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 I
meant to create a swank new logo for the Inferno this
month, but sadly, I did not. Frequent mid-afternoon naps on the couch will
do that to you. Anyway, the big green box is starting to overflow, so once
again, it's time to dig in deep and sample its ample treasures. I sorta
figured that by now, the CD would be good and dead, and bands would just
send zipped Mp3 files. I was looking forward to that, because it seems
easier to ignore. Maybe that will kick in by summer. But for now, here's
the latest plastic.
But before we begin, this month's muse: groovy 60's folkie Judee Sill. Why? Dunno, I like topless nerdy chicks.
By the way, I can only really recommend one of her songs, Crayon Angels. The rest are way too soppy, even for 60's hippy-folk. Not that I would actively listen to anything but searing hard rock, man. Teachers Pet
Everybodyout
The Pagans A fitting companion piece to Pagans’ vox-ist Mike Hudson’s spanking new auto-bio “Diary of a Punk”, The Blue Album finds the Cleveland OG punks on their wheezy second wind, plying their shabby trade at a college gig in Madison, Wisconsin in 1988. The sound is buzzy and the perf is sloppy, but since there’s scant Pagans material to sift through, it’s still worth the 17 or so minutes it takes to listen to it. Contains the classicks “She’s a Cadaver” and “Us and All Our Friends Are So Messed Up.” Also contains a pretty funny band photo, wherein the band looks like hippy versions of their skinny, sneering, 1976 selves. Live, raw: The Pagans rip thru "What's this Shit Called Love?"
Unseen Force
Greta, Unseen Force's easy-on-the-eyes bass player. Disgrace
Momo Lamana
Momo Lamana play in the dark:
Willycranes
The Fucknuckles
The Barbarellatones
Zero Down
Gideon Smith and the
Dixie Damned
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March 2008 All reviews by Sleazegrinder |
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Oh, and this month’s muse? Clearly, Cybill Shepard, early 70’s era.
Ever see the original Heartbreak Kid? Unbelievable. That movie is also responsible for my new favorite phrase, as uttered by Charles Grodin: Nosy wife: What were you doing at the beach all this time? Dude: Lookin’ at jerks. That’s what I’m mostly doing these days, if you’re asking. Lookin’ at jerks.
Werewolf Army
Their Hearts Caught
Fire
Tank 86
CPC Gangbangs
Backdoor Stan and the Backzits
Plastiscines
Boxcar Satan/Ghostwriter
Rosetta West
Deadsea
Crom
By Crom, it's Crom!
Icarus Witch
Motordevil
American Speedway
Below: American Speedway - watch 'em go!
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December 2007 All reviews by Sleazegrinder |
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But first, my Muse of the Month: April Bowlby. Not since Suzanne Somers has an actress so committed herself to Sitcom Jiggle. She is the modern-day master (mastress?) of the form, and I salute every one of her firm-yet-jiggly parts. Bravo! Might wanna work on that last name, though.
Horror of ‘59
The Good Time Charlies
Alcoholics Unanimous
Left Arm
Scared Stiffs
Urgencies
Big Elf
Ashtones
The Vermin
Brain Police
Salute Todestrieb
Dead Hookers Dead Beat
-Sleaze ________________________________________________ |
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Teenage ’77 Akron
creeps spew their spazzy keyboard punk from beyond the grave in this
posthumous round-up. The toonage is typically spunky regional almost-wave
that’s led by whirly-bird woulda-been smash hit “Hooked on You” and
anchored by fun schlock like “Fast Food Baby” and “Cincinnati Stomp”. The
package is piled high with a smattering of live cuts and videos shot by
the Kent State A/V class. Liner notes tell the Pets’ inexorable trip from
the gutter to the sidewalk. Somewhere between the 60s caveman stomp of
Nuggets and the safety-pin snarl of Killed by Death, fans of painfully
obscure punk will flip their mohawked wigs over this one. 
