CD Reviews: December 1997
Archived
Cary Bell
Good Luck Man
Alligator Records
Cary Bell has long been one of my favorite blues harp players. His new release, Good Luck Man, only serves to strengthen that opinion. Not since Big Walter Horton has any single harp player so epitomized the Chicago Blues sound. To his fans, his harp playing is almost instantly recognizable. He has an unmistakable technique and tone. On Good Luck Man somehow, Carey Bell managed, for the most part, to avoid the “over-produced” sound that I’ve noticed on so many Alligator releases lately. This is an overall great disc by a tough Chicago veteran. Carey Bell is the Real Deal. Check out “Hard Working Woman.” Too cool. —Mojo Mike
The Hentchmen
Broad Appeal
Norton
The organ’s wailing and the fuzz is flying. The Hentchmen open their third album with “Michigan Blues,” a Detroit garage blues number for humpin’ and chuggin’. Just as the last chord fades away the young trio launches into one of only three covers. “Slow Down,” “Red Hot Car” and “Lucille” demonstrate impeccable taste, but hang on to the vintage threads because the Hentchmen have about 30 minutes of rockin’ originals left. “Cashmere and Campau” is a rippin’ instrumental. The organ makes the band. There are thousands of bands all over the world attempting to create the greatest garage rock record ever. The vast majority either haven’t realized the depth of sound an organ can give a trio or they simply can’t play one. Not that Broad Appeal is the greatest garage record ever, but the idea for most seems to be: find a vocalist who gargles with bourbon and Listerine, learn a few fuzzy licks and strip the drum kit down to four or five pieces. Give the drummer down rods, find a plunker for the bass and there’s a garage band. Wrong. The Hentchmen have all of it except the bass, and then they add organ. Fuck solo piano and fuck electronic keyboards. If the instrument is as it sounds, most of the space in The Hentchmen’s van is taken up by a vintage organ. By now the reader is saying, “Shut up about the organ, man.” Okay, I’ll repeat something. There isn’t a bass. Guitar, vocals and organ, that’s
it.
The guys look like the average, everyday modern nerds who play punk rock. How and why they ever learned about garage rock and decided to play it in the first place is beyond me, but play it they do and they play the hell out of it. Okay, John plays the organ, blows the harp and sings lead. Tim is the guitarist and harmony vocalist. This boy isn’t trapped by fuzz. He’ll toss off a rockabilly-, surf- or Latin-inspired lick quicker than a traffic light changes from yellow to red. The drummer, Mike, who also contributes harmonies is cracking the set like thunder and lightning in a Utah snow blizzard. I’ve saved the most surprising aspect of Broad Appeal for last. There are 16 songs and with the exception of “Chrissy Rides Again,” each and every one of them lasts exactly one minute and 58 seconds. How do they do that? —Chaz Romano
Bobby Radcliff
“Live at the Rynborn”
Blacktop Records
Bobby Radcliff is obviously a very talented guitar player. He plays so fast, very fast. Most of the time in my opinion, a little too fast. As if he’s trying to cram too many notes into too small of a space. I noticed this on two of his previous releases, and being recorded live didn’t seem to make a difference. I did, however, really like the opening song, “Improvisations on Honky Tonk.” Guitar players will probably love this disc. He has an incredible technique but I find it hard to listen to for very long. Take a valium, Bobby. —Mojo Mike
Teen Idols
Honest Don’s Reliable Redneck
Recordings
“I fought the law and the law won.” Sony Curtis will never discover that the Teen Idols ripped the riff to his song off and titled it “Let’s Make Noise.” Black leather, pompadours, a band named the Teen Idols and a female bassist with a baby doll T-shirt under the leather. Appearances can fool because the music isn’t rockabilly. It is trash. “Johnny has a dream to make the scene where he can make all the young girls scream / Unbuckling his belt will surely make them melt / turning butter into cream / For now, he’s an unknown who’s content to take orders / stocking magazines, turning five’s into quarters / Soon he’ll make them see that he’s got what it takes / When they get a look at his 14-inch snake.”
