Brigitte LA 

Well, besides all the near misses, the snarled traffic, the speeding tickets, the road rage, and the pitiful paychecks, life on the road is starting to make more sense. It's the summer, after all, and unlike the rest of the country, the East Coast doesn't usually burn itself to the ground, so things are pretty smooth running. At the moment, I'm passing over the Bourne bridge, the trimmed hedge "Welcome to Cape Cod" sign looming up ahead. I'm spending the day delivering new Mercedes cars, by ferry, to Martha's Vineyard. You know, I once had a job slicing open boxes on an assembly line for ten hours a day, so I guess I'm moving up in the world. Or at least snaking across it at high speed. At any rate, I don't even feel like complaining about this stupid job this month- unless, of course, the ferry sinks-so, barring an accidental drowning, let's just get to the business of the rock and the roll. 

The Road is Loud

Rotten Sound - Murderworks
(Necropolis) www.necropolisrecords.com
I put this on while sailing down the expressway at 7:30 in the morning, and almost ate a Jersey barrier. Obviously, "Murderworks" is not driving music, unless you're some kind of rabid animal that can operate a vehicle safely. Finland's Rotten Sound are an unprovoked punch in the face of barking death/thrash/grind/whatever else you want to call this sort of anti-social amphetamine terror. Significantly, RS eschew the groovy ghoulie splatter lyrics usually associated with death metal, opting for sledgehammer social politics in the thirsty vein of hardcore punk, which Rotten Sound might actually have been, were it not for the werewolf on vocals, and if the album didn't come dripping in blood. Well, maybe not punk- "Murderworks" is a little too serial killer psychotic for veggie burger lefty types-but they're certainly hardcore as a motherfucker. If you've ever wished that you could notch up the speed on a Godflesh record by, I dunno, about 300 miles per hour, then Rotten sound is the band for you, ya fuckin' maniac. 

Pitch Black - S/T
(Revelation) www.revelationrecords.com
From the label that testosterone burnin' metallic hardcore built, comes this gruesome slab of snotty horror punk. Actually, Pitch Black don't even stick to the spook city theme lyrically, slipping into the classic and ever helpful punkly advice on 'keeping it real, baby', for many of the tunes, but it still sounds like a perpetual Hallow's Eve anyway, thanks to the AFI/Damned atmospherics, the wormy, minor chord crashing guitars, and the green-skinned Stiv styled vocals. Death rock, you ask? Well, despite the Buffy fonts on the back cover, no. PB are just rocking and rolling punk from Oakland, albeit dressed in their finest funereal black and grinning ghoulishly. This bubbling batwing stew is at it's most flavorful and pungent during "Rock and Roll Girl", a monster mash of pumping organ and 60's frat rock mania, and the outright b-movie mad scientist creepy crawl of instrumental closer, "Funeral Notice". Strip away all the horror business, and you'd have bouncy, anthemic Cali-punk, but Pitch Black have added a creepy cool edge to the proceedings. It does get dark in California occasionally, you know. 

GC5 - Never Bet the Devil Your Head
(Thick) www.thickrecords.com
I was at the Bad Wizard show the other night, and there was this short haired kid strutting around with a t-shirt that read, "The only real rock and roll comes from the streets". Of course, I'll bet the 17 dollars in toll receipts in my pocket that the young gun in question was raised in a cozy suburb, but anyway, the GC5 share the same fuckin' attitude, only for real. Or more real, at least. They've got the whole street punk routine, with all it's inherent charms, down cold- shout along choruses, ripping leads, the whole hooligan AC/DC vibe, only minus the genre's head cracking boot boy tendencies, and with the welcome bonus of ultra catchy pop hooks littered like empty lager bottles amongst all the hard luck anthems and odes to bloodshot brotherhood. If I had one ounce of punk rocker in me, they'd probably be my favorite band. Fans of Rancid and the Dropkick Murphys rejoice- Saturday night just arrived early. 

