|
The
Real 100 Greatest Rock Albums of All
Time, No. 45: |
|
“How do you wanna die? Wasted!
Wasted! Wasted!" I think Crystal Pistol said it best: Everybody hates you when you love rock n’ roll. New Jersey’s punk-metal sleaze n’ roll deathkings Genocide were way ahead of the curve on that bit of sour alchemy, and these days, if they are are remembered at all, it’s usually with a dismissive sneer. Take, for example, Jack Rabid’s one-line summation of the band, in his Trouser Press review of their first record, the “Last Rites” split EP with hardcore legends MIA (Smoke Seven, 1981):  “Last Rites contains a side each by M.I.A. and New Jersey's
Genocide
(about whom the less said the better).”That’s it. That’s all you get. And that’s one of the nicer Genocide mentions in the rock press. But, you know, fuck the critics. Genocide were a full-throttle, skull fucking rip-ride of hardcore sex, ghetto drugs, and berserk violence, a supersonic nailgun of Aquanet and mascara and spikes and splatterpunk and slutmetal. And this was way before most of that shit was even invented, brother. Led by shadowy charlatan and full-bore suicidal egomaniac Bobby EBZ, for one very brief but blinding moment in the late 80’s, Genocide threatened to rip rock n roll’s heart right out of it’s leather-clad chest and eat it whole. It didn’t happen, of course, and for good reason. I bet yr already ahead of me on this. From my Boston's Weekly Dig column, “Hard Rock Gets You Laid”, January, 2003. _______________________________________________________________________________ Submit to Drunkicide  "Well, Bobby EBZ is dead. Hard rock doesn't always get you laid, you know.
Sometimes it gets you killed. Bobby had a band called Genocide back in the
early 80's. Besides a fashion sense that suggested needle Nazis from outer
space, and a disposition just this side of liquored-up junkyard dogs,
Genocide really ought to be remembered as one of the first bands to
realize that there wasn't a whole lot of difference between the punk rock
riot of GBH and the hellfire spit metal of Venom. So they played both at
once. They released a split EP with hardcore vets MIA back in '82, but
their career was more than a little stalled when frontman Bobby landed in
drug-related prison cell for 5 years. When he got out, he put the band
back together, released the seminal razor raunch pounder "Submit to
Genocide" in 1987, and then watched through bloodshot eyes as Corrosion of
Conformity and DRI soaked up the punk/metal crossover cred. The metal
kids- who were still wearing kamikaze headbands at the time, mind you-
thought Genocide dressed like creeps, and punk rockers just shrugged.
Genocide fizzled out soon after and Bobby laid low, biding his time in
punk rock basements, waiting for a Genocidal resurrection. It almost
happened too, when back-from-the-grave retro metal label New Renaissance
announced last year that they were re-releasing "Submit to Genocide" on
CD. Fuckers were too late, though. A few months back, Bobby emptied his
last bottle, taking his own advice to "Die Wasted", as the Genocide song
goes. I only know this because I actually went looking for the Jersey devil in question a few weeks back, figuring he'd have a good story or two for me. I bet he did, too. But all I got left is a scratchy old record that keeps spitting out nasty-assed rock and roll with a sense of ramshackle, hell for leather defiance, long after Bobby's bones have rattled and shaked their last. Which is entirely the point of rock and roll really, and certainly of a band that thanked both Aquanet Extra Super Hold and "The Medical Staff at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital" on the back of their record. So, no Bobby EBZ interview. However, the cat was pretty easy to figure out, so I'm pretty sure the lyrics to his b-side thrasher "Live to Fuck" sum up his legacy perfectly- "I don't care to save the world And I don't need no steady girl I don't want no wife and kids Cuz I live to fuck, and fuck to live". Right on. Thanks for rocking, Bobby. See you in Heaven, or wherever cats like you and I end up." __________________________________________________________________________________  That’s the beginning and ending of the Genocide story, ‘cept for maybe the
locals-only buzz in NYC that EBZ made up the whole jail-time scenario
because it sounded infinitely cooler than the ugly truth, and actually
spent the mid-80’s strung out on blended whiskey and filterless cigarettes
in darkened hallways throughout lower Manhattan. But whatever, really. As
often happens in rock n roll, when the band split up, they scattered like
chemical addicted cockroaches, and we are left with plenty of big, gaping
holes in rock history to fill in. Unfortunately, the trail runs cold at
every angle. Bass player Rock n’ Roll Bobb Sexton is nowhere to be found.
