|
TEENAGE HEAD....
 YEAH! After some repeated listenings, sleaze urchins, I can now
officially confirm the rumours that the 'Cherry are back. Having
somehow reconvened and recovered from an almost unforgivably bad sophomore
slump ("Time Bomb"- avoid it.) and a tragically misguided
Josh Todd Nu Metal solo album. THIS is the Buck Cherry we all fell
for, pretty much. The Buck Cherry that drove otherwise rational men to
compare their music to teenage pussy. If you loved "For The Movies",
"All Lit Up", and "Borderline" even half as
much as we did, you might as well track this fucker down, cos there's lots
of pretty decent stuff this time out. Sure, there's still alot of generic
punk posturing, and redundant metal riffs just raging aimlessly in places
like that whole Velvet Revolver album, and some merely proficient
thunder-boogie in the tedious AC/DC-KISS vein, but it's still probably
about as good, if not better, than either Motley Crue, or Guns 'N' Roses
third albums, minus the big buzz industry shove.
The world needs Buck Cherry. It's a hard and simple fact. The kids need
Buck Cherry. The washed up old rockers with the faded jeans and d.u.i's
need Buck Cherry. Strippers need Buck Cherry. Axl Rose and Ozzy need to
hear some Buck Cherry. Miserable, flannel shirted hillbillies who drywall
all day long, and thermal underwear clad carpet layers who buy Staind and Nickelback records for some remote solace in their lives desperately need
Buck Cherry. All the white middle-aged people from the suburbs who
listen exclusively to major label gangster rap, really need Buck Cherry.
Your ex-wife, who's been hinting at pressing support charges against you
even though she knows you labor all day at a carwash for your shoebox
apartment, and their ice cream on Sundays, REALLY needs to lay-off all
that awful pimps 'n' hos radio rap bullshit, and remember all those better
days
so effectively stirred up by listening to some good BUCK CHERRY. All my
old band mates need to hear the first BUCK CHERRY if they're trying to
remember why people aren't that excited by whatever it it they're doing
nowadays.
That was how it's done.
"Onset" finds Josh trying to wax all street poetic on us, and both me
and
Sleaze have agreed we really love it when he applies himself to lyric
writing from the heart. "Onset" is a "Crushed", or "Check Your Head"
quality song that could've fit exquisitely on their classic debut, or
helped to
salvage the one that bombed. "Brooklyn"'s bluesmetal country honk smokes like them old
gypsy roadstars, CINDERELLA, on fire. I only wish it was his cheesy
ballad, "Sorry" that was being ridiculously overplayed by VH1 and MTV with
a rainy black and white, mini-drama of a turbulent teenage love gone
wrong, when the boy's abusive, blue collar family browbeats him into
meeting with a recruiter to discuss fighting an endless war for corporate
profit that no one believes is for any real, or noble, cause, other than
it's an opportunity for dirty white boys from the lower classes to support
women and children with, since all the factories closed down. Our country
was in no rush to stop the starvation and genocide in Afrika, but when
they saw a chance to take over
Afghanistan's opium
trade, they told us it was about women's rights and sent Laura Bush the
former librarian out on Doctor Phil, and whatever. This is a better song
than all the sappy and formulaic, half-hearted dross that Green Day and
the Goo Goo Dolls have been passin' off lately. If you HAVE to write
another trite and predictable Monster Ballad, please make sure it's about
a subject that really affects you personally, that you sortof give a shit
about. Add summa yer real neurosis and longing and pathos and regret,
willya, please? Josh succeeds at this
endeavor on "Out Of Line", his obligatory Aerosmith ballad about some
Hardcore Cali sex nymph's usual drug problems.
On the flip side of the same proverbial A.A. coin, is "Crazy Bitch", a
hyperactive hard-on's mortally honest, upfront misogynist rant: "You're
crazy, but I like the way you fuck me." I've been there, brother! A
million
times. Why do the Crazy Girls fuck the best?
I'm thrilled our raffish chaos magnet, Josh, has reeled-in summa his
dumbass tough guy wigger tendencies, and thrown himself wholeheartedly
back into making future classic rock. "I'm not a bad man, I'm just a
glutton for abuse". We've always understood that about you, man. I mostly
root for cocky jockstrap J.T. cos his first record just totally saved the
day back when seemingly everyone besides BUCK CHERRY and AMERICAN
HEARTBREAK had forgotten what real rock'n'roll was all about. I
instinctively believe in this dude.
Love 'em, or hate him, he's afflicted with the same curse as summa US
- he's
got no other options, really. It's dead, jail, or rock'n'roll for him,
too.
If we've occasionally had to put his feet to the fire about his mistakes,
it's cos we care. It's tough love, baby. Gabba Gabba Hey. He's obviously,
the genuine article, a lightning rod like other certain people I know, and
that's why I have less than zero patience for him when he starts
"fronting".
"Dude's a chronic fuckup, but he's still capable of both sensitive insight
and courageous frontline testimony when he ain't too distracted by the
crack whores and hack metal money to be had. "I Want Everything" is
BETTER than "Check Your Head". "Carousel", "Brooklyn", "Sunshine"-all of these
are good songs. If they're not on the radio, blame George W. Bush, his
Clear Channel cronies, and the Anti-Rock Conspiracy.
I especially hope that one of my old stonewashed bro's from way back,
in
particular, has landed safely somewhere sane, or at least warm, and is
crackin' open a cold one, tappin' his Converse along to, oh, maybe,
"Sunshine", right about now, and calling up some hot blonde cocktail on
the phone, hustling her to bring him over some groceries, and smiling to
himself that the 'Cherry are back. Buck Cherry have successfully delivered
some more raunchy, rude, Ritalin ruined, reckless rock'n'soul and how much
more ba-babies, can we ask. It's a crash course for the ravers. Not bad at
all, fellas, spread the good word.
________________________________________________________ |