OX- Don't Call Me Lazy
(Allegory) www.allegoryrecords.com
Acid casualty riff rock from Mars, the syrupy, blood moon union of Chrome and a heavily dosed Monster Magnet. "Don't Call Me Lazy" - so named, I imagine, because OX appear to be moving in a kind of languid, heavy lidded slow motion groove most of the time- is probably what a blacklight rainbow sounds like. It's dark, fuzzy, slightly damp, possessing of all the magical qualities that gas station drugs and teenage years fried on the Butthole Surfers bring, and it's beautiful, baby, but only after midnight. I've read reports from pensive scribblers that OX were dealers in ham fisted stoner rock, but those are foolish assertions, because "...Lazy" sounds less like some obscure, low budget Kyuss cop than it does a gang of lysergic androids performing Hawkwind songs inside the ancient tomb of some perverse pharoah. OX might be from Albuquerque, but space is the place where they get their kicks.

Absolute Steel - The Fair Bitch Project
(Edge Runner) www.edgerunner-rec.com
Soak in, if you will, this profound refrain: "We sentence you to death, even if you're innocent/ And if you don't want to die, well that's your problem". Or perhaps this one: "We will never stop, Steel will conquer pop/ And pop will fall from a mountaintop". Now imagine such statements roaring to life from the lungs and axes of a thrash heavy gang of long- haired Norwegians who sound like a mud kicking Skid Row at full Bach-ian power. As evidenced by Black Debbath's recent stoner metal guide to vacationing in Norway, the Norwegians have a knack for playing their piss-takes so straight that you can hardly tell the difference most of the time, and Absolute Steel are only one mocking intro and a few misogynistic jokes away from the deadly serious pomp of some German power metal band. Which makes it all even funnier, really. Way too 'Saturday night is alright for headbanging' righteous, not to mention precision crafted, for mere novelty- and anyway, Andrew WK has already paved the way for semi-retarded party metal's inevitable comeback. Sure, it's all just a loud, obnoxious prank, but for pure metal thrashing madness, Absolute Steel are the absolute tits. 


Sunday Drunks - S/T
(Dead Beat) www.dead-beatrecords.com
Having been one myself, I was interested to find out if these Sunday Drunks could live up to the haggard, street nuisance lot in life that their name implies. Well, get out the sawdust and keep 911 on the speed dial, because these cats sound like the real deal. The Sunday Drunks play rattlesnake daddy swagger rock, the kind Chuck Berry used to make, only roughed up to the contemporary standard of sin drivers like American Heartbreak or the Confessions and infused with a shot off Stonesy honky tonk and a splash of 60's fuzz punk. It's like a dizzy mixture of ever more poisonous flavors of rock that would most surely be green, fizzing, and harmful if swallowed were it an actual drink and not just a record that sounds like the last cocktail that nearly did you in. Admitting everything, regretting nothing, and doing it all in classic rubber legged style, the Sunday Drunks are one bloody Mary away from either debauched rock stardom or just falling down dead. Something tells me that either one would suit the boys just fine. 


This is Quebec, Not Los Angeles: Canada's reigning metal queen, Brigitte LA

Well, not every interview goes smoothly, you know.  

So, are you guys still planning on seceding from the rest of Canada? 
"I'm sorry?" 
Wasn't Quebec City planning on seceding from the rest of the country?
"You talk too fast. Can you say it again?"
There was this controversy about Quebec wanting to secede from Canada...
"Umm..can you use another word?"

I guess I just forgot to ask. Former pin-up model turned volume dealer in beefed-up, 80's derived flash metal- hairspray and a hammer, dressed in leather and lace- Brigitte LA is Canada's answer to Lita Ford, a firecracker of blonde ambition determined to make the world safe again for shredding solos, spandex, and strutting arena metal. With several hard rock luminaries behind her- members of Canuck heavyweight legends Mahogany Rush and biker metal bad asses Black Label Society have recorded with her, she's gotten rock star advice from Gene Simmons- and an unwavering faith in both herself and the power and glory of ear bleeding rock and roll, Brigitte is poised and ready to bring back the age of the metal queens and their flashy power chord kingdoms of flesh and fire. With a debut album in the works and a head full of world domination plans, I figured it was high time to introduce her cheetah skin charms to the stateside rock faithful.

