 PEPSI
SHEEN'S SCHOOL FOR FOOL HEARTED POP DREAMERS:
Never try to start no rock group with a pair o' siblings unless you like
taking orders and have no ideas of your own. This was a hard lesson for
yers truly to remember for some reason, and I repeated this mistake
countless times on the corpse strewn, bloody road to rocknroll. It just
never works-one of em's always a frustrated frontman who wants to write
the lyrics, assign wardrobes, and claim sole authorship of the melodies
well, well before publishing is even a remote spark on the horizon. And
since there's the two of 'em, when they're not busy sabotaging practice
bickering about who pushed who outta some treehouse in the sixth grade,
they always carry the vote and usually, they've had some master-plan for
rockstardom since they were nine and twelve, and view you merely as some
vacant tool in leather strides who refuses to adequetely obey their
instructions and if one of their girlfriends says "Hi" forget it, they're
lookin' for yer replacement anyway. The worst part is that they've
invariably slavishly preoccupied with methodically emulating some
established rock group they've idolised for years, like these guys I tried
to "Work with" who were totally jazzed about having gotten a postcard once
from those dayglo abortions, ENUFF Z NUFF!
T HIS
MICHELLE CHICK REALLY MUSTA GOT AROUND...
Much has been written about these supposedly
"brilliant", "genius", "songwriters" over the years-they even got their
own chapter in that beautiful hardcover powerpop book that came out a few
years ago ("Power Pop: Conversations With THe Power Pop Elite" by
Doug Sharp & Doug Sulphy-look for it!)*
and there's often some mildly amusing gossip and characteristically
meanspirited glee about their wayward hijinks over at Metal Sludge, but
since I'm admittedly not much of a fan, I'll try to keep my commentary on
Enuff Z Nuff short and sweet, the way a real power pop song should be.
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The two main guys, Donnie Vie &
Chip Z'Nuff (What wuz he thinking? Too many Slade recordz) were baseball
geeks who grew up together in Chicago, with Donnie Vie apparently
hero-worshipping the older Z'Nuff who apparently rode a motorcycle, had
pot, and got laid frequently. They seemed to have shared some pretty
decent musical influences, but when Rolling Stone voted them best new band
of 1990 or whatever, they also had a wanking "virtuoso" guitar hero named
Derek Frigo. Derek was "classically trained" and from the Vai/Stevens/Malmsteen
80's school of wanking lead guitarists-he always wanted to shred when one
note mighta sufficed.
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Drummer, Vicki Fox, looked like a woman, and
he's the reason why all those magazine pinups got pasted on the walls of midwest farmer's daughters with Jersey hair that I grew up with-they all
liked the guy in each band who most resembled a woman. He twirled his
sticks and tried to be a showboat partyband drummer, like his obvious
inspirations, Rikki Rocket and Tommy Lee. He went onto play in Vince
Neil's solo band, if that tells you anything. They put a big Poison-green
day-glo peace sign on their album cover released by Atco in 89 or
thereabouts, and their requisite, perfunctory ode to some dead junkie
girlfriend received nonstop rotation on MTV for about a month, as did their
other tune "New Thing", which, as it turned out, wasn't new at all. The Metallica guys hated 'em, the chicks all loved their drummer, a couple of
brothers thought they were the Beatles and went out and bought matching
newsboy caps just like theirs-annoying a long string of would-be lead
vocalists who auditioned for their band, and me, I was too busy getting
drunk and listening to the Front. After that, they kinda fizzled outta the
big leagues, releasing a good dozen of records that apparently, alot of
devoted pop geeks, including at least one dear friend of mine, seem to
take seriously, on various labels, and one would assume, summa this stuff
was self-released at some point. I did hear another one of their albums my
pop pal waxed all giddy about because it featured guest appearances by
Rick Nielsen, Billy Corgan, and Styx guitarist, James Young. (Who
remembers "Snowblind"?) I just wasn't much moved, they weren't that good.
It's not my fault. Ya know, they had a better songwriting sensibility than
say, Bon Jovi, I suppose, but I'd never, never, never put 'em in league
with like, the Raspberries and Big Star! Nowadays, one of 'em has a drug
problem and is on the run from the law, playing solo shows for former
Metal Edge readers-making an Andy Dick of m'self, Derek Frigo-the wanking
guitarist - died in 2004 from a drug overdose, the drummer who looks like a
lady probably looks alot less like a lady these days and probably still
has work on the metal years hasbeens circuit playing for Roxx Gang or
somebody. Mostly, ENUFF Z NUFF seem to preoccupy themselves by contributing
cover versions of other hairfarmers songs to those awful tribute
compilations Cleopatra or Perris records or whoever does. Wanna hear zNuff
versions of "Yankee Rose" or "She Sells sanctuary"? I know!
ENUFF ZNUFF,
Already! (Sorry!) Chip Z'Nuff was a hero to some, but he never meant shit
to me.
*Good luck. It's out of print, and used copies are
going for $100+!
Further :
E'nuff Z'nuff
official
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