“Standing around at a punk rock show / I’m watching a band that’s way too slow / I’m feeling fine from beer and wine / But this damn place is a waste of my time / Let’s go alright! / Come dance with me / Fuck you! come dance with me / Fuck you! come dance with me / I’m feeling fine ‘cause I fucking lost my mind.” This band had best have some decent lyrics because the music is the same as 5,000 other bands play. Melodic power-pop punk to jump around to presenting the Teen Idols. The harmonies are in place, the speed is too. The whole project is very well done and well played and if there is anything to separate the Teen Idols from the rest it is Heather’s harmonies. The one time she steps out to sing a verse, “Anybody Else,” the band reveals not only a catchy song, but also hope for their future. —Skid
Another Girl
In The Galaxy
RCA
She thinks she wants to be a softer, more emotionally approachable Courtney Love with the indie label rapport of an Ani DiFranco but still write music that will sell without really giving anything personal away, at least not on the surface. Surface seems to be all there is to Another Girl’s music. The two minute ditties are skirmishes of lifeless lyrics and fizzy pop. Hasn’t everyone recorded a song entitled “Anything For You” — well just in case, Another Girl included this saccharine song not once, but twice for your enjoyment. And if anyone can tell the difference between that song and the creative secretion of “Do You Want Me Too,” you shouldn’t admit it. Please take some risks and sound shitty like no one else, rather than sounding shitty like everyone else. —Mad Reverend
T-Model Ford
Pee-Wee Get Your Gun
Fat Possum/Epitaph
Matthew Johnson, the owner of Fat Possum Records wrote the liner notes for this release. The notes tell T-Model Ford’s story and rather than review the CD I’ll simply copy the liner notes. T-Model’s blues are about as raw and primitive as anything I’ve ever experienced. Those who believe the other artists on the Fat Possum roster; R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and CeDell Davis are raw and primitive ain’t heard nothing yet. This crazy old bastard plays the blues like the blues should be played. His blues throb, they burn, they bump and they grind. These blues are as nasty and funky smelling as the satin sheets Wayne Hancock describes in his song, “87 Southbound.” Anyway, here’s Matthew to tell the story of one T-Model Ford.
“Mississippi has got to be the worst place to live. Schools suck, infant mortality really sucks and Mississippians have called on the casinos to save us. However, being number fifty out of fifty is not completely without perks. Appearances aren’t as important — the state allows its residents to store twenty-six worn-out tires per acre — no one could be faulted for giving up in such a broke-dick place. It’s no secret that the worst places have always inspired the strangest and loudest howls, and T-Model’s savage moan is no exception.
T-Model’s credentials as a bluesman are impeccable; if anything, the man’s overqualified. He was born James Lewis Carter Ford in Forrest, a small community in Scott County, Mississippi. T-Model thinks he’s seventy-five, but isn’t sure. He was plowing a field behind a mule on his family’s farm by age 11, and in his early teens he secured a job at a local sawmill. He excelled and was later recruited by a foreman from a bigger lumber company in the Delta, near Greenville, and eventually got promoted to truck driver. Between that and working in a log camp, T-Model was sentenced to ten years on a chain-gang for murder. He lucked out and was released after serving two. He says, grinning, ‘I could really stomp some ass back then, stomp it good.I was a sure enough dangerous man.’
Well, old times are not forgotten. T-Model is constantly arguing playfully with Stella, his girlfriend, about their more violent disagreements. When asked how many times he’d been to jail, T-Model responded, ‘Don’t know. How many?’ He seemed to think it might be a trick question. Upon realizing it wasn’t, he answered to the best of his ability. ‘Every Saturday night there for a while.’
As disheartening as this is, it’s also a refreshing reminder of how ridiculous the present image of a bluesman is. Nothing could be more twisted than the romanticized and picturesque standard; an old black man devoid of anger and rage happily strumming an acoustic guitar on the back porch of his shack ‘in that evening sun.’ Three quarters of a century old, and with a dislocated hip, T-Model Ford is the only musician making his debut who could just as easily be starring in the most competitive branch of the National Wrestling Federation: The Cage Match.
Although Fat Possum makes it its business to trod some wild paths, the wildest yet has to be the one that T-Model’s drummer, Spam, lives on. We stopped enroute to New York City just as Spam’s girlfriend walked out the door dragging an oxygen tank and holding a cigarette in her hand — a situation that could have easily blown out her rib cage, if not the entire block. Spam didn’t care about that, though. He was worried she might snip off the tip of his finger with a box cutter again.
Tommy Lee Miles to the authorities, Spam to his friends, he has been T-Model’s A-number-one drummer for the past eight years. Sam Carr and Frank Frost, T-Model’s old friends, were brought in for one session. But the guest musician’s smiles gave way to scowls as T-Model’s constant refrain (‘T-Model Ford is going to remember you sorry fuckers how it’s done’) became more and more emphatic. Seconds before ‘Been A Long Time’ was recorded, Frank Frost felt compelled to state, ‘I want everyone to know that I’m now playing against my will.’
T-Model and Spam are the only men still playing Greensville’s Nelson Street. Most of the audience has scattered due to the violence from the crack trade, and with the exception of T-Model, the street which once boasted Booba Barnes and others is dead. On a typical night, Spam and T-Model will arrive at the club and unpack T-Model’s guitar and amp, and the bass drum and snare he allows Spam to use. When T-Model feels there are enough people, they start banging away in their own post-war Peavy-powered hillstomp. It’s nothing unusual for T-Model to play eight hours a night. They keep going until no one’s left standing. After his equipment’s packed up, T-Model will coat himself with Outdoorsman Off and climb into his van to crash.”