Wow, when’s the last
time you saw a new release on Taang? 1986? Well, apparently this outfit –
a Leeds/Boston supergroup featuring ex-Dropkick Murphy Rick Barton and UK
howler Sweeney Todd, former frontman for gruffpunks Dead Pets – got ‘em
excited enough to crank the hype machine back into action. As you might
imagine, it’s quite like a cross between the two bands, a melodious
bashing of beer pints and sloganeering dedicated to the boys on the docks.
Will most likely sound completely over the top to average citizens, but
blue collar yobbos will understand it’s charms implicitly. 
Everything you could
possibly want -and then some- from 80’s hardcore stalwarts Unseen Force.
Straight outta the reasonably comfortable streets of Richmond, Virginia,
Unseen Force plied straight-ahead thrash and were notable mostly for their
catchy songs and their hot chick bass player. Both are in a abundance
here. You get their 1986 LP “In Search of the Truth”, plus a rugged ’86
live set and a 1984 demo of their previous band, 2000 Maniacs. Not to be
confused with 10,000 Maniacs, which is a different proposition altogether. 
First off, I just want
to say that the packaging on this one gave me a fucking headache. I could
not figure out what the name of the band was (was it the second coming of
D-Generation?) and the layout on the liner notes almost made my eyes
bleed. Having survived that, I was rewarded with a very tasty sampling of
a Finnish action-rock band named Disgrace who apparently formed in ’87 as
a head-stomping metal band but somehow morphed along the way into a
garage-y groove machine in the Hives-meets-Sweatmaster vein. This comp –
the second in a series, I’m guessing – collects tracks from 1997 to a few
months ago, and it’s all good and raucous and full of hooks and
hand-claps. I can dig it. 
Belgian boy-girl
minimalist garage rock duo. One of ‘em playing a kid’s keyboard, one of
‘em with a guitar. Sorta like Stereo Total without the thrift store
threads and French pop. Or like the Ravonettes without a million dollars
to waste in the studio. Cute and fuzzy. 
Straight outta Dickland
(tell me about it!), the Willycranes whoop it up with a
short-but-effective clutch of sugar-sprinkled, Supersuckery action rockers
with hooks that hit you like a sock full of quarters to the jaw. With
songs averaging an economical minute and a half, this record is like
trying to ride a bull. Fun and exciting, but only lasts a few seconds.
Also on opener “Gasser”, and whenever the mood hits, really, all the dudes
sing together. Like Abba. Although not very much like Abba. 
Mixed gendered but most
definitely female-fronted, Toronto thrashers The Fucknuckles serve up a
motley strew of bratty, primitive speed-punk that sounds like the
Lunachicks bashing Frightwig’s heads in. Strangely, the guitar player
seems to think that he (or she; the roll call on the CD reads like this:
“Spew – Spews, Bones – Chief Wangster”. So who know what anybody does) is
in an 80’s thrash metal band, and he riffs wildly away in defiance of the
propulsive teen-punk rhythms. Luckily, this has very little effect on the
overall sound. Personally, I am clearly too old for these headache makers,
but I definitely see the appeal. Smash it up! 
Latest dose of sunshine
dappled caveman-glam from Hawaii’s top gender-bending surf-punks. If you
were looking for a darkly psychedelic ode to Nina Hagen, you’ve found it
here, in the Ventures-meets-the-Munsters black tar swim of, yep, “Nina
Hagen”. Also on deck, two takes on the sing-songy perv anthem “Glitter
Beach”, a couple liptick smeared stabs at cheap trash (“Dopesick Dolly”,
Trash Du Blanc”, and a rather bitchin’ cover of the Left Banke’s “Pretty
Ballerina”. Will confuse and disorient many, but for psyche-glam
enthusiasts, this is the wiggest-out. 
Any band with a dude
posing in a Tank shirt is A-O fuckin’ K with me, man. Second helping of
two-ton mega-riffage from these kings of Fist Rock. Every song is like
getting clobbered by a wayward guitar at a Samson concert, like getting
swooped up by a pterodactyl and dropped into a volcano. This is music for
denim vest wearing holdouts, for beer swillers and true believers, a
throbbing, neck-snapping tribute to metal and mirth and good times for
all. Splendorous. 
