt even half as confident. I got beat up a lot, it leaves an impression on your central nervous system, eventually, all that repeated boot stomping on your face, cracked ribs stuff. Like I said, 3 of my childhood friends were murdered in that piss-town. The joiners and belongers and eager beaver golf people always saw us as being different, we were always “otherized”. The privileged elements of dumbfuck society can not help but want to snuff our little lights out, for liking Bauhaus and Alien Sex Fiend, or for expressing ideas they do not immediately understand. They’d show up at my job in rabid packs of six or seven to threaten to kill me for the crime of attracting females whom they felt they’d somehow already property-patched and branded with their mom’s influence and allowances from dad, or whatever. It was always madness, so I spent a significant time withdrawing into books and records and old yellowy magazines and just dreaming of someday retreating to a far off emerald city where nobody cared if you had a nose ring or liked blue eye shadow or hot pink leather and the NY Dolls. Unpardonable sins, back in Limbaugh country. My intimate clique of Gene Loves Jezebel goth dollies and Charlie Sexton rockabilly brats, wild haired Robert Smith kids and random AC/DC strays, never had one shred of inheritance, or prestige, or fancy equipment, but we had loads of white trash guts, camaraderie, and goonies are gudd enuff, kicks galore. Solidarity and Gabba Gabba Hey gang loyalty seemed like positive solutions to systemic repression and mob-rules violence. The dominant powers only seemed at all interested in collecting meaningless status symbols, lording over others, and stepping on weaker humans. Flatulent, Jager drunk, pizza belching fat guys in baseball caps. And khaki shorts. Even their supposedly posh and genteel, church a goin’ parents would try to get me fired from jobs and stuff for corrupting their daughters with Aqua Net and Replacements lyrics. The smalltown religious people were livid that even a few of us audaciously dared to play music, print fanzines, draw caricatures, paint stuff, dress the way we wanted, and have hootenannies in the privacy of a rented farmhouse on the edge of town. Art was forbidden. So was androgyny. They called me a Manson like cult leader, but really, I just liked Kid Congo Powers, Flesh for Lulu, Hanoi Rocks, and the Dogs D’amour.
In the Bon Jovi and Poison metal years, my cherished rocknroll escapist prayer life was already being infringed upon, hijacked, co-opted, infiltrated by the usual ham-fisted imposter, sports fratboys, corrections guards, life-guards and ignorant suburban people with sadist cop mentalities. GUNFIRE DANCE were real important to some of us, because we could see ourselves in them, so somehow, their (mis)fortunes somehow seemed tethered to our own. Where I grew up, the 100% complicit, dress code enforcing adults-the teachers, preachers, coaches, administrators, cops, all knew we were being unfairly and inhumanely targeted and harassed, stalked, followed around, elbowed in the teeth, knocked backward down stairwells etc., and they only ever green-lit and encouraged that shit. They really, really, REALLY, frowned upon boys wearing makeup. I knew I had to get out. I was forever urging my former amigos and banditos to relocate with me to grimier gutters. Gunfire Dance will always be part of my personal rocknroll pantheon, in part, because they were so heroically unapologetic about wearin’ all the purple velvet and peacock feathers that nobody wears. They weren’t your typical hairy chested Kip Wingers peddling fluffy power ballads, or stinky ape aggressor, empty headed Nugent thrash dudes. I did not need redneck rock stars. I wanted elegant elfen, Oscar Wilde-ish rockstars. They were one of the coolest looking bands I’d ever seen, with a raw and untamed garage punk sound, that seemed so fresh and original, particularly against the non-stop backdrop of MTV corporate assembly-line metal bands. GUNFIRE DANCE played gritty, savage rocknroll the way I like it, a bit like the Heartbreakers, Stiv Bators solo band, Thee Hypnotics, and the Damned. Their singer, Ant, in his newsboy cap and biker vest and tight leather strides, instantly reminded me and some others of, well, myself, but way, way less inhibited or self-conscious, he was a brave hearted, merry making, boisterous, unpredictable onstage presence, who not only looked flash as hell, but was utterly unafraid to get his silk scarves sweaty, or tear it up, Lux Interior style. He only came to get it on, they meant business, man. GUNFIRE DANCE blew the roof off the sucker. They were all stars-balls of fire, blazing constellations, and it seemed like a senselessly cruel trick of fate that a chaotic pin-up star like Ant would ever end up as a depressed janitor of lunacy with an alcohol problem, like me, rather than a major-label coverboy success story with bubble gum cards and metal lunchboxes and shit, he had such a distinctively unique voice all his own that was variously reminiscent of all our favorite singers-Marc Bolan, Rowland S. Howard, Iggy Pop, and David Johansen, without really copying any of them. To me, he was a real big star. He had his own thing, totally. It was at once, fresh and familiar, and he had a crack team of pirate dandies in his white hot band, a big name rockstar producer, it really seemed like stardom was just a matter of… moments away. Even the bass ace, Birchy was a Face, Oz, the drummer: all 4 could play and looked like front-men, in their own light. Jeff Ward was the lead guitar showman that every basement punk vocalist dreamed of being on-stage with. He was the ultimate guitar-throttler, who threw shapes like the Clash and Thunders and arsonist Beatles in Hamburg, or Stones when they were suckin’ in the 70’s! A lanky, leather clad, wild and hungry, blurry vision of never ending hurricane energy, a boundless bon vivant tornado of Elvis attitude and sneery lips and graceful posing, ala Andy McCoy, Brian James, Mick Jones, and Johnny Thunders. That cat was on fire. All the Lower East Side Ronnie Spectors and Patti Palladin dolls went mad for all of them, once GUNFIRE DANCE finally arrived upon our shores, and conquered Manhattan like natural born motherfuckers. I mean, I think even Brigiite West was going to see their shows Then, the Gunfires, broke up, suddenly, and some of us ardent and avid devotee early fans got real glum about it for awhile, we took it personally. Oh My god, I remember being so gloomy about it. As an indoor