Neither is drummer T. Best. Gone in a cloud of smoke. Guitarist Pete “Powers” Marshall (also
ex-Samhain, Letch Patrol, Iggy Pop band) may or may not be a
morning-zoo
guy at a rock radio station in Burlington, Vermont. And Bobby’s still
dead. And so we are left with only their terminal document, “Submit to
Genocide”, as proof of their tawdry, obnoxious, and entirely righteous
existence.  Visually speaking, “Submit to Genocide” is pretty much unrivaled in the
realm of Bad Ass Motherfuckers-ville. Neither the band’s name or the
album’s title shows an ounce of self-restraint, and one look at the four
drugged-out punk vampires on the cover tells you in no uncertain terms
that you’ve got a seriously maladjusted rock n’ roll band on your hands.
Under a crude, jagged logo, and surrounded by rows of downward staring
eyeballs, Genocide sit against a concrete wall, bare except for a
Nazi-like red banner bearing the eyeball graphic, behind Sexton’s
dreadlocked head.
All around the band- and in Bobby’s case, on his lap – are skulls and
skeletons. It looks like a cannibalistic mockery of the Last Supper, which
was probably exactly their intention. The band’s over-the-top image, a
crazed hybrid of the mile-high hair spikes and studded leather of seminal
UK punks Discharge, the equally leathered n’ spiked biker warrior gear of
Judas Priest, and the smeary make-up and tatters of early 80’s LA glam
metal, still looks like state-of-the-art drugstar demon-chic. As my
long-time headbanging tight bro and local metal-crit luminary
Keith “Goat
Thrower” Bennett recently said, “I remember looking at that record cover
and thinking, ‘I wish I could look as evil and skinny as that.’” Indeed.
Of course, post-apocalyptic sex-ghoul fashion was all the rage in rock n roll in the late 80s- see Rogue Male and every other Road Warrior-obsessed metal band of the era- but Genocide fit their outfits so well that there was no doubt they slept and fucked in the same clothes they rocked in. Just dig the band’s collective vacant stare (except for Bobby, who couldn’t be bothered to look the camera’s way at all) for further confirmation. This was an entirely new breed of party animal, the kind that was quite willing to take Bad Fun as far it could possibly go- to jail, or to the graveyard, or the slaughterhouse. Wherever. If the band sounded half as wicked as they looked, then they’d still have carved out some hellpunk niche for themselves on the primal power of their presentation alone. Amazingly enough, however, Genocide sounded even meaner than they looked. In a direct cop of Motley Crue’s “In the beginning…” horror-jive intro to “Shout at the Devil”, Genocide also open their album with a bit of growly spoken word, courtesy one ‘Lance-O-Matic’: “You have been warned- Your society’s rejected children are ready and down to kill*. For now, it’s time to submit to Genocide.”  And then, all hell breaks loose. Genocide’s sound was snarly punk rock at
it’s core, amped up to industrial strength by ham-fisted biker metal
riffs, and played with ramshackle, barely controlled enthusiasm that
bordered on complete chaos. Sure, it is truthful to say that they were
somewhere slightly below adequate in their abilities to actually play
their chosen instruments. It is also truthful to say that it didn’t matter
one fuckin’ bit. Their sound was a lunatic teenage roar of lust and hate
and blood-thirst and chainsaw cock rock so single-minded and pure in
intent that, possibly in spite of itself, it transcended the grunt-punch
limitations inherent in ‘music to fuck and kill to' completely. Somewhere
amidst the profane spittle and jackboot swagger is the unmistakable stink
of revolution. Just like the MC5, really. Only with well-concealed flick
knives instead of commie-baiting mumbo jumbo. They were definitely down