But like I said, I guess I forgot to ask her if she spoke English. She sings in English, after all, but if any of my disastrous, halting attempts to engage various Swedish and Italian sleaze rock bands in publishable trash talk taught me anything, it's that writing foreign tongued words down on paper and then singing them is one thing, but negotiating slang heavy rock speak with a loose-lipped journo like myself is a whole 'nother mouth full of marbles. Brigitte, you see, is from that spectacularly snarky province of maple leaf majesty, Quebec. You know, the city that wants to just go ahead and tear itself right out of it's motherland and form a whole new state, where French is the language of choice and English is for suckers, rock and roll girls, and other less than savory characters. 

Of course, our super girl in question is having none of that, as evidenced by her answer to my earlier question when we finally, and with much effort, understood each other. "Quebec separating from the rest of the country? I don't believe in that, no. I don't want it, I don't understand it. Even when I travel in Los Angeles, and I tell people that I'm from Quebec City, the first thing they say to me is, 'So, you want to get separated?' It doesn't seem to be a very good thing to people in the United States, and to me either", she tells me, in a thick accent that might be trouble, if it weren't so drop dead sexy. It hardly mattered though, as the language of heavy metal is mostly symbiotic anyway. Divided by syntax and casual vocabulary we may be, but Brigitte and I are most certainly united by rock. "It's the people that only speak French", she continues, "They're the ones that want to separate. But the people that speak English and do business with people that speak English, they don't want to do it. Hopefully, it will never happen. If it does, I'll have to move."

Ville du Québec, êtes-vous prêt à basculer? Ah, vous n'êtes pas?
Since we're on the subject anyway, and since it seems to raise her hackles, I ask Brigitte about the rock scene in Quebec City, and how she fits into it. "There is none", she laughs. "There's no rock scene in Quebec. I mean, Quebec is where I was born, people are friendly here, it's a peaceful place to live with nice neighborhoods and stuff like that, but otherwise, for the rock scene, you have to travel a lot." That's not to say, as Brigitte is quick to point out, that you have to go all the way across the border to rock out. "Montreal is very happening", she says. "So is Toronto, and uh..." Newfoundland? Saskatchewan? "Um, no, those are really the only two places. Montreal is really cool, but I live two hours away, so it's hard to get there", she sighs. "I live in the French part of Quebec, you know. I speak French all the time." We both laugh at the obviousness of the statement. I ask her if she has difficulty writing her lyrics in English, or whether she originally composes them in French, and then has them translated. "No, I already write them in English", she says. This is my favorite language. I think the lyrics sound better. I've always preferred English, even when I was young. I started listening to music when I was around 8, and always in English. Even when there are new French artists around here, I don't even know them." French artists? "It's the law here, you know", she tells me. This interview is quickly turning about a hundred times more informative than my usual conversations with rock stars. "The radio has to play a certain percentage of French artists, yeah. Mostly there's English bands, but yes, they must have French, too. But I don't pay attention, I really don't even know who any of them are." Brigitte LA, as her rock star name would imply, has a vision that's much bigger than her quaint little city. "I know I'm going to have a hard time with people from here", she says of her choice to sing in an adopted tongue, "because they're going to say 'Why do you want to sing in English?' but you know, freedom, right?" Right. "I prefer English, I think it sounds better, so it's not going to stop me. Also, I don't want to be stuck doing shows in only Quebec City. I prefer to play in the States more than Canada anyway", she says. 