kid, only child, I’d spent of my childhood, immersed in books about the Beatles and the Stones, and reading articles about the Clash in smash-hits and Creem magazines, so I was always prone to really waxing romantic about my “when you’re a jet, you’re a jet all the way” stay-together street-gangs, I was totally en thrall to the perennial fantasy of 4 misfits who come together, scorning convention, defying cheap cop-outs and formulas, who shook the world with their velvet hats and Cuban boots, so ya know, it always broke my heart when my favorite bands always seem to crash and burn. I did not understand how hard it can be to juggle relationships with ten other inebriated people in the cold rehearsal rooms and stinky band vans. I did not know the Ramones did not get along, in real life. I probably thought they were actual siblings, as a bohomeless teenager. JEFF WARD continued forging his own prolific ouvre of very highbrow, arty, hallucinogenic rocknroll on his own, that was kinda in the strobe-lit vein of Liverpool’s 80’s psychedelic revivalists, it was a bit like low budget Bolan in Thundersland, but that 70’s glam glossy golden sheen was always missing, his songs always deserved a big, larger than love, major-label, laser-lit, Tony Visconti like, multi-layered production, with the string sections and conga drums and theramin and unicorns and girls goin’ “do, do, do, do, do, do do…” Jeff always determinedly applied a hard working, D.I.Y. ethic to his obscure art and was imaginatively adept at conjuring up ethereal otherworlds, even when he only had access to the most basic and primitive, limited recording equipment. You know you got that elusive “it” when you can even make your cellar dweller, duct-tape, jug band sound like a big-deal George Martin, or Arthur Lee on Elektra teenage rampage psychdelic symphony to god, with no budget, fuelled only by convenience store fortified wines, top Ramen, and an abiding love of Johnny Thunders sensitive solo records. Years after first lighting out upon his Electrajets impossible dream, he has finally achieved this high watermark recording, and at long last accessed the top notch production value and world class squad of untouchably impeccable players, that his rose-tinted originals always deserved. I’m over the moon about Electrajets gypsy-fied rocknroll exotica. He’d already carved out a lasting legacy with his scrappy first band-Gunfire Dance, his ongoing work with NY Junk, his essential books, but this new Electrajets album is really something special. A wonder to be experienced.
After relocating to NYC and struggling for awhile, navigating all the usual hurdles, hardships, obstacles, and rocknroll trapdoors and temptations, Jeff Ward was eventually loved and embraced by the last standing survivors of the 70’s downtown art explosion, and soon joined ranks with a literate, moody, thundering songwriter by the name of Joe Sztabnik, who was best known for his JT-affiliated sleaze punk band, the Dragons, but who also co-wrote “Poison Heart” with Dee Dee Ramone, in NY JUNK. NY JUNK also starred Cynthia Ross, better known in collector’s circles as Cynthia B-Girl, who was the original all girl punk band architect, muse, songwriter, and ground zero idol making, power behind the prince, powerhouse punk pioneer, who helped to kick-start many, many galaxies of iconic cult bands and rock scenes, all over the world. NY 77, Canada, Japan, Modernday NYC, she is a one woman art-juggernaut, planting apple seeds all over the place, with her bands, the B-Girls and NY JUNK, but also discovering, cultivating, nurturing, educating, tirelessly promoting, and managing young talents, and here, she accompanies our dashing beat hero, Jeff Ward, in his intergalactic Electrajets space travels. She is also a poignant writer, it’s easy to understand why she and Jeff Ward are so close. Cynthia is not only an extemporary bass player and historical figure; she’s seen it all, done it all, outlived ’em all, and writes these bruised and raw and nakedly revealing poems that will make you cry. Cynthia is hardcore. I can’t wait for her auto-biography. Jeff’s books, Parasite & Carry On Dreaming and Mac & Beth are so important, I can earnestly assure you that you should own them, especially if you have read my ravings this far. I always recognized his white light starpower in the glittery GUNFIRE DANCE phase, but it was his childlike wonderment and crazy abandon, in his ’round the world travelogs and electrified speed poetry and all night record playing and endless faasciantion with America’s activist history and indigenous subcultures and after-hours speakeasies, and respect for jazz and blugrass and hip-hop, appreciation of sixties writers, and long forgotten folklore, that repeatedly confirms for me what an amazing talent he is. You have to get his books. He is an animal rights activist, a human rights activist, a free press advocate, an antiwar yippie hellraiser in the tradition of David Peel and Harold C. Black, a Wobblies quotin’, power in the union, squatter punk solidarity, power fist, righteous soul bro immigrant blues scholar who makes NYC great again by being a soft-spoken, eloquent voice for the people, and a keeper of the good old flame. He knows way more about America’s civil rights history and it’s original people than most tv brainwashed, miseducated, born in the USA, honky propagandized Americans do. Part Phil Ochs, Victor Jara, Part Jack Kerouac and Brett Smiley. I remember when GUNFIRE DANCE first stormed into NYC in full burst crazy cobalt bloom, they smoked most all the local bands, possessed all the raw materials for Billy Idol super-fame, and really had a genuinely encouraging and affirming, and positive affect on similarly cursed troubadours such as myself and Chris Barry, the World Famous Mister Ratboy, and Deanne Clapper, who were all busy putting our own dark glam and voodoo, crash and burn, singer of the flame, gutter gangs together, as well as on most everyone involved with my fanzine, cable access tv show, record store co-workers, band-house roommates, and our dirty little dead-end blues-punk’s band’s friends and entrouge, all our kooky colleagues and counterparts in Boston’s ghetto-punk underground scene. GUNFIRE DANCE never got rich and famous, but they are still in our hearts, remembered ever so fondly, and will likely always remain one of the coolest rocknroll bands who ever stomped the stage at CBGB’s, or the Continental: at least to me and my raggedy little, teeny, lot of damaged outsiders and pirate lords with PTSD.
