I grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood, so the black and white kids were all discovering music together at the same time. Billy Idol and Michael Jackson. Van Halen and Prince. Radio R&B and cheesey jheri curl rap mostly preoccupied with basketball. Afrika Bambatta & Soul Sonic Force, Kool Moe Dee, The System, Whodini, U.T.F.O., Kurtis Blow, Duke Bootie, Nucleus, Rick James, The Roxanne records, Egyptian Lover, RUN DMC's first LP, Tymex Social Club, etc., etc. When my O.G. friend, Sean, first got his "wheels of steel", we were mixing the Clash "Combat Rock" with L-L Kool Jay's "Rock the Bells" in the seventh grade, years before the Aerosmith/Run DMC crossover hit, and Tone Loc's sample of "Jamies Cryin"; all our friends were parachute panted break dancers back then. In middle school, I was still into comic books, & Starlog & Fangoria magazines and thought that checkered vans were the coolest shoes in the world. I remember digging stuff like New Order, The Cure, Duran Duran, Prince, The Time, Vanity 6, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Cyndi Lauper, Zapp, The Gap Band, Mary Jane Girls- funk and soul and punk and new wave, and sixties classic rot like the Doors and Stones and Monkees and Animals. We all liked the Chili Pepper's early stuff, and Chuck Mosley-era Faith No More: "We Care Alot About Disease baby/Rock, Hudson, Rock!" ....but sometime, in the mid-to-late 80's the Beastie Boys "Fight For Your Right to Party" ushered in the pretty fly for a white guy era of preppie middle class kids in kangols, and all these horrible, mutant-baby, hybrid genres started stinkin' up the mainstream, and all the crap hair bands started aping Anthony Kiedis and Flavor Flav style hand gestures and wearing capri pants and Body Glove surfer gear onstage. They called it "groove rock" back then. I always thought the idea of funky metal was the worst shit in the world, in spite of having grown up appreciating both kinds of music-they just taste like shit together. Me and my pals always cringed when we were subjected to the super-glossed whammy bar, dive bombing guitar-wanking, on top of busy basslines and misguided white dorks like Sebastian Bach, trying to be James Brown funky. We railed for years, in all our cut'n'paste underground rant-zines, against the Chili Peppers and Beastie Boys influence that overwhelmed us all through the late 80's, all the way through today. I just hate that shit: Beck, the Blues Explosion, you can keep 'em. I had zero tolerance for goofy misguided dorks like Extreme and Bullet Boys and Bang Tango who were all tryin to pass off these funky metal songs for cowtown dental hygenists, who didn't know better. There is almost nothing worse than a hair band trying to cover "Brick House" or "Mother Popcorns". Everyone of these groups were worse than the last- Ugly Kid Joe, anybody? By the time me and Nasty and Little Dave had moved to Boston, the wretched rap metal groove rock shit had reached a fever pitch- Primus and Mike Patton era Faith No More. I seem to recall me and Nasty gettin in some kind of fracas with these wigger townie tough boys who fancied themselves macs and playas from that major label Boston band "White Trash". Retards, jealous that yours was having a fling with this foxy Virginia Madsen lookalike (remember "Modern Girls"- the new wave exploitation B-movie*?) named Kit, who I think we met in line for the London Quireboys and L.A. Guns show at Axis. Her Ma was Egyptian or something, and owned an upscale dress shop on Newbury St. and if you see her, tell her I send my love- I think of her whenever I hear L.A. Guns "the Ballad of Jane".

They wanted to be far out gypsies, but their music just sucked so much ass. I'd rather listen to Steve Stevens Atomic Playboys or some C.C. Deville side project than the Electric Boys- in spite of their long affiliation with my beloved Hanoi Rocks. The Electric Boys were the band that utterly legitimized the terrible Jerusalem Slim album.

Electric Boys vocalist, Conny Bloom, was in a Stockholm glam band called Neon Rose, prior to the formation of the insipid Electric Boys, and who's also collaborated, for years, in various projects involving Andy McCoy and Gyp Casino, and you could tell he was goin' for the Marc Bolan look, but he always reminded me of the guy from Roxx Gang. Some even claim he was asked to replace Razzle (R.I.P.) in Hanoi, but he turned them down. So this guy's obviously been exposed to good music-what was he thinking when he formed this awful group?

Me and one of my former guitar players, "China White" always used to have this running joke about adding a sitar, or some kinda Middle-Eastern-bit to any song we ever had any trouble flushing out, cos that's just been such a standard gimmick in rocknroll-whenever anybody runs out of fresh, or original ideas, they just add some kinda Indian percussion, and claim it's exotic and ethereal and mystic and deep, yknow? Remember Kula Shaker?

Of course, there's loads of groups who are wonderfully adept at infusing their trashy blues with more global influences-like the Stones and Joe Strummer and Hanoi Rocks, but these awful Electric Boys tried suffusing their wank rock with pseudo-psychedelic influence (what the hell right? The Bangles, Lenny Kravitz, the Black Crowes and Enuff Z Nuff were alll havin' an absolute field day milking the retro hippie shtick back then) but you really have to experience how horrible the Electric Boy's overproduced snot soaked funky metal is to really appreciate how Living Colour maybe weren't so bad after all. Both their inexcusable debut and their embarrassing follow up. "Groovus Maximus" (92) both sucked worse than almost anything I can think of from the Flash Metal Tinsel Years- I'm glad the Sleazegrinder finally kicked the witchcraft and P.C.P., cos the Electric Boys, truly, were, at least, as bad as Extreme. Unforgivably bad.

"Psychedelic Eyes"- "All Lips & Hips" you don't really wanna ever hear this junk, believe me. Bring back the Dan Reed Network. Their guitarist, one FRANCO SANTUNIONE, wanks even worse than Nuno or Yngwie. Wretched.

Conny Bloom went on to collaborate with Ginger and various Yo-Yo's in the under appreciated, Silver Ginger Fire. He's also got several solo records available.