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Powertrane
“Beyond The Sound"
American Ruse Records
(single 7” split)
www.scottmorganmusic.com
 With a pedigree like Scott Morgan’s, would you expect anything less than a
really great rock ‘n’ roll record? Of course you wouldn’t. And, yep,
that’s
exactly what you get here: a really great classic Detroit-rock single. My
advice to you? Put this record on, turn it up, and rock the fuck out.
Sweet Justice
“Outta Sight”
American Ruse Records
(single 7” split)
www.thestreetwalkincheetahs.com
On the flip side of the Powertrane record is this just-as-rockin’ single
from L.A.’s Sweet Justice. “Outta Sight” sounds like my family’s summer
vacations
in the 70’s, motoring down American highways in our brown Ford van with
the teardrop windows, stopping to pick up hitchhikers, the thickly sweet
smell of
pot-smoke heavy in the air, rock music blaring from the AM radio…
The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs
“Draw The Line”/”I Wanna Be
Loved”
Bad Attitude Records
(2 song 7”)
www.thestreetwalkincheetahs.com
This band wears their influences on their sleeve, so to speak. (The album
sleeve, get it? Man, I crack me up.) Anyway, Frank Meyer et al. started
this band in
L.A. in 1995 as a Stooges/MC5/New York Dolls cover band, got some
recognition from said influences, yadda yadda, you can read their bio
yourself. The point is that this record offers a couple of decent covers.
Okay, if I’m gonna be completely honest here, I’m not a big Aerosmith fan,
so I’m just going to assume they do a good job of “Draw The Line”. But the
cover of
Johnny Thunders’ “I Wanna Be Loved” is pretty fun. Which leads us to…
Sweet Justice
“Guns of Navarone”
Real O Mind Records
(3 song 7”)
www.sweetjusticetheband.com
Frank Meyer’s other band, Sweet Justice, has moved on from the world of
cover bands to create their own sound, albeit a sound that is still
heavily influenced
by the bands they cover. Which, given the greatness of the bands they
cover, is obviously not a bad thing. The original single, “Guns of Navarone,” rocks solidly
along in its sweetly nostalgic 70’s garage way, and the B-side covers of
the Ramones’ “I Just Wanna Have Something To Do” and
J.T.’s “I Wanna Be
Loved” (again) prove that rock and roll (even when it cheats and
reincarnates itself) will never die.
The Things
“Psycho-Sound”
Big Neck Records
(4 song 7”)
www.thethings.net
 Holy fuck! This record by
The Things (written in what I call scary
font-you know the one, all shivery capital letters) damn near rocked my
bobby socks off.
Citing influences that include the MC5, Iggy, and The Misfits, this
five-piece Dublin band has created a veritable e.p. masterpiece of
psycho-rock (okay, maybe
“masterpiece” is taking things a bit far, but I really liked this record).
It’s a heart-racing, blood-pounding, adrenalin-pumping rock ‘n’ roll ride,
from the super-sleazy opening guitar riff of “Demon Stomp,” through the
killer horror-movie organ of “Sick Street,” on to the twisted Elvis sound
of “Psycho Lover,” and straight through the raunchy insistence of “She’s
Trash,” and if you don’t like it, well, you can just go to hell. I will,
of course, see you there. (Oh yeah, the vinyl on this record is a
Pepto-Bismol pink marble, but they call it “lavendar splash”-I
can’t tell you how much that cracked me up when I read it.)
The Sore Thumbs
“Nowhere CA”/”Minds Eye”
Pirates Press Records
(2 song 7” split)
www.thesorethumbs.com
Okay, this is my last Pirates Press review; I don’t know how I missed this
one (all that flipping must have confused my little blonde brain), but
here it
is…Listening to this record from California’s The Sore Thumbs reminded me,
in some strangely indefinable way, of a bucketful of nails. I don’t really
know what that means, especially since the cover art shows a screw (not a
nail) puncturing a Frankenstein-type monster’s thumb, but trust me when I
tell you that it’s a good
thing. It’s all urgent, scratchy guitars and a voice like gravel backed by
an irresistible beat. And did I mention the especially kick-ass guitar
solo in “Mind’s
Eye”? This is good stuff, friends. Good stuff, indeed.
SICK56/Higgins++
“New Day New Enemy E.P.”
JSNTGM Records
www.sick56.org
 Sometimes record reviewing can be so confusing. So here’s the deal: SICK56
are a bunch of guys from somewhere in England. Higgins is some guy who
works
for/runs the label or something that the guys from SICK56 are on. On this
particular record, the ++’s are SICK56. Are you with me so far? So SICK56
have the A-side of the record with a song called “Losing The War”; it’s
alright, earnest and driven and punk-political (the chorus goes “The
punishment should
fit the crime/The Government should be doing time”), but not terribly
exciting. Higgins++ gets the B-side with a 27-second “song” called Einsatz,
and I’m going
to include the lyrics here for you: It was an einsatz opportunity, to
annihilate with
impunity And indulge in the felicity of reworking historicity Now
universally recognized, literally iconographied In a language of
asymmetry, in a gaze of moral proximity.
To which I respond, what the fuck?? The second song, “Got A Revolution,”
isn’t bad, but, again, a little bit on the yawn side. The yellow vinyl is
pretty,
though…
The Original Three
“Unplug”/”Been There”
Shake Your Ass Records
(2 song 7”)
www.myspace.com/originalthree
I found myself wanting to like this record, but never actually getting
there. The Original Three play what they call “down-tempo garage-rock
that’s not too fast and not too slow”. Now I don’t know about you, but I
constantly find myself questioning the tempo choices of the music I listen
to. (I don’t, really; that was
me being sarcastic.) What the hell does that mean-“not too fast and not
too slow”? Makes me think of Goldilocks, which is really just plain weird.
(Jesus
Christ, where the hell is this review going?) Anyway, the record is raw
and gritty and simple, in a New Orleans-blues-y kind of way, but it just
didn’t win me over. Which is too bad, really, because I really wanted it
to, for some reason. I have no idea why. Okay, this is going nowhere; I’m
just going to stop now…
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