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Johnny Crash - Neighborhood Threat
(CBS, 1990) |
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"Who cares what sells, we got decibels!"
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The story of Johnny Crash (not to be confused with the UK softcore-sleaze
director of the same name, or with Johnny Flash, the Lanternjack’s own
fizzing human bomb) begins in 1978, in a reform school, where all good
stories start. August Worchell and Christopher Stewart, two fledgling
guitarists/teenage flameouts doin’ time in a North Cali juvey, began
playing in a blues cover band called Champagne with fellow hoodlum
Eric
Stacey on bass (later of Faster Pussycat and Supercool), and their fuckin’
school principal on vox. Keep yer friends close, and yr enemies closer,
right? Right. Eventually, they all graduated, or got sprung, or shot their
way out, whatever delinquents do, and both Worchell and Stewart ended up
playing in obscure (obscure for this crowd, even) metal band World War III
(not to be confused with the Pennsylvania band of the same name, or the
666 other WWIII’s on the circuit in the 80’s), a few years later. Meanwhile, vocalist and ego star Vicki James Wright had split from NWOBHM heroes Tokyo Blade in 1985, and headed straight for LA for defame and misfortune. He initially tried making a name for himself (ahem) as the Vicki James Wright band, which boasted Stewart as it’s lead guitarist. They played Tokyo Blade covers. That was a problem, tho, because nobody in LA really knew who Tokyo Blade was, and even if they did, their brand of ‘classy’ melodic metal certainly wasn’t gonna light the glammed-up and trashed-out Sunset Strip on fire anyway. Vick’s next big idea was to audition for LA Guns, but when that didn’t pan out, he decided to form his own fuckin’ band and blow those LA Guns pussies outta the water. Stewart was already on deck, he gave Worchell a call, and the band was quickly filled out by Andy Rogers on bass and Punkee Adamo (ex-Rock City Angels) on drums. |
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The band starting gigging in LA in ’89, and, as it was impossible to wear
leather pants and NOT get signed in Hollywood in the late 80’s, they were
soon under contract with CBS records, who released “Neighborhood Threat”
in early ’90. A stripped-down perf video for single “Hey Kid” was shipped
to MTV (it played the Headbanger’s Ball a few times), and the label put
‘em on the road with nepotist-metal snores Bonham. Later that year, they
also toured with Motley Crue. All system’s go, right? Nope. It was 19fuckin’90, Jack. Kurt Cobain was about to eat Johnny Crash and every coke snortin’, whore bangin’ hair teasin’ gang of sleazebags like ‘em alive. Hey, we can’t all have good timing, ya know. After the tour, Johnny Crash was on the ropes. Punkee split and Matt Sorum (yikes!) was recruited on drums, as was keyboardist Dizzy Reed (again!), who had just broken up glamdustrial flash metal visionaries the Wild. |
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A second album was recorded, but legend has it that it was too, uh,
AWFUL to release.
Well, ok, but the reality of the situation is that Axl had already signed
up Dizzy and Matt for his first fake GNR run, and it’s entirely possible
that the Guns camp put the kybosh on JC 2. But whatever, right? Fact of
the matter is, just about any
glitter-glam-biker-sleaze-psycho-plastic-go-go-punk-flash metal band in
operation in ’90 were just months away from Flash Metal Genocide, so
Johnny Crash hardly had a chance to do any damage.
And what remains is “Neighborhood Threat”, a one-off gem of hard-ass brawl
n’ roll fulla Angus riffs and big ‘ol choruses meant to be screamed along
with on blurry midnight booze runs, with 500 euphemisms for pussy (“My
baby’s like a piano/ When she’s not upright, she’s grand”), and a general
air of true blue rock and roll mayhem. I picked this fucker up for a song
last month and dropped the needle down on JC for the first time in,
goddamn, 14 years, and I swear to Christ, it hasn’t left the turntable
since. Completely belying his past as a Brit-metal screecher, Vick sounds
like he was BORN to howl the bad-dog blues, and his band- criminals,
everyone of ‘em- just blaze, the perfect AC/DC-slash-Guns N’ Roses scrambleboogie street rock riff-riot. I dunno how I forgot ‘em. I dunno
how ANYONE forgot ‘em, because this is exactly the kinda sound the fuzzy,
aging rocker brain THINKS all it's fave bands sounded like, but very few
actually did. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Opener “Hey Kid” bursts outta the gate with a nasty kick drum, an Axl howl, and a driving biker metal riff. Heavy on the singalong chorus, it’s a born-bad anthem (“Raised in a latrine on a dead end street/ I was a gang bang scoundrel of the social elite”) with just enuff pop bombast to justify the $50,000 video budget. It’s a bracing blast of cock n’ roll, and a perfect opening salvo. “No Bones About It” IS the Cult’s “L’il Devil”. No bones about it, man. But, you know, ya get big points for cunning stunts like that around here. Far as I can tell, it’s also about actually eating some chick, which is kinda cool. The blues-y “All the Way in Love” comes on like a particularly raucous Waysted tune. The drums sound like they’re literally gonna shatter the vinyl into pieces, the forceful chukka-chuk of the guits rattle the walls, and it comes complete with a bizarre opening line: “Who said I think I'm seven feet tall? I tell ya honey I ain't that small!” There’s just not WAY that means anything. “Thrill of the Kill” is a slinky, Aerosmith-inspired blooze-rocker that bursts into a bombastic, arena-burning chorus. Kinda like UK biker-glam warriors the Almighty used to do it, only with a few more socks stuffed in their leather pants. Side one’s show-stopper, tho, is “Axe to the Wax”, a rolling thundertain of mouthy flash metal. It’s