As the punny title
would suggest, South Side of the Moon is much more tongue in cheek-y than
previous Dixie Damned discs (“Blacklight wizard poster/Freaking me out!”).
It’s like Angel II: Avenging Angel. You know, a wry satire on the genre it
helped create. That’s not to say that it won’t roll over your skull like a
tank, because it most certainly does; buzzing stoner-punk crushers like
“Save a Dollar for the Dead” and “Devil’s Night” offer prime gonzola, and
nuzzle comfortably next to narcotic deathjams like the woozy “Magic
Queen”. I’m just suggesting ol’ Gid is having fun with this one, flipping
through old copies of Creepy and Outlaw Biker while he plays his BOC and
MC5 8 tracks on an endless loop. It’s an homage and a send-up and a big,
greasy, gorgeous slop-bucket full of deep, rumbling Man-Rock. 
You don’t usually equate famed and fabled UK drink-rockers the
Dogs D’Amour with charity. But when Dogs superfan Trace-Da-Space passed on in
December of 2006, fellow Dogs-boosters from all corners decided to do
something to honor her memory and so, a Dogs tribute, with proceeds going
to Cancer Research UK. A noble cause indeed and a noble batch of bands and
songs, as well. Sleazegrinder is well-represented here with a track from
our own Stu Gibson’s band-of-stumblebums the Medicine Bow, who unloose a
spectacularly wrecked Heartbreak, and there is plenty more where that came
from, including a suitably rag-tag run-through of Heroine from Dogs
main-man Tyla himself. Rather stunning acoustic versh of Billy Two Rivers
from our man Tommy Hale, too. Listen, if you’re reading this,
there’s a good chance you’re a Dogs fan, so snatch this up and make the
world a slightly better place. 
Ghostwriter is a fantastic font, I use it on the site all the time. Looks
like a creepy typewriter. It’s also the name of a one-man band. Said man
is Steve Schecter, and, obviously, he’s usually howling at the moon all by
his lonesome. But something strange happened on the way to the hanging
tree and he somehow hooked up with Texan post-hipster retro-blooze demons
Boxcar Satan. Together they conjured up this gut-bucket collection of
primal murder anthems and weeping songs. It’s sounds like melting
sidewalks and poisoned chicken bones. Wild. 
I realize, looking at the release date on the back of the promo, that I am
way behind on this one, but I didn’t wanna just let it slip into the ether
because it’s a hissing beast of classic, NWOBHM-style metal.
Rugged-but-melodic and straight from the zombie-infested streets of 
New York
Well, if you want the shorthand, it’s
Jello Biafra fronting the Misfits.
But it’s got an awesome cover by Mitch O’Connell featuring Tura Satana
table dancin’ while Blacula and Vincent Price sip martinis and ogle, the
snappy “Nightmares” is as good as anything on “Walk Among Us”, and the
whole album clocks in at less than half an hour, so bonus points for
brevity. I could have maybe used a down-tempo crooner here or there, but
otherwise it’s a fully immersive horror-punk experience spewed up from the
gutters of Cleveland. Cool for ghouls. 
Fourth round of melodious garage-racket from these proficient good-luck
Chucks. S’funny, once the jingle-jangle of instro opener “Tricorn” kicked
in, I was ready to bid these fellas adieu, because seriously, how many
garage rock records can one man take in a year? But I held on, and was a
better man for it. What the GTC’s lack in surprising new innovation (they
sound like a pie made of mashed Smithereens and Dramarama-s, basically),
they more than make up for with easy charm and goggle-eyed enthusiasm, as
evidenced by the raucous “Everybody Hates Me” and the laugh-out-loud
“Howard Stern”, wherein our narrator laments his resemblance to Nostrildamus. Memorable songs, mad-monkey performances, and tongues jammed
firmly in cheeks. Great stuff. Do not want 50 more garage rock records
before February, but I am happy I got this one. 