Faire des affaires avec le démon
Before she was Brigitte LA, flash metal singer, she was Brigitte LA, flash metal pin-up model. Cars, calendars, conventions. Although the job provided her with plenty of money, adventure, and a unique opportunity for heavy duty networking in the rock biz, she's since given it up. "I stopped that. It was a hard part of my life. It makes me travel, and I got to meet a lot of good people, but I also met a lot of bad people", she says, with a bittersweet laugh. "I was exhausted about that. It was hard to be..." She pauses, looking for the right words. "I tried to be a professional, and there are a lot of people that are unprofessional in that business." She doesn't give any details, but I'm sure you can fill in the blanks. "Yes, so I stopped, but it's been a good thing, because now I have the time to put into my music." She still enjoys flying off to the West Coast and hanging out with rock stars, though. "Well, I travel a lot in Los Angeles, and I like to go to the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants, for all you non-industry types) conventions, so I meet a lot of people there, and uh...I don't know why, I go to a lot of concerts, I meet them, I have fun. I know a lot of people from the music industry from working for record labels or other music companies. That's a very fun part of the job." Take a look at her website, and you'll see Brigitte rubbing shoulders with everyone from Eddie Van Halen to the Misfits to...oh no, not Gene Simmons. Didn't her mother ever warn her about that guy? "Oh, he was a gentlemen", she assures me. "You just have to say what you don't want to do, and you know, there not forcing you. He was a nice guy, we talked about, believe it or not, business. He gave me a lot of advice on stuff like my fan club, how to make money, things like that."

Chair avec des sentiments
Dubious advice from Mr. Snake tongue notwithstanding, Brigitte's hob-nobbing with LA's rock royalty convinced her to take up the business of rocking herself. She was already a veteran of the live scene, having done time in Quebec's cover band circuit in the early 90's. "I had three cover bands before", she tells me. "We played around here in Quebec City." I ask her what kinds of songs her bands covered, as if I couldn't have guessed. "The best one we did was a Van Halen tribute, with David Lee Roth songs. We also did Lita Ford, and I remember we did Lee Aaron songs songs. This was some time ago, in 1993." Ah, yeas, Lee Aaron, Canada's undisputed pop metal queen of the 80's, who strutted around in gold armour while singing what amounted to beefed up Pat Benatar songs. As far as Canadian metal fans are concerned, Lee is a lot to live up to, but Brigitte's not worried. After all, Lee doesn't even rock anymore. Not anymore, no", Brigitte informs me. "Now she plays jazz." Does this mean Brigitte has a sultry side in her, as well? "No", she laughs, "I think I'll be sticking to rock. I like almost every kind of music, but I'm definitely a rock and roll girl. It'll be curious to see what happens when I get too old to play rock, but rock and roll is in my soul." Well, that much is certain. If hard charging songs like "Rebel Angel" and "Unruly Child" are any indication, Brigitte is bringing back the classic Reagan era sound of female fronted hard rock bands like Hellion, Black Lace, and Bitch- tough as nails glam metal that rides the thin line between black leather feminism and "Give 'em what they want" sex appeal. "I just call it heavy rock", Brigitte says. "I have a little hard rock, a little metal, and a little alternative in my songs, so it's hard to describe. Heavy rock works the best. Although BLA's sound is most certainly rooted in the flashpot days of the 80's, she's equally influenced by more contemporary rockers as well. "In my new songs, I'm taking more of an influence from bands like Sevendust and Black Label Society. I like the classic rock sound." Not content to merely be influenced by the squealing guitars and biker boogie of Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society, Brigitte has even managed to wrangle one of their axe slingers, Nick Catanese, to lay down some heavy riffs for one of the songs on her upcoming album, "Flesh With Feelings". "He's a friend of mine, I told him about the project, and he heard the songs, and he just said, 'Ok, whenever you need me, let me know', she explains. 'FWF' will also feature another famous guitar slinging friend of hers, Mick Layne from Mahogany Rush. "We had a lot of fun", she says of the recording sessions. "I think the songs came out really good, and I hope to have the record out in July." And after the record, the tour? "I haven't started playing these songs live yet, because I want only original music to play. It'll start soon, I just can't tell you exactly when. When I started this project, I had...exhaustion problems. I was working really slowly, so it's taking a lot of time. Also, because I had these collaborations with famous guitar players coming, I was willing to wait until I had the chance to record with these guys." Currently, Brigitte is auditioning players for her live band. Hmm. Maybe Gene Simmons is available. Pardon my French, New York City, but Brigitte LA is a soeur righteous de roche, indeed.

For more info on all things Brigitte - www.brigittela.com

Next month - Pam Puente of Colorado's punked-up raunch and rollers, Double Barreled Slingshots. Expect fireworks. 

Got my name in a secret bible, Sleazegrinder 6.25.02