That’s a hard act to follow, but this evocative and wonderfully astute and glisteningly anthemic ELECTRAJETS disc is so surprisingly sunny and gleaming and visceral and totally unexpected in times as grim as these. Really, it arrives like a dove, or rainbow, or celestial choir, like they just spiked our drinks with a happy end in the nick of time, or something. Old glam devotees, record collectors, garage junkies, bookworms, aging acid heads, intellectual ingénues, and T. Rex hippies are gonna be playing “Transatlantic Tales” all summer long. Jeff Ward is a new frontier seeking, path finding, fear less truth seeking, envelope pushing, abyss staring, artist in all capital letters. What is so irresistibly charming about the dude is how he is just relentlessly overpowered by his profound love of beauty and adventure and soulful testifyin’, carney people, rabble rousin’ and highway jouneyin’. He’s so good, a vital force. Did I mention how you also have to procure his books? “Carry On Dreaming” is my youth-quaking favorite. Nowadays, his old drummer, Oz from the Gunfires, tours England with Walter Lure ,and Birchy plays in two top bands, the Black Bombers, and also in England’s Newest Hit-Makers, The GODFATHERS. Ant is, sadly, no longer with us, in this knotted coil of mortal, but I will always believe in their fairy dust and magic and lovingly recall all the lost boys of Neverland. The Gunfires will always be deeply appreciated as an iconic underground band who cast their impossibly thin shadows upon my entire personal secret history of complete unknowns gutter punknroll, right? Which brings us, now, to the triumphantly majestic Electrajets album, I never thought I’d say it, but it is even better than the Gunfires! The Electrajets have delivered a glorious masterpiece, and it is even going to be available soon…on vinyl. This is a headphones band, a real album, if I smoked ganja, I’d be high on the couch listening to this with my eyes closed right now, rather than drinking two pots of coffee and furiously typing about it.
Jeff Ward and his ever faithful gang of revolution-stoners, tiger-beats, gypsy-jokers, and rabbit-fighters have gone beyond the beyond with this record. It’s just perfect, really. As Sylvain would say, it’s, “the tits”. Especially if you love Love, Bowie, T. Rex, Slade, the psychedelic Rolling Stones pop art 45’s, etc. Truly, a fabulous, landmark achievement. He was wise to enlist Sonic Ray, ’cause everything he touches turns to gold. The Electrajets core trio of Jeff Ward, Cynthia Ross, and Dahm Majuri Cipolla are joined by Sarah Amina, Ray “Sonic” Hanson, and Danny Ray for this exceptional collection of terrific tunes that was engineered by Martin Bisi, mixed by Jeff, with pre-production by Joe Sztabnik and mastered by Paul Gray. It is real gratifying for long-time fans to hear Ward’s always compelling originals fully fleshed-out in full-color, 3-D, vivid surroundsound. A great big toast to the whole team. This record is a marvelous achievement. Not only does that gang provide guidance and shine their influential klieg-lights upon the next generation of young rockers, but they also provide a roadmap for other die hards who put their own crystal visions on hold to raise families and stuff. Our black flag was still there! In a free society, we’d all have access to this kind of quality music, and not just that awful push-button garbage-pop that assaults us from every corporate media platform. Real music, invested with this kind of high level musicianship, emotional dedication and honest self-expression, improves everyone’s entire quality of life, brings us together in person, makes people want to be fully alive again, pick up their clarinets, or go on a road trip, or have a party, which is why gutsy, artistic, heartfelt music has been mostly banned from the big 5 media monopolies corporate- controlled airwaves. There ain’t no war and private-prison profits in promoting sincere rocknroll that brings folks together, rather than dividing us with fear. Like the Beatles, Bowie, Pink Floyd, or T. Rex, the Electrajets might make you wanna get high, or plant a garden, or mobilize a protest, or liberate the dissident whistle-blowers, righteous truth-tellers, and free innocent children imprisoned in racist gulags. It’s a thing of real honest beauty to hear such a high-level, lavish piece of imperishable beauty still being made in these horrifyingly blackening times.