with drugs and fucking in the streets part, tho. Opener “Knives” is fueled by a bratty, incessant punk rock riff that sounds like some drunk asshole poking you in the chest with his index finger. A ‘war on everybody’ kinda song, it’s lyrics are muddled, schizophrenic and pissed-right the fuck off, and reflect both Bobby’s hardcore punk roots and his obsession with cheesy horror movie motifs. “I feast with my empire colored red by your bloodbath.” You know, stuff like that. The chorus follows a standard pattern that the band use in almost every song – they all scream out the title like angel dusted psychotics arguing with ghosts. “Knives! Knives! Knives! Knives in society’s side!” Not exactly an intellectual statement, but they sure do sound like they mean it, man.  “Die Wasted” turned out to be a pretty prophetic song for
EBZ to write, since that’s what he did. It may also be the most
brutish, primitive cock rock song ever written, consisting of nothing more
than a two-note flash metal riff thrashed out at double-speed, and some
truly nasty, drunken grunting from EBZ. It veers into a swagger-strut
crotch grabbing beat for 30 seconds somewhere in the middle, but
mostly it's just a nasty bruise of rampant self-destruction. “Predator” borrows heavily from early Metallica. If Kill ‘Em All was performed by whiskey fried punks (as opposed to whiskey-fried metal heads, like it was), then “Predator” would be “Hit the Lights”. It’s two and half minutes of pure headbanging bliss, with nothing on it’s mind but bloody murder. “I’m the late night double-feature/I am the reptile, I am the creature”, EBZ snarls, before howling “Trap them and kill them!” over and over. We were all pretty obsessed with that Richard Ramirez creep back then, remember. Speedmetal hell, indeed. “Twelve O’ Clock and All is Hell” is something of a flash metal epic, filled with buzzing goth-grind guitars somewhere between the Damned and “Mr Crowley”, and an insane screamy vocal performance from EBZ. It’s about being bored and lonely, really – “The telephone rings/but it’s no relief/just another wrong number”- but it sounds like a loud, screechy, panicky nervous breakdown. Intense.  “Period” is about exactly what you think it is, and it sounds that way
too, like GG Allin fronting a buzzing, feedback-drenched, speedglam metal
band. After a rousing shoutalong of “C…U…N…T!” Bobby launches into a
gibbering, slobbering come-on that could only work in the most unholy of
whorehouses. “You’re having your period – it’s that time of the month You know what you are – you’re a cunt on the rag Lying there with your bloodcunt and lace Let’s go bitch/Sit on my face!” How could any woman resist? Songs like this one were a big part of the reason Genocide were strictly for the hardcore sleazehounds, cuz it’s more obnoxious than it is funny, more mean-spirited than perverse. But, ya know, that’s blood on their lips, not lipstick, baby. Certainly not the band’s finest moment, but raw and nasty, just like they liked it. Side two opens with a blistering punkmetal grind lifted straight out of the Misfits’ “Green Hell” (with a few bonus Slayer squeals), and is pretty much just an excuse for Bobby to chant “Die! Die! Die!” until he gets it out of his system. It’s thoroughly exhausting, and it’s only a minute long. Righteous. You know, I actually wouldn’t have expected EBZ to nail a mental disorder in one pithy swoop, but as he so succinctly explains in “Sociopath”, “It’s you there’s something wrong with/Not me”. I dunno if he understood yr average sociopath personality so well because he’d read too many true crimes books, or because he actually was one, but I tell you this much- if sociopaths wrote self-aggrandizing odes to themselves, I am sure they would sound exactly like this one. Burning like a lit fuse with speed metal drums, a spiraling Armored Saint riff, and a Kerry King guitar solo, “Sociopath” is white-line fever personified, the perfect soundtrack for hauling ass across state lines with a body in the trunk.  Charlie Manson
was another 80’s deathtrip culture obsession, so it’s no
surprise to find “Manson Youth” here, especially since “Charlie Loves You”
is etched right into the vinyl. Despite the ginchy freakmurder lyrics,
which are a mish-mash of Manson lure and sputtering threats (“Happened in
California/Could happen in New York/ It could happen in your front yard”),
the song sounds more like pure hardcore punk for most of it’s running
time, until it suddenly shifts gears into headbanging cock rock halfway
through. Kinda like “Rocket Queen”, only with dune buggys and deathpiggies.
