Throbs -  Language of Vagabonds and Thieves (DGC, 1991)
Current Gemm price: $4.67- $72.10 (!)
Price Pepsi paid: I think that's pretty evident, man.
Price Sleazegrinder paid: $4.99, Disc Diggers, Somerville Ma. (in 1991)
Worth: More than you think.
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DANNY "DISCIPLINE" NORDAHL had been a member of the legendary ANGELS IN VAIN, and bassist for STIV BATOR'S EVIL BOYS, who recorded a live album at Limelite, back when the Lower East Side was still inhabited by the lunatic fringe. In those days, you could still rent a hole in the wall in alphabet city for $500/month, there was an independently-owned record store on every block, a tiny bodega on the corner, and MANIC PANIC was still a humble little thrift shop. All the black-leather garbed, frilly-shirted, gypsy-hoods either worked at, or regularly stopped into, a boutique on St. Mark's place that was about the size of your bathroom, that traded in spiked bracelets, and only ever played two records on the little kid's suitcase-record player somebody 'brought in: "NIGHT OF THE LIVING DOLLS" and "IS NOTHING SACRED?". ENZS served as a place for the locals to stop in and exchange numbers with other would-be rockstars. There were still shit loads of sleazy dives all over the place, like the Lismar Lounge, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Downtown Beirut, and The Holiday Cocktail Lounge, where artists and drop-outs and bikers and rastas could knock back $1 Jack and Cokes and make their plans for world-domination. Danny and PETE PAGAN from SKIN N BONES somehow lured this guy Danny'd met at a Johnny Thunders concert, Canadian rock singer RONNIE SWEETHEART, a close personal friend of Sebastian Bach's, into moving to NYC to form THE THROBS. Guitarist ROGER ERICSON and drummer ROGER MAGRI soon joined ranks, and ROGER, who was apparently not adept at "trading licks" with another guitar player, soon had PETE ousted from the band.

The plan was to form the East Coast version of GUNS 'N' ROSES, and they started playing gigs all  around town, in the pre Mayor Guilliani Fascistic Clampdown era, when the big clubs still welcomed transvestites, junkies, Hell's Angels, and Malcolm Forbes on his motorcycle, to mingle all night with models and millionaires from uptown. On the weekends, the city's bridges and tunnels were jam-packed with teased-haired rockers from the boroughs and N.J., who faithfully made their pilgrimage into the Village each week to witness a REAL ROCK RESURGENCE taking place. It was a movement, really-there existed a genuine community of undeniably boss bands like THE LUNA-CHICKS, THE LOVE PIRATES, TOMMY & THE LOVE TRIBE, THE WALDOS, DOLL-HOUSE, CIRCUS OF POWER, MOTORCYCLE BOY ("KICKED OUT OF HOLLYWOOD"), & THE CYCLE SLUTS FROM HELL.
   
THE THROBS early songs were your basic, Motorcycle Boy/Ramones-ish, 1-2-3-4 raucous little rave-ups, and their early demo-tapes and the "PROUD TO BE LOUD" e.p. fetch ridiculous prices in the glam tape-trader's underground. Songs like, "It's a Nuclear Attack! BAY-BEHH/and I ain't never comin' back! BAY-BEHH!" and "All the kids are goin' crazy-you must be outta yer mind/Summer days are makin' me lazy-Everybody's Gonna Have A Real Good Time! Everybody's Gonna Have A Real Good Time!" were instantly embraced by N.Y. Rockers who were raised on straight-forward punk stuff like the Dictators or Dead Boys. No need for elaborate solos or wanking "musicanship". You know the recipe-just Chuck Berry-style guitars, and simple, Joey Ramone-type lyrics: "I got a fast car/I love my gee-tar!", (No put-ons, just FUN!) quickly made them the favorites of this filthy night-time world, on the very same sidewalks that previously had spawned everybody from THE VELVET UNDERGROUND to THE RAMONES. Excitement started to happen. They quickly built a major NYC following and signed to GUNS 'N' ROSES own label, GEFFEN, and started appearing in the metal-glossies. Those familiar with their early punk-rock influenced, Ramonesey garage stuff were kinda scratchin' their heads as to how these charming, fun little 1-2-3-4 Ramones and Dolls-influenced ditties were supposed to even remotely compete with the mighty metallic blues-wanking and stadium anthems of their West Coast counter-parts.
   