“Transatlantic Tales” is a fantastic voyage through eccentric after-hours bars, and dawn’s early light get togethers, with an inter-generational array of cosmic dancers, soft machines, bewlay brothers, and baby lemonades. If you like the same kinda music I do, that throbbing, pulsing, old time rocknroll, you will very likely be awed by this dazzling display of psychedelic lightshows and pyrotechnics, sensual violins, surreal David Lynch oompa bands, righteous testimonies, religious chants, noir red-light poetry, power to the people guitar lightning, and mysterious epiphanies to burn. This record is a bit of what you fancy, what we were waiting for-sophisticated and intelligent tapestries of silver comets and golden spires and cotton candy castles and crazy sunsets and….it rocks. The Electrajets are here to answer the musical question, “whatever happened to the teenage dream?” And they do it with a considerable lot of energy and finesse and soul-power; and with the actual first hand, been there, authority of “lived it” experience. If you were yearning for rocknroll to resurge and reignite and revitalize itself in a bright blue burst of happy smack and suicide spaceships, femme fatales asking you for a light in the dark alleyways, bootboy terrace stomps, pixie-stick pop melodies, danger, dynamite, sex, and style, you’re gonna probably really love this record. I will revel in this potent and powerful, ultra-paisleyfied, sinister space rock, for eons to come. An updated incarnation of the Slider or Satanic Majesties. Gorgeous stuff. I’m mad for it. A lethal dose of startlingly unbridled genius, and a fully rejuvenated clarion call for all of us to come together right now and get up and stand up and get organized and help co-create a groovier, freer, wilder, untamed world of dancing, purity, solidarity, light, and sensuality and limitless, inspirational possibilities, strummin’ on the old banjo. It’s up to you-yeah, you: soul-driven rocknroll always makes us wanna reach out to our friends and neighbors, beyond our own private soap bubble, it’s hard to hear supernova soul-music and not start moving your body, putting on cool threads, emptying bottles, opening windows, answering phones, it always awakens your desire to travel, to sing, to commune, and collaborate. Jeff Ward walks through a whimsical, Dali-esque dimension, seemingly of his own making, he has a wonderful voice, draws influences from everywhere and sees beauty in all things. An undeniably blessed and gifted character who makes rocknroll music that instantly wins you over, even if you think you’re not in the mood for it. You will turn it up louder. It moves and grooves like a movie, they are real movers. Their violinist, Sarah Amina adds some Scarlet Riviera style mythical illustrations to their flavor and brings a real Mad Juana gypsy-jazz feeling to the proceedings, hazy echoes of Arcadia’s velvety new wave. Very hypnotic and beautiful. Jazzbo holy-man, Danny Ray, from every cool NYC band ever, lends his always passionate saxophone playing to the mix. Sonic Ray is a flame blasting human torch visionary jedi-knight super hero. So, you know. You might wanna give it a listen. May the madcap, mystical messages of the Electrajets shine on and on and on and on.
Many sleaze rock/glam metal bands have disappeared these last years, but The EROTICS stand strong and offer us a new release each year! They never really change but are still able to offer us some quality rock’n’roll such as the heavy rock opener “Angel, Devil & Me”. You’ll hear some catchy horror rock (“Blood Of The Wasted”, “I Dismember You”, “Only When I Bleed”), some decadent glam metal (“The Things We Do In The Night”, “Steroids & Cocaine”), some sleazy rock (“Nice Things”) and even a bit of 70s rock with “Dity Little Secrets.” The EROTICS show us that they are also still good at glam punk with “Ain’t Talkin’ To You” and “Pretty Little Bomb.” A few of these songs were previously released on their “Stuck Between Venus and Mars” EP, including the ballad “Best Song of The Night”, so if you didn’t get the EP, that’s one more good reason for you to order “The Songs Remained Deranged”! /Laurent C.
Born a rocker, die a rocker. It ain’t about money, or bought and paid-for popularity, following trends, or fitting in. For every big name, show-biz institution like say Trent Reznor, or Green Day, or Nirvana or whoever, there are numerous complete unknowns making outsider art because they have to, not just because they can. Many times, the real innovators and path finders, originals and most unique and dashing characters never attain name recognition, usually because, they are the ones writing songs and living them, not the trust funders single mindedly aligning themselves with the trappings of fads, celebrity, or chasing wealth and fame. The genuine article rockers are saying their thing in small rooms, mostly oblivious to pig-media hype about Moby, or Skrillex, or Lady Gaga, or Lil Wayne, ya know? It’s always been a stunning mystery to me how someone like Gass Wild, who had led the most rocknroll life of all the rocknrollers, frequently goes unknown by even lifelong underground rocknroll aficionados. Izzy Stradlin has a song called “Here Before You”, Gass was here well before Izzy, and is still treading the boards, blasting out his own signature dirty rocknroll motherfuckery for an audience of signed on for life dedicated rocknrollers. A few people know he drummed for the proto-Pretenders, and Chrissie says, “without whom…”, I think he may have even dated my seconds favorite guitar player, James Honeyman-Scott’s, sister. He played with a Hollywood Brat in the Mannish Boys, recorded with Jimmy Miller, and summa his old glitter groups, Lightning Raiders and Mannish Boys, counted Lemmy as a fan, and even played big festivals, and shared bills with bands like Hanoi Rocks. I think Sami Yaffa mighta been a Love Pirate at some point, Gass also apparently drummed for Johnny Thunders. He knew Marianne and Keith, the Pink Fairies, Razzle, Lemmy, all of ’em. Lately, I’ve been listening to summa his tunes and wanted to make sure my little circle of reprobates and diehards have a chance to familiarize yourselves with his work. I’ve no idea how shark infested show business works, at all, AT ALL(!!!) or how a lonely planet of London Quireboys and Jacobites fans managed to mostly overlook this charismatic Lower East Side Legend. He’s the kinda cat who lives and breathes pure rocknroll from the black button atop his leather newsboy cap to the bottom of his leopard print winklepickers. “Life Is What You Make It” is a seedy, ramshackle affair in spite of it’s positive affirmations, it still reeks of bourbon, hairspray, cigarette smoke, and just has a real funky Rolling Stones in a wet basement blues feel, shades of all the usual suspects like Crybabys and Dogs D’Amour. It’s a real raucous, vital and alive sounding, reckless barroom romp, kinda reminiscent of Bowie‘s Jean Genie meets Exile On Main Street! What more could you want? Top stuff. As soon as you hear it, you’ll dig it, get that old feeling, like when you used to wanna dance, or get dressed up and make some merry with your friends-and it’ll stay lodged in your brain for awhile. If you’ve ever been to a rock show in NYC, you’ve seen Gass, and he is usually the most dashing rake in attendance. “Miss Smartypants” will probably remind you of Walter Lures’s best stuff with the Heart Breakers and the Waldos-it’s pure sleaze with pop harmony vocal accents, real cool, I love this kinda stuff! It’s just so Wild! “Skeleton Crew” takes me right back to Saint Mark’s Place back in 1984-block after block of warzone shambles and decay, and dirty hives of scum and villainy like Downtown Beirut, King Tut’s, the Holiday, and the Pyramid, when everybody was still dressing up like Texacala Jones or Candy Darling and gunfighters and pirates and Sigue Sigue Sputnik. When Skin N Bones and Angels In Vain were the next big things and revolution was in the air. I don’t bother reviewing much new music anymore, because it all seems so gutlessly half hearted and formulaic, watered down and second hand. When you hear a burst of music with this real youthful energy that is infused with so much heart, and has that exuberant old time passion for the proud form, it is really rejuvenating, reenergizing, makes you wanna do something besides wait to die. “Powder Plague” is a cautionary tale from the wrong side of the tracks about the perils of a live fast die young lifestyle, that leads you to nowhere.