“Live to Fuck, Fuck to Live” rides a thigh-high glampunk riff and is really more of a profane chant than an actual song. It’s an infectious motherfucker, tho, and not only is it impossible to resist pumping a skull-ringed fist in the air and howling along with simian lust, but it’s also pretty honest, if ya think about it. “I got a terminal hard-on/Just won’t quit/I live to fuck/And I fuck to live.” C’mon, you were a teenager once, right? Anyway, this is the kinda song Tesco Vee woulda wrote back in the Meatmen’s Super Rock days, if he wasn’t so obsessed with being clever all the time. Cuz it’s not clever at all, ya see. It’s big and dumb. Just like sex. “Submit to Genocide” ends with the snarling anti-religion anthem, “Not Saved”. In typical anti-social fashion, Bobby defies society and God and whoever else is in his way with a guttural, “I won’t fear Armageddon/ I won’t kiss ass to go to Heaven/revelation don’t threaten me/In the end, I’ll still be free”. Dunno if he still felt that way when he was breathing his last, but he probably did. As you would expect, “Not saved” which borrows it’s thumping bass and galloping power metal riffs from Overkill, is the fastest, loudest, meanest song on an album that was already stacked tits high with all three. Perversely enough, it’s even got a bunch of kids chanting “I’m not saved” on it’s chorus. Even Venom didn’t think of that one. A perfectly sinister ending.  Genocide
fizzled not long after this record was released, but by the late
80’s, their pioneering punk/metal hybrid sound had already been adopted by
forward thinking bands on both sides of the rickety genre fence. Still, I
don’t think anybody ever did it as seamlessly, and with such unrelenting
sleaze, as Genocide did. Listening to this album now, 16 years after it’s
release, I still think they sound ahead of their time. And they still look
bad ass. Perhaps Genocide really are the world’s first post-apocalyptic
band, and as soon as a few nuclear bombs vaporize most of us, “Submit to
Genocide” will finally be lauded as the sick, punchy masterpiece that it
is. Probably not, but maybe. Listen, do you think that if Genocide’s ten track blueprint for a sleazy apocalypse had caught on back in ’87, that terrorists, conservative talk show hosts, sweater wearing emo simps, jarhead nu-metal goons, or any number of the modern day killjoys and irritants that plague our rotten world would have a fuckin’ chance to fester under the skin of American culture like an infected wound? No way, baby. Imagine a whole army of Bobby EBZs roaming our streets, hungry and mean. Imagine running with that crowd. If we really did “Submit to Genocide”, we sure wouldn’t be interfacing via computer screens or wincing at nightly news reports. No, we’d be out there in the wasteland, drinking and fucking and freaking freely. And we’d be evil. And skinny. End Notes: *New York gang-slang for a rumble. The term was immortalized, in rock n’ roll terms, by Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers (DTK live at the Speakeasy – 1982, Jungle records) Here’s a pretty funny story of a starry-eyed punk groupie bringing Bobby EBZ home to meet her mom. According to Tartarean Desire, Bobby used to date former Nymphs beauty and confirmed crazy chick Inger Lorre. Now there’s a power couple. With a rock n’ roll motherfucker pedigree second only to vagabond skinsman Haggis (Four Horsemen, Cult, Zodiac Mindwarp), original Genocide drummer Brian Keats went on to crash and bash for Verbal Abuse, the Misfits, Raging Slab, and Princess Pang. -Sleazegrinder _______________________________________________________________________________ |