The very brief history of Orange Rock : The Freaks in Sensurround (1989)

With the very notable exceptions of Redd Kross, Raging Slab, and Urge Overkill, no rock bands in the late 80's had any inclination whatsoever to dig back into the FM rock of the previous decade for inspiration. Sure, the Stooges and the MC5 (who were actually 60's bands, if you think about it), The New York Dolls, the Alice Cooper Band, the Ramones and the Pistols were still every greasy, drug sucking rock and roll band's chief influences, but the 'future' of rock in 1987-1988, at least down in the trenches, was widely accepted as Steve Albini's call, and he said it was all about a big (black) thump and grind. People were freaking freely on the gasket-blowing chainsaw-Sabbath mudriffs of the Melvins, the pain-threshold overdose of Amrep prototypes Halo of Flies and the Thrown Ups, and the snarly gutter blues, punk slop menace of Pussy Galore. Christ, it was getting ugly out there.

Meanwhile, Guns N' Roses were the biggest band on the entire fuckin' planet, and mainstream rock - which, of course, still meant glam metal in '88- was trying, in vain, to replicate their lightning in a bottle. Which explains atrocities like Slave Raider and Rough Cutt. The reason why most of the Guns-influenced metal bands of the day sound so dated now is because they actually believed that Guns N Roses invented sleazy rock n' roll, despite Axl and the boys' unabashed and public affection for relics like Rose Tattoo and Aerosmith. No sense of history, you see. Likewise, in retrospect, the Noise Gestapo of the 80's sound like they all fell for the same bad joke. If you think I'm kidding, toss on an old Rapeman record, see how far you get. In their dogged pursuit of the anti-riff, their deep dark desire to get as far away from the Bachman Turner Overdrive as they possibly could, the 80's 'Garbage Rock' bands ended up with a whole lotta...well, garbage for a legacy.

Maybe it's because a lot of the guys in those bands still had yellowed Farrah Fawcett posters on their walls, and still couldn't get the Grease soundtrack or Slade's plaid bellbottoms outta their skulls; maybe the 70's were still too close for revivalism, or something. Maybe it was just youth's natural tendency to destroy the old guard and build something new on it's splintered bones. For whatever reason, not too many bands were taking the entire "Me Decade"- the hedonism, the obnoxious polyester pop, the nasty drug hangover, the rampant political turmoil- and molding into wild new shapes in the late eighties. Nobody was interested in updating Sigmund and the Sea Monsters or Grand Funk for the accelerated Road Warrior-cocaine-nuclear fear decade of greed and apocalypse. They were much more interested in Satanic speed metal and ear-splitting feedback.

Ah, but then there was Redd Kross, with their lollipops and paisley glitter pop, Urge Overkill and their burgeoning arena-ready, punk-fried Supersoul, Raging Slab with their Skynrd-inspired Southern boogie metal riff-fest, and the cartoon sleaze-punk shangrila of the Freaks.

The who? The what-now? Yeah, I know, time has not been good to the Freaks, and they are all but a minor, head-scratching memory to most by now. But in their brief reign ('87 to '89, pretty much) they managed to lay down a blueprint for heavy, sleazy, 70's influenced glitter punk and grungy muscle rawk that's still being followed to the letter by every eyeliner, razorblades, honcho mustache and mirrorshades band from Scandinavia to the gutters of NYC, from the Detox Darlings and the Gutter Queens to the goddamn Hellacopters and the fuckin' Darkness, to this very day. I mean, I kinda doubt any of those bands have even heard of the Freaks, but that's besides the point. The Freaks were the first to Freak in the Freakhouse, the original "Orange Rock" band, and the fuckers deserve at least a mention for it.

Yeah, "Orange Rock". That's what they liked to call themselves. As they stated in their 1989 presskit, "The Freaks visionary soul embodies itself in the phenomenon known as Heavy Orange Rock...music tuned to the high energy frequencies of the brightest, loudest, most mind-melting color of them all. This hot and heavy mental sunblast sears into the very core of your being, as your subconscious awakens to your own Freak Power. [The Freaks are] rock and roll like it oughta be." Dubious grammar aside, it sounds like they could easily be describing Lofreq, Dirty Power, Monster Magnet, or any number of today's superfreaked, slash n' burn sleaze rock outfits. The Freaks were starry-eyed visionaries of a sexy, dirty rock and roll revolution where the girls painted their nipples silver and the guys strapped rockets to their guitars and blasted off into outer space, leaving trails of purple glitter in their wake. Unfortunately, they were really just a bunch of punk rock fuck-ups, and they imploded way before the party even got started.

The origin of the Freaks lies in The Blessed, the mid-80's NYC punk and roll band formed by 16 year old bass player Howie Pyro. The Blessed also featured a dive-bombing Walter Lure on guitar, and, on their more unlucky nights, Waldo's main man Johnny Thunders would stumble on stage to join in their ramshackle din. Teenagers, heroin, and the Heartbreakers are a highly volatile mix, however, and the Blessed fizzled after a few fitful years. By this time, Pyro was married to retro-garage rock guitarist Andrea Kusten (The Outta Place), who came up with the concept of the Freaks- a sonic cherry bomb of glam metal, 70's punk, and shameless riff rock. They started out playing KISS covers "as a joke, to piss the 60's people off", as Pyro stated in Flipside magazine in 1988. "So a lot of the punks like us, a lot of the 60's people like us, the glam metal types- and they all think we're the 'other' type of band". People quickly caught on to the awesome Power of Orange bleeding out of the Freaks, and they decided to turn their goofy kicks-only side project into a full-fledged band.