Gass Wild lived in Boston during the golden age of the Rat’s cool as fuck garage punk revival, and it must have rubbed off on him a little, because you can definitely hear some of that bratty Real Kids and Lyres juvenile delinquent defiance on this one. “Attitude” is all snarling Johnny Thunders or Joey Pinter like guitar snakeiness and sneery, taunting, Jayne County vocals. The Love Pirates make really fun, playful, raunchy rocknroll, like the NY Dolls or Hollywood Brats. “Rockinderblooze” is a wildcat fifties jungle boogie like the Stray Cats, Bo Diddley, Link Wray, or the Cramps. “25 to Life” is a Johnny Cash style morality fable about a good friend gone wrong, the guitars are just fabulous, I can listen to this kinda music all day, in a certain mood. Even the gloom and doom stuff is somehow still uplifting. “Love Gone Mad” kinda has a sixties baroque pop mood, like something from the Rolling Stones “Flowers” or “Aftermath”. Not quite psychedelic, but rose tinted and flower powered. Like the Stones pop art singles, circa 65-67. Wolf howls and outstanding Little Walter style blues wailings. “No One’s Got A Hold On Me” reminds me of JT‘s “Que Sera Sera”-songs like, “Short Lives” and “Endless Party”. It’s another cocksure , self sufficient declaration of independence, Gass lettin’ the go go girls know he ain’t waitin’ around for their approval or acceptance, they don’t own him. “All-Time Low” sounds like it’s gonna be a morose downer, right? But, no-it’s a rage against the dying of the late night neon, an absolute barn burner-you should seek it all his available stuff out, if you ever loved the Heartbreakers, Fleshtones, Jacobites, or Chuck Berry. I really thoroughly dig the background vocals on this one. Gives it a real power pop feel.This skeleton crew can really play.”Midnight Rambler” is a sleazy, slow burning, down and dirty, wine soaked, juke joint, back alley, ace of spades rendition of the Stones classic-approximately as good as when the Beasts Of Bourbon covered “Cocksucker Blues” It is filled with danger and irresistible allure, like that girl you used to know. Too bad the Rolling Stones don’t write songs this dirty, anymore. Gass has the perfect voice for this kind of stuff. They kill it. Hats off to these silver blades and rum thieves and swashbuckling scallywags, they really do make you wanna hoist the Jolly Roger, one more time. “Apocalypse Blues” is a protest song very much in the same spirit as Johnny Thunders and The Oddballs heartfelt and inspiring, folky protest music. It paints a stark and harrowing picture of sellout and ruin, disgraceful and dehumanizing injustice, and serves as a socially conscious call for us all to put our Netflix surfing channel changers, and $1,000 I-Phones aside, and rebel against the fix is in, jackbooted, dystopian rule of the Brave New World meets 1984 predator class, at the top. Maybe we can’t all make Molotovs at the barricades, but we can all do something, like maybe go see a live show, or go visit a real person, in real life, give some money to the homeless veteran, or freezing immigrant family, on the corner-we can all do something positive with the time we have remaining. All in all, the Love Pirates do what all the best rocknroll is supposed to do-they remind us that we are still alive and it ain’t no crime to want to feel things deeply and sincerely, to share some laughs, to sing and dance, to have a real cool time tonight. So fill up your boots, me hearties.
…If you’re anything like me, you probably much preferred the Bowery when it was the unholy habitat of junkie film makers, winos, hookers, and immigrants who flagrantly sold untaxed loosie cigarettes on every street corner in broad daylight to the millionaire’s only, Disneyfied, gentrification bruncher, yuppie version, with all the museum book signings and twenty five dollar Dee Dee Burgers and militarized gestapo brandishing automatic weapons and Jared and Ivanka Kushner rich people. But then again, if you’re anything like me, you probably can’t even afford to visit the modern day gentrified city. This CD is like a welcome postcard from our scuzzy old stomping grounds, from the Ramones and Lou Reed‘s NYC. Outsiders coming together in the melting pot to share love and friendship and make art and music. It was a magical world.
….Things change, people die, and we can’t go back to the summer. I approached listening to this disc with some NYC exile baggage and mixed feelings. On one hand, I was more than eager to hear some fresh originals from grey eminence, immortal punkroll icon, Walter Lure, on the other, I was also a diehard Tony Coiro era, classic lineup, Waldos fan, he was the Jerry Lewis to Walter’s suave Dean Martin, or maybe vice versa, and I will likely always miss their tag team, Borscht belt, standup comedy routine, it’s a little bit like Chrissie still callin’ it the Pretenders, when half the key members are dead or absent, ya know? By the time even Martin Chambers is no longer present onstage, maybe it’s time to start callin’ it Chrissie Hynde, which she finally did.
