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Stiv Bators L.A. Confidential BOMP! __________________________________________________ |
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'I'm Frightened For Our Children...'
On top of these class cruisin' cuts is 'Story In Your Eyes', a Moody Blues cut the original of which I aren't familiar with but here it looms large, again showing Stiv's multi-faceted character; eternal lech, merciless prankster and piss-taker yet a highly astute, socially and culturally aware guy as opposed to just being merely a slurring, wrecked wastrel. Stiv always had a great (big) ear for a cover and here 'Have Love Will Travel' is given the Stiv as wily old rougue character, splendidly smoking jacketed host of a loose limbed penthouse party make-over. 'Morrison Rant' would be throwaway and turgid were it not for the point of interest that it'd transmogrify into the sermons that Stiv'd deliver over 'New Church' a couple of years hence in The Lords. But that's another score. 'LA, LA' is similarly pretty inconsequential, band and assorted guests having a trashed orgiastic romp through 'Louie Louie', and a tape-recording of 'Neat, Neat, Neat', totally irrelevant. However, count out the notes for both this and 'Disconnected' as, shorn of the superflous fluff, which is still pleasant padding anyway, these are mighty fossilised footprints from the Regal Reptile Rocka. |
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-Stu Gibson |
This is the companion piece to Stiv's classic set of surf pop spiky heeled garage stompers 'Disconnected', also in re-issue form. Rounding up the BOMP! singles and some other shit plus alternate mixes this isn't quite so essential as that album but essential nonetheless for the nine tracks that make up the actual singles output. Now, if there was one album comprised of these singles and 'Disconnected', as a guy I used to know had,
THAT would be holy. No different stylistically to the 'Disconnected' stuff, this is Stiv having a whale of a time before the darker Lords of the New Church era, having the full backing of, but still testing to the limits, a supportive, almost indulgent label, and good on 'em.
'It's Cold Outside' (which coulda been heralding Christmas school holiday kids TV like The Barracuda's did in summer with 'Summer Fun') -
'Not That Way Anymore', 'I'll Be Alright' and the tongue-in-cheek naughty little boy juvenile delinquent who? me? faced 'Circumstantial Evidence' (lifted wholesale from The Who's 'Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand') are shivery, sparkly classics that make me wanna run wild right now in my tight tight pants and best cuban heels, and should be in any rocker's home. Full of sunshine, with dark death valley undertones, sea spray, sand and stoned surfers sloping overboard into shangri-la and swordfish steaks; an array, nay, army of jangly Rickenbackers sneering snaky riffs out laconically atop of supremely busy new wave drums a la Clem Burke and Nicky Turner. Strangely, or purposefully, or just damn coincidentally the singles show a somewhat soft(er) underbelly to Stiv's leering and letching lurches (such as 'Disconnected's 'Ready Anytime'). 'I'll Be Allright' is a stoical yet resigned shrug, a slightly more eloquent version of Johnny T's constant
little boy lost demands to 'leave me alone' and 'Not That Way Anymore' a repentant love letter that was maybe bashed out time and again, but whatever, a great song. And I'll bet my best boots that the line 'Now I'm sleeping around the town, baby, I do not enjoy it' (but I do it anyway so too bad baby, Stiv an inscrutable double-edged sword as ever) lead directly to Tyla's line in 'How Do You Fall In Love Again' - 'I got some woman take her home tonight / Not what I want / Not what I need....'.