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CELEBRITY SKIN |
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CLOWN SCARE... |
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Sometime around '88 or '89, a buncha creepy West Coast punk ghouls
banded
together to form this sickeningly sweet, clever, fun, and decadent, bon
vivant
glammy power-pop group named after a skin-rag. Their winsome and
personable
lead singer, Gary Jacoby (ne' Monster) and broodish, jester's capped
guitarist Bob Hoss had played together previously in Vagina
Dentate. They
met their lead guitarist, a lively Slade and the Sweet
aficionado cos,
pop-myth has it, he was nailing Bob Hoss' spooky girlfriend. Legendarily
rogueish, charlatan/chameleon, Don Bolles - the drummer, was of course a
member of every creepy West Coast punk band ever, including the Germs,
Vox Pop, and .45 Grave. Bassist Tim Ferris was born to be a star, and remains one of the coolest bassplayers in rock history. He grew up with Falling James Moreland from the Leaving Trains. They dressed in N.Y. Dolls style junkshop glam- glittering rags and Fredericks of Hollywood lingerie, stolen from their various stripper/spooky girlfriends. They released a memorable e.p. that even the midwestern Motley Crue metal-head Scorps fans all ended up buying featuring a stellar cover of Abba's "S.O.S" and a fist fulla sprightly, drollish originals which were as cookie dough overdose sweet as anything by the Posies, Slow Motorcade, or the purple haired Zeros. |
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The mullets of the fly-over states were
manifestly unprepared to cope with the 'Skins. These poor saps
automatically all hadda buy every record they saw
s'long as the doods on the cover were rank lookin' longhairs with
noserings
and they all bought the e.p. only to feel infuriated, ashamed, and
ripped-off by how un-macho Celebrity Skin was--and their Geza X-produced full-length on Triple X records confused the heartland's bleached
denim-wearers even more. These were the days when Jane's Addiction still
elicited violent reactions from the farmtowns, and Celebrity Skin's
waggish
and whimsical art-trash was just well beyond the Def Leppard and Bon Jovi
weened, sheltered, programmed, milk-fed frames of reference. The
Celebrity's
still unforgivable androgyny and bizarre sense of humour was even lost on
many of my own stonewashed bros from way out, who just never fully
appreciated that whole whacky, zany, west coast silly joke-rock vibe, ala
the Dickies. Alot of people don't need their rock to be funny. Especially
not rural Metal Church enthusiasts. ____________________________________________________________________________________ |
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The Trash Brats from Detroit and Celebrity Skin really seemed to have both
had an unlikely Bizarro World obliviousness to each other like the NY
DOLLS
and HOLLYWOOD BRATS did in the 70's. Their eerie physical and musical
resemblances do not seem to have been a conscious result of either band
emulating the other, but the obvious parallels were always vividly
uncanny.
The dashing, weirdo frontmen for both bands were both these highly
eclectic, sly-social commentating jokesters who exuded boatloads of
self-esteem. Both bands had these nodding, stomping Noddy Holder/Mick
Ronson
guys on lead guitar. Both groups had strange-ish, otherworldly bassplayer
that
magnetically attracted the opposite sex. Both groups only really coalesced
after being joined by these caustic, inflammatory provocateurs on the
drums.
And they even shared the same kinda camp humour and love o' show-biz and
outlandish, low budget carnival style theatrics-hoopla-fanfare |
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Gary Celebrity and Brian Oblivion were both kinda these P.T.
Barnum, carnival barking, "Roll up for the mystery tour" kina borscht
circuit shyster song n dance snake-oil salesmen. Both groups were heckled
and violently opposed by squares who never get it. Ozzy could wear a dress
but no one else. Both groups mixed Dollsy glam rock with a very sugary
A.M.
radio Archies/1920 Fruitgum Co. bubblegum sensibility. Both bands were
probably just ahead of their time.