So when one of the other boys in the band handles vocals, however competently, on two of the new, surprisingly more lighthearted, pop tunes, I personally, would rather have heard two more Walter Lure originals, especially after such a long wait. “Lazy Day”, indeed! “Crazy Kids” kicks some major ass and makes you feel like you are in the backseat with your smelly, teenaged, malt liquor friends on the way to some doomed house party where you already know the cops are gonna show up and throw half the people out and tell everybody to turn the music down. It is really hot stuff. “Little Black Book” showcases Lure‘s best singing ever put to tape, and is probably every bit as good as anything from Thunders and Palladin‘s “Copycats”, aside from maybe, “Baby It’s You.” “Take A Chance On Me” is another instant winner, which features a scalding, searing-ly hot guitar solo from original Waldos guitarist extraordinaire, Joey Pinter, and some bad ass harmonica playing. I realized while watching that “L.A.M.F.” concert on Netflix, that while I loved that Heartbreakers record religiously, as a kid, I thoroughly wore it out in my teens and twenties, I need to hear another half hearted version of “Chinese Rocks” or “Too Much Junkie Business” like I need to hear another wedding band cover of “Satisfaction”. I know it’s still the money-shot to the causal listener;”ooooh…ahhh”, but I still swear by “Party Lights”, “Crybaby”, “Golden Days”, and “Crazy ‘Bout Your Love”. It’s the “Rent Party” songs that’ll still sometimes put me in the mood to put on some rhinestone sunglasses, and dance like a chicken, around the coffee table. “Flight” is probably my favorite Walter Lure song. I thought that Liza Colby stole that whole L.A.M.F. show from all the old Heroes, because she exuded real passion and brought a reinvigorating-ly sincere ENERGY to the mostly phoned-proceedings. She was simultaneously wholesome and pure, and dangerous and wild. She was something else. What heart she has! That’s how I remember the classic line-up Waldos shows. They were like the Fleshtones, they came to party, to tear it up, to blow the roof off the sucker. I used to go see the vintage “Rent Party” Waldos with my friends, Chris Barry and the World Famous Mister Ratboy, back when Pillbox and the Waldos were the coolest bands in NYC and Joe Rizzo was the Pillbox drummer. Together, Chris and Ratboy wrote and recorded one of my favorite sunken treasures, “Jumbo’s Clown Room”, before they were both gradually squeezed outta town by the evil forces of Giuliani Gentrification. From the West Coast, you had the Humpers remarkable masterpiece, “Positively Sick On Fourth Street”, but Manhattan had both Pillbox “Clown Room”, and the nearly flawless Andy Shernoff produced, Waldos “Rent Party”, and those three records, were pretty much all I listened to for at least a couple of years. “Rent Party” really was such a surefire party starter-I seldom ever made a mix-tape for anybody without including at least a couple of Waldos songs. It was just cut after cut of cake taking, cheap champagne toasting, confetti tossing, and some more trays of drinks being guzzled and newsboy hats thrown carelessly in the air and dancing with bad girls in short skirts, and mischievous Bowery Boys hoots and hijinks, that you could crack open most anywhere the highway took you, and shazam, your scroungey hotel room is transformed into CBGB’s or Max’s Kansas City again. They really caught some white lightning in a bottle with that shiny platter! I was one of the kids in the leopard print suit jackets and canary yellow scarves and pink creepers who used to show up every chance he got to see the old-school Waldos and dance at the front of the stage with alla Lower Manhattan’s little Ronnie Spector and Patti Palladin lookalikes. Walter Lure, with his onery ole alligator smile and stripy tie and rumpled fedora, was always, a first class frontman and natural born entertainer-he was a doll, but always the center of the crowd, and I never got to know him, like I did his old Bruise Brother, Big Tony Coiro, who was a sharp witted, big barrel of laughs and rat pack charm. I was scared of Joey, he seriously looked like he might cut you. Somebody should write a book about that guy. He sure has the stories. Together with Jeff West and their various friends, like Jamie Heath and Walter’s brother, Richie, they would blast out some of the best fifties influenced, fun hearted, raunchy, garage soul rocknroll that I ever heard. They made all the gorgeous girls shake and shimmy. They were more upbeat and festive and cheerful and celebratory than the Heartbreakers and Oddballs, who were often more hit or miss, and they put on some of the most memorable and energetic performances I ever saw, back then. I never saw Joey Pinter have an off night, when I was in NYC, he was always, ON FIRE. They really knew how to throw a shindig. They were driven by the relentless pounding of CLUB WOW and Testors alum, Jeff West. Walter was like a Jaggeresque dervish, a zany, gracious master of ceremonies in tight jeans and Converse, he was like a big, happy kid, while Joey Pinter brought a real Ennio Morricone soundtrack, lonesome plains drifter type vibe to the stage, Good/Bad and ugly, all swinging saloon doors and heavy spurs on creaky pine floors, loco hombres exchanging nervous looks, was he gonna order a sarsaparilla, or play the piano, or “Draw!”? He was a real presence. He had a “Gunsmoke” intensity, a stylish as fuck, Keith or John Lee Hooker understated and effortless coolness, that totally complimented Tony and Waldo’s old-timey showbiz sensibilities, he brought suspense and unpredictability and the poker faced countenance of the streets, to the bar at the end, where I could meet you and your friend. You really had to be there. All Total Soulmen! They were the best. Sheer thrills, spilt drinks, wet hair, running makeup, it was always a lot of fun. Whoever makes those kickass suit jackets for Walter is amazing. He is still a dashing rake, and does not look, or act his age, onstage. He’s still a Crazy Kid, at heart. Tony Coiro and Jamie Heath and Richie Lure and Charlie Sox and Billy Rogers and Billy Rath and Jerry and Johnny and most all my friends have sadly all gone on to some sticky floored honkytonk behind the clouds and it can never be like, even the last, of the old days again, but Walter and Andy Shernoff have assembled a crack team of dynamite NY rockers: Takanori, Screamin’ Joe, and Takto, who have admirably done a real stand-up, potent and commendable job at bringing back that old feel. “Bye Bye Baby” is a cab ride right back to that familiar old happy place we used to know-it’s like finding some pills you forgot you had in an old leather jacket pocket. Really strong stuff.