Legendary Confederacy of Scumster, job jumper, rock journalist, and
third-stage alcoholic Thee Whiskey Rebel offers up yet another addendum to
his lengthy resume with this comprehensive compilation of AU tracks.
Alcoholics Unanimous is a long-running side-band that he’s managed to keep
rolling in one form of another in whatever town and whatever decade he’s
currently in. The sound changes from state to state (and state of
inebriation), but the message is the same: drinking is fun. Every song on
this long-reaching comp is about booze, whether it’s about drinking it,
puking it up, marrying it, divorcing it, damning it all to hell or
embracing it like a warm lover. Mostly the last one. The styles range from
plucky country to full-bore drunk-punk, but it probably all sounds the
same after 17 or 18 beers, so what’s the difference? Me, it’s been too
long since I last tippled, so I don’t relate. You, well, you’re one more
binge away from rehab, so you’ll fuckin’ love it. 
Left Arm is from somewhere around 
First off, I gotta commend the
Stiffs for putting together a great package
here. Sweet black glossy digipack with red embossed lettering and a 16
page booklet chock-a-block with spooky band photos. Fiendishly good stuff.
Inside? Hooky garage rattle with more than a whiff of 80’s hard rock, a
notion aided and abetted by the Stiffs singer’s vocal resemblance to late,
lamented Quiet Riot screecher Kevin Dubrow. Beyond that, the usual punny
horror themes (“Dead Girls Are Easy”, “Let’s Put the F-U-N in Funeral”)
and a bonus video for “The Last Horror Movie” shot in Wing’s Castle. I
don’t know where that is, and my copy doesn’t appear to have the video,
but I’m gonna guess it’s suitably ghastly. 
Hey, remember Texan sleaze-teens
Pure Rubbish from a few years back? They
were gonna be famous. Like Guns N’ Roses with real hair. Something
happened though. Something crazy. But that’s not what this is about. That
shit was 2003. Done with. This is about the bass player and the guitar
player, and their new band, the Urgencies. Imagine mashing up Hanoi Rocks
and the Replacements into one big ball of alcoholic jitters and bombastic
junk-rock, and you’ve got Urgencies. This is pure, uncut, jangle-free
firebrand rock, with heart, guts, and just enough brains to get by. Said
brains come into play early on when the fellas stack the deck with a cover
of the Lords’ “Method to My Madness” on track 3. It is a well known fact
that bands always put their best song on the third track. Subsequently,
that’s immediately where pressed-for-time rock journos like yours cruelly
skip to. And let’s face it, you can’t miss with a crisply rendered Bators
composition. So, well played, Urgencies! But the fun does not end there. I
actually know dudes who have traded “Phone Sex for Cigarettes” (Hello,
Pepsi Sheen!), so that one made me chuckle heartily, and it’s a sleek
sleaze-rocker to boot. “Unshamed” is a great slithering back-alley beast,
“My Excuse” is fist-pumping glam-punk and sugar-sprinkled closer “What
Doesn’t Kill Me” is sufficiently rousing. Top notch stuff, in the same
echelon as the Revolvers or the Diamond Dogs. Sniff it out. 
Big Elf
is one of those amazing bands that have somehow managed to bob
away just under the mainstream radar for years. Weird and sorta awful when
I see lesser bands get snatched up and force-fed into the big hype machine
and Big Elf has to wait four long and (I’m assuming) painful years for
this landmark album to get a proper stateside release. At any rate,
here it is in all it’s leafy green glory, the awe-inspiring “Hex”, with it’s Mott
the Hoopl-ish FM solid gold single “Rock N’ Roll Contract” and it’s
Sweet-meets-Floyd glam-prog epic “Bats in the Belfry” (I or II, take your
pick, both will fry your skull), and it’s various Dust-meets-Sabbath
proto-metal elephant bell dope n’ roll tracks (“Madhatter”, “Pain
Killers”, “Disappear”, etc), re-issued in a swank digipack with a nice
top-hat and villain-beard gatefold pic and probably some bonus
back-masking, if you can figure out how to spin the CD backwards. Amazing
stuff, miles ahead of any ‘stoner rock’ record I can think of. Big Elf is
the greatest 70’s band that never existed. 