Simple. Geffen Records made THE THROBS their top-priority, and they paid ALICE COOPER and KISS' genius producer, BOB EZRIN, to produce 'em and Dick Wagner (Lou Reed, Alice Cooper) to engineer! Geffen had spared no expense in enabling THE THROBS to effectively metamorph-osize from just another entertaining, black-haired, feather-boa wearing, traditional NYC, glamour-punk foursome into an arena-bound, epic-scale, tastefully-attired heavy rock band. They even got the ORIGINAL ("WHOOOOOO!) ARCHITECT OF ROCK'N'ROLL, LITTLE RICHARD, to tinkle the ivories on this sure-to-be mammoth record. When "THE LANGUAGE OF VAGABONDS & THIEVES" hit the stores, rock fans were spell-bound by the opium-den, Far-East ambiance that gathered like a storm into a tension-laden guitar opus, "UNDERGROUND"- an epic, driving, climactic power-anthem about scrounging through the Gotham gutters lookin' for some refuge from the chaos and the crime and urgent desperation that surrounded them living in Lower Manhattan, a recurring theme on this album: "New York City! Streets Aflame! My back's against the wall!" ...Now, I can't say for sure that EZRIN sat Sweetheart down with Zodiac Mindwarp's "TATTOOED BEAT MESSIAH", and, point-blank, instructed him to imitate Zodiac's vocal style, (I wasn't there if he did) but given as how ZODIAC'S comic-book super-hero persona was obviously being compared to KISS and ALICE COOPER a lot in the press back then, it's entirely possible, as SWEETHEART'S former-Joey Ramone-style vocal delivery had shifted into this menacing metal growl, shades of ZODIAC! RONNIE SWEETHEART just didn't have the high-octave vocal range to compete with medieval-screechers like AXL ROSE, or his own pal, SEBASTIAN BACH, but with Ezrin's help, he was easily able to work around that little "problem". There WAS a time when not everybody gravitated to that piercing, high-pitched, heavy-metal screech, anyway. I can remember when people openly MOCKED singers like Geoff Tate from Queensryche for wanting to pompously wail all up in those high-registers like Robert Plant on horseback, riding down from the misty mountain waving his fiery sword. AXL, however, had emerged in that era, as THE guy to be(at), so poor Ronnie hadda take a lot of unnecessary shit from his potential Headbanger's Ball fan-base, who expected all their favorite hard rock bands to feature the high-pitched wail of a shrieking Norse thunder-god lead singer. That was Really Unfortunate for SWEETHEART, cos I still maintain that his limited vocal range had something to do with why they didn't hit it big with Peorians. Big city rock'n'roll fans never minded, though. People who dug, say, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, preferred he NOT screech. Other songs on their major label master-piece were more melodic; some catchy ballads you just know they'd envisioned as lighters-aloft stadium weepers- "THE ONLY WAY OUT" and the "bluesey", Stones influenced, "HONEY CHILD". I was always dumbfounded as to why spooky moaners, like "DREAMIN'", and all-out hard-rock assaults like, "COME DOWN SISTER" and "SWEET ADDICTION" (Doesn't it seem like EVERY band of that era had to write a song called "Sweet Addiction"?) never fully captured the hearts of the American Glamnation, in spite of heavy-rotation airings of their "COME DOWN SISTER" video, filmed at the Palladium. The Brits took to 'em, though. They appeared regularly in all the European metal-mags like Kerrang!, and everyone was thrilled when former LONDON QUIREBOY member GINGER was supposed to join the band. I still have pictures somewhere of the short-lived THROBS line-up that included GINGER. I think he only lasted one show, before flying back to England. Some reports had it that GINGER just drank too much, others are under the impression that THROBS axe-man ROGER ERICSON was just unwilling to "trade licks" with a second guitarist. Here's the official GINGER statement from his "ASK GINGER" column at his website:

"My stint with The Throbs was a very miserable one. They weren't a real band and couldn't really play all that good (although Roger was / is a great guitar player). They were very bitter about nothing and had the biggest egos in New York at the time. After my unhappy stint with the Quireboys, I was beginning to think that I'd got it all wrong about bands having 'gang' vibes. I still see Danny from the Throbs when I go to LA. He's a lovely bloke."

THE THROBS played at the Johnny Thunders tribute show on a bill with David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain and Cheetah Chrome, and many audience members who were there confirmed Ginger's opinion that all the "East Coast GUNS 'N' ROSES" press-hype HAD indeed gone to their shaggy heads. Many have remarked that SWEETHEART'S performance that night came off as a little tacky: "HELLLLOOOOOOOO NEW YORK!!!!", as he was performing at a benefit for Johnny Thunder's kids, a tribute-show to Johnny Thunders, as if he was headlining some Monsters Of Rock outdoor festival, as if the night was supposed to be all about SWEETHEART'S triumphant return, more than paying any sincere homage to their forebear. In the end, The NYC version of GUNS 'N' ROSES failed to deliver an "Appetite For Destruction", though, "THE LANGUAGE OF VAGABONDS AND THIEVES" remains highly enjoyable-one of the most straight-forward "rock'n'roll" offerings from the glam-metal era. Soon after, THE THROBS broke-up, splintering off into a long series of bands, including the short-lived VIBES, and the much-loved N.Y. LOOSE.
  
SWEETHEART must've gone back to Canada or something, cos he disappeared completely for about a decade, until recently resurfacing at THE THROBS' Tommy Gunn-hosted Cat Club Reunion Night at Don Hill's in NYC. People who witnessed their long-awaited reunion performance said they rocked shit-crazy, and glam rock message boards are abuzz with giddy speculation as to whether this might mean another album is in the works.

There's an old show-biz cliche' that says "it's not what you know, it's who you know." Maybe THE THROBS will be able to lasso-in another bigtime producer to help make another record and stage an actual comeback, but it seems more likely that they'll just play some more reunion gigs to the nostalgic faithful. We still got this album and their early demos though, so, either way, it's not the end of the world.

Further:
THROBS bassist and songwriter, DANNY NORDAHL, currently plays in all of Taime Downe's loony tributes to Marilyn Manson, as well as for the Sleazegrinder-Approved Motor-Rock Hellions, Motochrist.

BRILLIANT GINGER DONE ALRITE FOR HIMSELF!

 DANNY NORDAHL-AGELESS ROCKNROLL SUPER HERO

-Pepsi Sheen
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