Andy Shernoff knows what he’s doing, the songwriting heart and soul of the Dictators helps Walter laydown a vital and remarkably alive and gutsy sounding record. “Crazy Kids” a third of Walter’s age are seldom able to evoke all this two fisted, action packed, loud Chuck Berry style excitement with so much purist rocknroll authority. The ghosts of Dion and the Ronettes and all the Anarchy Tour punks and Stanton Street flophouses and infamous derelicts and piles of broken bricks and Rivington hustlers and found object junk sculpture and brownish blood stain splatters on every wall and hip-hop graffiti and after hours drag goddesses and models wearing art and here’s some more art everywhere you cared to look, and two big greasy slices of Famous Ray’s pizza on one paper plate, all that stuff is all over this record. The sound is still way, way more skid row than John Varvatos. Which is what you want, if you are a sentimental bastard. Hardcore Waldos fans had been waiting forever for Uncle Walter to make another record and “Wacka Lacka Loom Bop…” is undeniably great fun. “Wham Bam Boo” is the stuff that broken tiki lamps and red stains on your furry carpet are made of! “Little Black Book” has a haunting and sexy, black and white, detective noir movie ambience. Ya know, smoke blown carelessly in your face by hard hearted, fatally deceptive bombshells with too much lipstick on. Real sultry and sophisticated moving pictures from another time. You half expect to see Chris Isaak or Willie Deville stroll in to that bar. All dark and brooding, real cool time tonight, grownup rocknroll with soul. That crazy horn is the stinky essence of downtown fire escapes and steam and manholes and broken window shades and unexpected glimpses of dangerous Spanish beauties in fancy black lace underwear. “Donchu Mess With Cupid” is the usual home of David Johansen’s cocksure, familiar, old bark , but Waldo brings his own personal pizzazz and finesse to the old sawhorse and more than does it justice. “You Talk To Much” is the perfect cover for Uncle Walter-it’s just so, so him. Walter Lure‘s music has such a timeless quality that can always rouse a room to wanna get up and shake a tail feather, whether it was a hundred years ago, or 100 years from now, there will likely always be rank outsiders and downtown hoodlums and tempting hussies and bohemian showgirls who wanna congregate in some dirty room, outside of society, where they can let their hair down and rub shoulders and sing and dance and kiss and cry, right? The whole human drama unfolds as the saxophone blares. “WACKA LACKA LOOM BOP A LOOM BAM BOO” whizzes by like an anything can happen, wild eyed night at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, that you never want to end. Can’t get this stuff no more. They leave ya wantin’ more! Walter, Joe Rizzo, Takanori and Takto all play like Johnny Thunders motherfuckers, and while I’m not usually really even a saxophone jazzy kinda guy, I can’t help but always love Danny Ray’s exquisite tastefulness. He can add some real “Oomph” and soul power to most any song, because he plays with so much genuine emotion, which is mostly what I listen for. They really made a helluva good record with “WACKA LACKA”. It’s so cool, that there is still a label like Cleopatra Records, that’s willing to manufacture and help promote CD’s by aging assassins and gray-haired street gangs of songwriting stalwarts, punk rock pioneers, and guns a-blazing guitarists like these killers. Shernoff is the go-to guy, if you want to make fully satisfying records with a real depth and range of emotion and explore a myriad of experiences from bubblegum nostalgia to sunny pop and darker edged tunes that convey a blistering anger, like “Damn Your Soul” and their whip crack version of “London Boys”, which aptly displays the high level of talent in the current Waldos roll-call. “Lazy Day” seems lyrically like a throwaway, though it’s not offensive, or anything, it’s perfectly pleasant pop filler, and “She Doesn’t Love You Anymore” is starting to grow on me, I have just been patiently, but restlessly anticipating more new songs from elder statesman, Uncle Walter. There is more than enough solid gold easy action here to justify you spending the measly twelve bucks. Music is still your best entertainment value. I can’t even imagine how many thousands of hours I chalked up, listening to “Rent Party”, “or “D.T.K. Live At The Speakeasy”, or “Live At Max’s Kansas City” or “L.A.M.F.”, over the years. I’ve already played “WACKA LACKA LOOM BOP A LOOM BAM BOO” about ten times! …Meanwhile, vintage Waldo, and streetfightin’ bluesman, Joey Pinter, has relocated to Chicago and has struggled heroically to get back on his feet after a whole encyclopedia of bad luck and medical problems. He’s such a beloved and legendary rocknroll personality that various old friends and rising star punk bands, in three cities, organized benefit rock shows to help defray his astronomical medical costs. He put out a similarly essential solo cd that you can buy online, if you wanna help the cause and were unable to make it to any of those big rock shows. My best advice is you immediately buy both Walter Lure and JP’s latest sides, if you still like that old time rocknroll, or reminisce about the days of gold.
In Downtown NYC, Brian Morgan is probably best known for slinging guitar for the Disruptors, the last of the great, pre gentrification, CBGB’s sleazy gutter punks, but in the Midwest, the guy is a legendary hero among the record store loiterers and sneering delinquent teenagers of all ages, for all his early garage-land bands like Subculture, Aural Sects, Big Bone Lick, and Gut Pistons, bands that inspired waves of other kids to first start listening to the groups that influenced his many, many underrated, highly influential Ohio musical ventures. He introduced generations of younger kids to music like the Cramps, Gun Club, Suicide, Deadboys, the Damned, the Clash, and old Alice Cooper. He is probably single handedly responsible for generating more small town Ohio punk bands than anyone else. Born in Van Wert, home of Brownsville Station, Morgan had an eight inch Mohawk in 1977, grew up reading “Search & Destroy”, “East Coast Rocker” and all the weekly English music mags like “NME” and “Melody Maker”, and forming a long list of brothel creeper and cowboy shirt wearing, black leather punk bands, creating fanzines, and organizing basement shows, when that was just not done, in those viciously intolerant hick towns. Not merely pre-internet, but pre Black Flag, ya dig? As a bored teenager, he looked just like Charlie Sexton and dressed as cool as the Clash or Stray Cats.