They released a cassette demo, "Pippi Skelter", that appears to be an acid-damaged rock opera, in 1988. I dunno, I missed it. Flipside said it was "like Blue Cheer scoring an episode of HR Puffnstuf", which sounds pretty boss. They also released a 4 song single "Potter's Field" in late '88, which featured live covers of the Pink Fairies "Do it" and the MC5's "Looking at You". "Potter's Field" would also find itself as the opening cut on side 2 of "The Freaks in Sensurround", the only full-length the band ever mustered.

Sensurround was released in 1989, on Resonance records. The Backyard Babies and the Wildhearts formed the same year, the Dogs D'amour were finally breaking in the US, and 'sleaze rock' was quickly becoming an underground sensation, so if the fuckers had kept it together, they might've been at the forefront of the scene, but what the hell. The founding Freaks quickly regrouped and joined infinitely more successful bands- Howie went on to play in the infamous Dictators-on-speed supergroup the Action Swingers, did a brief stint in Danzig, and went on to become one of the founding members of D-Generation. Andrea Kusten is in the Fuzztones now. Dunno what happened to lead singer John Fay or drummer Eric Eckley, but I reckon they're doing alright, too. So for once, unless you know something I don't, I don't have to eulogize anybody here. What I do have to do, however, is tell you that "Sensurround", as ragged and blown-out as it is, still rocks like crazy, a sleazy, cheesy, amphetamine-glam cocktail of speedball glitter punk and bubblegum hooks.

Opener "Freak out in the Freakhouse" is a full-on glam punker that sounds a lot like the Trash Brats, especially since John Fay's got the same bitchy, kiss n' tell whine as Brian O'Blivion. It's also got suitably retarded lyrics ("We got orange amps and orange drums, and we're all gonna have some orange fun"), and repeats the title 15 times in under 3 minutes. Sometimes there's a fine line between righteous and ridiculous, and this one rides that edge with all the finesse of an ant on a razor blade. The Fay written "Green Sliver" is a deadringer for the proto-stoner 70's fuzz rawk of (imagine that) Seattle grunge granddaddies Green River. A coincidence? Baby, there ain't no coincidences in rock and roll. This one's Sub Pop bait for sure, only Green River's dour suicide poetry is replaced with far more jubilant-and loopy- lines like "Martian, he was with monkey/and the wooga woman came and lit up every room/powered by batteries". Imagine if Seattle chose LSD, not heroin as their Armageddon trigger of choice, and you'd have "Green Sliver".

"(Living in a ) Warzone" is a caterwauling flash metal number about surviving on the mean streets of NYC. "Lost and Found" rips off Sabbath's "Paranoid" whole-hog, right down to the "Oh yeah!" and the spacey, doomy lyrics. Significantly, it's subtitle is "Tony Iommi's Fingers". He's missing the tips of a couple of 'em, you know. The band falls apart in rather glorious fashion at the end of this track, shooting for synchronized 'whoo-hoos' that sound like they were all in different rooms when they recorded them. Side one's closer "Inside of my Mind", written by Andrea Kursten, is a psychedelic garage-rocker with spikes of paisley guitar that changes speed and direction for a zippy rifferama finish. Kinda like "Rocket Queen" by way of the Scientists, maybe.

Side two opens with the Damned meets the Doors riff rocker "Potter's Field", which also served as their first single. It's easily their darkest track, a bleak terror train of downward spiraling riffs and tortured screams, and if you heard it on the radio for the first time today, you might think it was the result of some unholy alliance between Queens of the Stoneage and 45 Grave. "Teen Queen" is a bouncy Bolan/Ziggy homage, a catchy glitter rock throwback with a Godz-like biker-baiting solo.

Ok, so not only is it about Superman's backward nemesis, but the lyrics are in Bizarro's garbled reverse speech too ("Me am Bizarro, me world is square"), but despite it's dopey subject matter , "Me Am Bizarro" is one of the Freaks' toughest tunes, a total motherfucker of a rawk song with a snaky, nasty-assed riff and thunderous drums. "Time Won't Heal" is another 60's flashback rocker, marred somewhat by the fact that John Fay can't sing in whatever key they're playing in. Which is kinda fucked up, since he wrote it. The album closes with the bitchin' "Succubus", a snake-hipped punk n' roller that sounds like prime Johnny Thunders-meets-the Sonics-meets Venom. Crazy, bloody, and killin' for thrills, "Succubus" ends in a mass of distorted guitar and phlegmy demonic growls, as if the devil himself had taken over the reigns in the studio. Freaky, then? You bet.

Oh, and then there's there's Sensurround's rather amazing cover. Patterned after KISS's Destroyer album, it features the Freaks in full rock and roll battle gear (Andrea's in a gold lame suit jacket and matching sequined pants and sporting a Superman t-shirt. The rest of the band are all denim and leather biker chic, with only Fay's weird skunk hair blowing their cool) stomping across a cartoon city populated by trashy pop culture icons like Charlie's Angels, Crispin Glover in his River's Edge get-up, Rodney Bingenheimer, a zombie in a Metallica t-shirt, Janis Joplin, and several Oompa-Loompas. And Pippi Longstocking. And Archie Bunker.

Sensurround is long out of print, and I don't think anybody's chomping at the bit to re-release it anytime soon, but it still pops out here and there (there's usually a copy or two at Gemm), and it's well worth the few measly bucks people are usually asking for it. The Freaks were one of the few links between 70's riff punk and all the glorious, fucked up rock and roll we take for granted today, in an era when bleating mechanical noises and all manner of un-fun was the order of the day. I, for one, salute the silly motherfuckers. Especially when I'm Freaking out in the Freakhouse. Which is more often than you think.

-Sleazegrinder