a rock-til-you-drop kinda song about JC’s own (in theory, anyway) ascent to rock n’ roll stardom (“We're the youth in action/We're makin' our own move”), and even if it turned out to be far from prophetic, it still rocks like crazy. Best line: the opening change-up, which I assume they all thought was really fuckin’ clever (“Well I got myself a twelve inch...Record, that is, I'm so proud of that thing!”). And I suppose it is. Side one’s closer “Sink or Swim” is another Cult-ish bikerglam chug n’ slugfest, marred a bit by muddied lyrics that are either about picking up tranny hookers, or just out and out anti-gay. Neither of which bother me, really, but it is kinda confusing, as I dunno how lines like “Miss the last bus down on Queer Street” and “Sailor boy shuffles AIDS romance” relate to the opening shot, “Lick my lips at the lady’s lines/ So mentally well-endowed/Sugarfree gum and a whiskey mac/In your mama’s day, it was never allowed” What the fuck does ANY of that mean? But hey, it was the end of the 80’, and AIDS had really started to fuck up the sex lives of slutty rock stars. And anyway, I don’t write ‘em, I just rock to them. Somebody flip the rekkid. |
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Side two opens with some creep-crawlin’ blooze riffs and Vick snarling
away like a rattlesnake, ‘til it bursts into pure Zodiac Mindwarp-meets
Faster Pussycat fuck n’ roll. Sleazy, massive, and as stupid as ya can get
(“I was a quivering mess when she dropped her dress”, you know how it
goes), “Crack of Dawn” was surely inspired by bathroom wall graffiti, and
it sounds like it, man. “Freedom Road”, as the title would imply, is Johnny Crash’s obligatory semi-ballad, but it’s not some pussy, puffball “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn” kinda travesty, it’s more of a Junkyard-style lonesome leather cowboy sort of affair. Of course, JC were a band that didn’t need any fuckin’ ballads to sell their filthy blues, but that’s just the way they used to operate in the flash metal daze. Anyway, it’s over pretty quick, and they slam right back into the RAWK with the AC/DC boogie-metal of “Halfway to Heaven”. |
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Once again, I am entirely unsure what the song is about- unless we can
just take “I’m your man/I’m your backdoor man” (X6) at face value, but
there’s gotta be something to “Sunset Mona Lisa take me to the church
on time/With a belly full 'o' booze an' holes in my shoes/Survival ain't
no crime”, right? Maybe. Moving on,
“Trigger Happy” is another dose o’ hard rockin’ swagger, and although I
still don’t cotton to “Yeah, I’m a real humdinger” as a viable rock n’
roll line, the solo is blazing, and Vick does his best Zodiac growling yet
on this ‘un, so no harm done. “Neighborhood Threat” ends with the goofball, honky tonkin', Stones-y blues of “Baby’s Like a Piano”, which sounds exactly like Zod fronting the London Quireboys, which is alright with me. And, ya know, you just can’t argue with an opening line like “I’m a bad man, baby/With dog dirt on my shoes”. I suspect that Johnny Crash woulda placed this ‘un elsewhere on the album if they knew it was gonna be the last sounds anybody ever heard from them, but who could have predicted that? Except for Axl Rose or Sub Pop records, I mean? Because even with a throwaway ‘blues-jam’ at the end, “Neighborhood Threat” does not sound like the work of a band that were about to just give up a year later. Nope. They sound like survivors. And that’s the bitch of it all, really, because, for a lot of the flash metal bands, one album was all they even had in them, but they kept going anyway. JC, on the other hand, coulda banged out further installments, and never sound like they had outworn their welcome in rock n’ roll. Like I said at the top, the bands that really mean it NEVER go out of style, and if they could have held out until rock came around to their way of thinking a few years later, well, Buckcherry might not have had such an easy time marchin’ on up to the sleaze metal bone-throne. Vick and the boys might’ve already been sitting there, keeping the ROCK thick n’ raunchy, and rolling outta steamed-up Camaro windows all summer long. Skinfo on the JCs post-“Threat” is pretty scarce. Wright went on to The Real McCoys and Worchell was briefly a member of glammy hitmakers American Heartbreak before becoming a successful tattoo artist. Otherwise, all I can tell you is that if you don’t have this record, then you are missing out on some scorchin’ rock n’ roll. And that's just not acceptable at this point. Oh, and Vick, I hear that the Four Horsemen are lookin’ to rev the rawk machine back to life. They need a frontman. That’d be you, don’t ya think? Further: Skin Candy, August Worchell’s tattoo ink company American Heartbreak Uncle Donnie, former Johnny Crash tour bus driver |
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__________________________________________________________________________ -Sleazegrinder Back to List Home |
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Brothers and sisters, just ask
Alex Mitchell or Ian Astbury - if you REALLY MEAN IT, man, yer noise’ll
keep echoing through the ages, and sooner or later, a whole new breed of
teenage Frankenstein will discover exactly what it was you were up to, and
baby, you will live again. I’m not saying that Johnny Crash will ever have
a resurgence- I mean, the fuckers barely even got off the runway the first
time- but if there’s any band in the flash metal
universe whose
biker-fitted sleaze metal sound has aged itself to perfection, it’s Johnny
Crash. At the time od their sole album's release (1990), they were dismissed as worn-out AC/DC
revivalists, mindlessly sleazy blues-metal thunderchuckers peddling a
tired formula in a world that was way more interested in druggy mope-rock
than it was in sexed-up flash metal. A mere 8 or so years later, Nashville
Pussy,