I
wish I had a lyric sheet because nobody brutalizes English quite like the
French do. It’s awesome. Anyway, the Ashtones rip n’ roll with razor sharp
teeth on this full-frontal action-rock attack. This is the band’s debut
album, and it’s neatly divided into studio and live cuts. The studio
tracks are raw and bloody, but retain a palpable reverence for the sounds
they mine – Stooges, Thunders, Pistols, the usual suspects. Standout has gotta be “Dealing With a Coke Slut”, mostly for it’s shameless ferocity.
The cover of “What Love Is” is pretty tasteful, considering its origins.
The live cuts are not much different (they’re mostly the same songs as
well, plus a dive-bombing “Search and Destroy”), but they add a whiff of
chaos into the mix. Overall, a pretty fiery introduction to these French
riot-starters. Do not expect an acoustic version anytime soon. 
It
is closer to a bushel or perhaps a truckful than a fist, but one thing’s
for sure, there’s a LOT of fuckin’ Vermin on here. Says here they’ve been
toiling away in the Vegas punk scene for ten years, and this collection
scrapes together their hits, misses and in-betweens. Which probably saves
you half as life-time of digging through dusty crates for obscure 7 inchers and…demo cassettes or whatever. Were we still using cassettes ten
years ago? I bet they were in the Las Vegas punk scene. Anyway, these
dudes wobble around somewhere between Midwestern hardcore and glam-punk,
with a few greasy dollops of trashbilly, horror-rock, and high-speed
guitar heroism tossed in to keep things interesting. Mostly though, it’s
just fast fucked and furious, through and through. You know the drill.
Sideburns, alcohol, the glory of paid sick days, the agony of spending
the rent on amp repair, and pussy-if-you’re-lucky. Oh, and most of the
songs are about murder. Murder’s big these days. 
First of all, I would just like to state that I am glad there really isn’t
any brain police. Is there? If there is, I would like to publicly state
that her I.D. said she was 22. In my mind. Anyway, onto the rock.
Icelanders, these, although they have somehow disguised themselves to look
like the local troublemakers in some rural town in 
Brit bruisers
Salute may be going in an entirely different direction than
I think they are. If you squint a little, they could pass for a
garage-band version of Pantera, I suppose. But to my aged and wounded
ears, they sound like battle-ready acid metal, circa 1982 – you know,
Venom, Hellhammer, Tank, Warfare, Discharge,
GBH, stuff like that.
Blistering, blinding, bullet-belt rock served up in bloody fistfuls. If I
was the guy I was 25 years ago, I would rock Above the Law hard, all night
long, for months. I would rock it while I pissed in flower beds and tapped
out fanzine reviews on a battered old typewriter. I would draw their logo
on my leather jacket in metallic pen and write Salute fan letters signed
in my own blood. Well, maybe not my own, but somebody’s. I haven’t heard a
band in ages that tapped into that mondo-destructo combat-metal vibe so
effortlessly. Did they escape through a fuckin’ time machine or something?
Anyway, the best song is Vice Cobra, but that’s not important. The
important thing is that flagrant, shameless headbangery is back, so invest
in a neck brace and a bullet belt and get with the program. Awesome stuff,
obviously. 
This looks exactly like a stoner rock record, down to the spaceman font
and the psychedelic skull inside, but it ain’t. Which is not to say that
weed wasn’t involved. Probably it was. But it sounds like lots of bad
chemicals were involved, as well as a bunch of wounded childhoods and
maybe a lengthy psyche-ward stay or two. The Dead Hookers are from
Wisconsin, the serial killer capital of the world, and they play
frightening vomit rock that sounds like Mudhoney trapped in Hostel
3.
Muted guitars, screaming, dirty fuzz, the works. It’s nasty garage-scuzz
rock scraped right off the sewer floor. The title suggests a concept
album. I’m guessing the concept has something to do with smashing you in
the nose and leaving you naked and freezing. Crazy, man.