Triple X records really had a dynamic roster at the time, having just
released Jane's Addiction's "shockingly" good first album, Motorcycle Boy,
The Ultras, Celebrity Skin...There was a decent sized promotional blitz
surrounding "Good Clean Fun" and they received loads of coverage in mags
like Flipside and Anorexic Teenage Sexgods. Alternative Press creamed
their
black Lip-ServiceTM stretch-jeans, trumpeting them, " The Hydra-headed
Golden Boys Of The Sunset Strip!" |
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When Celebrity Skin toured through my neighborhood, they appeared at the
dive-y college pub around the corner, where I'd see alot of my fave bands
(Manics, Westerberg, Thee Hypnotics etc.) - The oddly named TT the Bears - in
beautiful, scenic Central Square in Cambridge. They turned in a wonderful
performance that night-really one of the best little ramshackle rockshows
I've seen to this day that again reminded all us midwest timebombs of the
Trash Brats with better harmonies. Gary Jacoby and Jason Shapiro were the
spittin' image of Brian O'Blivion and Ricky Rat. Unfortunately, they were
still mourning the death of a close friend at the time (Rob Graves, I
think...) and uncomfortably touring the country, illegally holed-up in
the
back of a Ryder moving truck made-up like a living room with couches and
carpets and lights and shit-driven by none other than original Faith No
More
vocalist Chuck Mosely. As many of you real rocknroll diehard
habitué's of
the flash metal wasteland are all too painfully aware, touring on a
shoestring and a prayer ain't no demolition joyride even under the best
circumstances and the Celebrities were forced to fan-out each night on audience-member's floors and futons and being's how drummer Don was engaged to one of my highschool sweethearts at the time, I was happy to offer the dude asylum at my apt. for the night. |
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Regretfully, Don was besieged by alot of conflict and grief and duress at the time and thrust yours crudely into a helluva spot. The problem was he was abusive in tone towards my roommates and I guess he mistook them for some push-over groupie type of girls cos he was making stacks of c.d.'s from their respective collections he intended to take with him and repeatedly called the one I was dating "Horsemouth". It seemed like he went out of his way to be a hardcase hoping to energetically dominate the household with his over-reaching, delusional barbs and insults, until finally I was asked to physically remove him from the premises. I guess none of us are at our best while processing the death of a loved one, but Don was obnoxious that night. Since then, Don's gone on to become a shit-hot radio personality and has probably formed ten more conceptual cult-bands since then. Gary Jacoby released two fun-filled and entertaining solo albums worthy of your listening to. "Big Clean Fun" and their e.p. both ended up in cut-out bins nationwide when all them angry Crue fans promptly returned 'em to the record store and Courtney Love ripped off the name for her third album. Tim Ferris had a band called Big Baby for awhile before joining the CRAMPS. As Always is the case in the cursed/poisoned/condemned Flash-Metal Nether-World, Celebrity Skin had the style, brains, personality, ideas |
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-Pepsi Sheen
*NOTE* I know,
that's an entirely different kinda Celebrity Skin up there, but I'm not
paying 8 fucking dollars for a copy of
the Celeb-Skin EP just so you can see what they look like, when it was
readily available everywhere for like, 99 cents, until a couple years ago. Ebay has turned everybody in swindlers and douchebags. Go to to
Hip Magazine Online if you want to see the 'Skinners. - Sleaze |
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Back in the hazy days of Guns N Roses many of your
Flash metal torch-keepers were still ensconced in the cornfields and tank
plants of the midwest with limited exposure to independent/underground
music from the coasts-there wasn't no internet, so mostly, all the
tuned-in young dudes I hung out with had to content ourselves to listening
to the major label flash metal of the day - the Cult, Circus of
Power, White Zombie, Raging Slab, Danzig,
Mother Love Bone, Sea Hags. Ya dig? We always knew some chicks
from the bigger cities who were alot more sophisticated than we were, and
they were the kinda girls who sashayed their way into the scarve-y
candle-lit hotel rooms of Gene Loves Jezebel, or backstage to
Faster Pussycat, unbeknownst to us ceaselessly vainglorious male rubes
who thought we were the only flames in town. The spooky girlfriends were
always the first to know about the next big thing in flash metal, cos when
they weren't indulging our dumb fantasies, they were always off in
Toronto, or L.A., or Detroit or someplace makin' the scene, and they'd
bring back promo-posters and inside skinny on all the fashionable gloom
and glam bands of the day-like Redd Kross, Skinny Puppy,
Kommunity FK, Peter Murphy, Lions & Ghosts...and
CELEBRITY SKIN.