In his early twenties, he dedicated himself to a more Anti-Nowhere League, proto Zodiac Mindwarp biker-glam image, that provoked outrage among furious, flyover state rednecks, and total devotion from his growing cult of goth and grebo, scruffy crust-punk, and rejected weirdo, hangers on. Even his paintings and sleek band logos inspired copycats. His guitar style is like a mixture of Buxton and Bruce, Thunders and Chrome, Derwood and Brian James. A Warhol-esque scene-maker, he could be considered the Phillip Salon of Middle America, in that his after hours salon would regularly fill up with many hero-worshipping adolescent runaways, dropouts, Siouxsie and Madonna wannabe’s, cross dressers, hooligans, malcontents, and would be beat writers, who would sponge up all his bone-art-jewelry, creepy paintings, obscure imported records, sinister humor, innovative style, and rocknroll expertise. In addition to his ferocious space-cowboy guitar styling’s, and formidable songwriting ability, he was an early mentor to countless legions of Oi boys, hardcores, rockabillies and glam kids, who all went on to perform in various groups you’ve probably heard of. After lending his fiery talent to many NYC underground groups like the Disruptors, Black Bators, and Sunset Strippers, he forged an alliance with the talented Lynne Von Pang from Da Willys and Flipside faves, Trick Babies, and their distinctive sound is as Lower East Side as it gets. Part sixties girl group, with a Ramones sense of fun, X Ray Spex malt-shop saxophones, vintage Waldos attitude, and a call to style, like Blondie and the Heartbreakers.
“Everything You Do Is A Travesty” comes in an ace cartoon sleeve with a boss as hell skateboard sticker, as everything the Carvels do is invested with an infectious spirit of fun. Lynne Von Pang can really sing her heart out! Brian Morgan was friends with Amy Wichmann from Miniskirt Mob, and you can feel her smiling down on this classic bubblegum and trashy rocknroll record. “Questioningly’ is all timeless true romance, and Phil Spector and Brian Wilson pop-opera longing, showcasing Von Pang’s soulful pipes and the Carvels understated mastery of dreamy and free Blondie-esque rocknroll. Surprising that Little Steven has not picked this track as his “Coolest Song In The World”. If I was Rodney on the Roq, this would be my pick to click! It transports you straight back to your long gone “Pretty In Pink” youth you wasted pining hopelessly, with a helpless crush on a short skirted, roller-skating waitress in the parking lot of Frisch’s Big Boy. “You Make Me Wanna Be Alone” is a righteous kiss-off to some time-wasting, loser boyfriend. “It Wasn’t My Idea To Break your Heart” is another pop gem, sure to please fans of the B-Girls and Nikki Corvette. Steve Pang and Steven Fallon are a Pretenders solid rhythm section and Dave Spinley’s Psychedelic Furs like saxophone playing makes me miss my own brief stint in Manhattan, going to see NY sax stars in scuzzy bars, like Jamie Heath and Danny Ray. “I Don’t Know How You Do What You Do” features Brian Morgan’s James Honeyman Scott like, exquisitely tasteful soloing. All in all, it is a really fun, sunny, upbeat, and energetic, soda fountain of youthful, teenage-spirited CD from some very seasoned old school veterans. I don’t know how they do what they do, but I hope they keep doing it. (-Vega Death)
One year after “United We Can’t Stand”, The EROTICS are back with 6 brand new songs. While the EP cover reminds me a bit of the excellent “Where You Been” by DINOSAUR JR., opening song “Stop Drop and Roll” confirms that The EROTICS still play 80s influenced hard rock’n’roll. “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” is heavy and sleazy with a memorable chorus, “Stuck Between Venus and Mars” is a classic glam metal tune with great guitar riffs, and this time, the band has also decided to slow things down a bit with “Best Song Of The Night”, a power ballad somewhere between GUNS N’ ROSES‘ version of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and POISON‘s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” This being said, The EROTICS also keep their punk metal edge and dark humour lyrics with the catchy “Dismember You” and offer us a powerful cover of The MISFITS‘ “Skulls.” This is a great EP, and The EROTICS will be on tour in England soon (see dates below), so don’t miss them if you can go to one of these shows. /Laurent C.
New York City’s best dark garage band TWIN GUNS are back with a fourth album. They still use a lot of reverb and still mix pych and surf rock influences to 60s and 70s rock’n’roll. Opening song “Imaginary World” puts you straight into this film noir atmoshere they like so much, while “100 Teenage Years” has a Western movie/Ennio Morricone feel to it. The band’s darker side shows in “Cannibal Soul”, with its repetitive beat and haunted vocals, as well as in the gloomy bluesy “House On The Hill.”
You’ll also hear some STOOGES influences in “The Dark is Rising” or in “Blueberry Sugar”, and songs like “A Portrait in Black” or “Sad Sunday” bring the Californian 60s to mind. The CRAMPS‘ spirit also wander all around these songs, especially in “Sociopath”, while “The Endless Dream” reminds me of bands like BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB or The BLACK ANGELS. You’ll find 3 bonus tracks on the CD version, “My Baby”, a wild rock’n’roll song à la WAYNE COUNTY AND THE ELECTRIC CHAIRS, “Sick Theater’ (a song with a horrorish merry-go-round atmosphere) and “Late Night” (a dark psych track.)
I still wonder why TWIN GUNS aren’t bigger yet, and you’ll probably think the same after listening to “Imaginary World.” /Laurent C.
Veglam 