The CD is as amazing as those liner notes. —Ezra
David Holmes
Lets Get Killed
Go! Beat/ 1500
If you need any ideas on how to use the word fuck, this is the CD for you.The jacket promises to be “funky as fuck” and I’ll paraphrase G.W.H; the fuckini fuckers fuckin funky. This is New York-centered acid funk good enough for any cocaine-rattled clubwhore. The sampling before each session are character vignettes talking about shit like; “New York is the shit, man / New York is the bomb, man / we got whores and fine women to hook up with” or “James Bond is the man to me because I don’t care what nobody says, if you can get a gun, shoot 30 people, walk out, blow it up, knock a piece of dirt on it, walk down the block, pick up a chick and take her to a motel you is the shit.” This is followed by the coolest James Bond theme song you’ll ever hear. You may remember David’s older brother Rupert; “lf you like pina coladas / or making love in the rain.” No, actually Rupert is a distant cousin or may not even be related. —Mad Reverend
Murder 1
Shopping For Porn
NMG Records
Wow. Aren’t these guys the shit? They are really, really mad about something… I mean everything. If you reach within your own heart, you will find the strength to be as mad as they are and then you can survive. I learned this information by listening to “Hero Within.” “Sick Of Being Sick” explains how sick Murder 1 is of working all day, cutting their hair, guys who think they are gay and many other things.They are sick of being sick, but the question remains. What are they going to do about it? I guess they will find a ”J. Crew girl.” The CD is halfway over and I’ve heard a combination of pretty typical punk rock intermixed with pretty typical heavy metal guitar soloing. Cakeboy is the vocalist and he has an astounding ability. Cakeboy can sing better than anyone from Days Of The New, Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20 or Sister Hazel when he feels like it. Most of the time he doesn’t feel like it. Since he is so angry he wants to destroy his vocal chords by screaming. He engages in some rapping/spoken word as well.
“Why are you so angry?” “Why do you sit around listening to angry punk rock music all the time?” Why don’t you fuckers waste some of my tax money on a congressional investigation to find out why? Hasn’t anyone noticed the big mess? Of course not, how could you, you’re sitting in it. I guess I could take drugs, go to raves and dance all night. That would make me happy, wouldn’t it? —Ezra
The Murmurs
Pristine Smut
MCA Records
Fiona Apple, The Indigo Girls and now The Murmurs follow a grand tradition of female complaint rock. Granted, they are on the harder side of the spectrum, they still can belt some soulful lyrics; “I’m a mess…” (repeat ad nauseum). Oh they’ve got some bittersweet irony in their lyrical feed bag; “We’ll play a game of house / You be the girl and I’ll be the boy.” The album is produced by K. D. Lang and she’s sittin’ on a gold mine (in more than one way) with this band. Genius sounds just like Constant Craving — heh, it worked once right? They’ve got the trend, the style, the hit song (keep your fingers crossed) and the producer; now they need you to gobble up their albums. Do it now before they are too popular and remember to go to their concert in army fatigues to give it that nice militant female atmosphere. I’m constantly craving for Ms. Lang and The Mumblings to get back in their damn Toyota trucks and go home. —Mad Reverend
The Lazy Cowgirls
A Little Sex and Death
Crypt
One listen to A Little Sex and Death and the entire Tenderloin influence becomes as clear as a jug of Everclear. I probably have about five years left before I won’t be able to listen to music this good anymore. I’ll have a heart attack and die. The only thing Tenderloin has that The Lazy Cowgirls lack is the harmonica and even as I wrote the words it appears in “Name Droppin’ Son Of A Bitch.” “Here Comes Trouble” is the opener. The Rolling Stones are supposed to be the “greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.” That’s bullshit. The Rolling Stones never rocked as hard as The Lazy Cowgirls. They didn’t rock this hard when they were copying American bluesmen. The Lazy Cowgirls rank right up there with bands such as the MC5, the Stooges, the New York Dolls, very early Brownsville Station and Bruce Springsteen before he became famous and quit playing bars in Ashbury Park.
Since the label is Crypt, the temptation to include a lot of “garage” rockin’ names appears as a light bulb above the head, but that “garage” term isn’t sufficient. A Little Sex and Death is music for insanity. The disc doesn’t drive me insane, but think of all those suit guys. They listen to shit like Amy Grant Christmas CDs, they listen to Mannheim Steamroller and they believe Yanni, Enya and Enigma are just the best. I’d like to take some of those silly fuckers and lock them in a concrete room just like an inmate. Locking them in a concrete room wouldn’t disturb them in the least because that is how they spend their days, locked away in some little room with a computer, a fax and a phone; even as they pretend to be the “man” while serving their time for the “man” above them, but blindfold the fuckers. Strap them to a chair. Place the highest quality head phones on the market over their ears. Imagine an entire room filled with men in suits and either pony tails, balding heads or brush cuts handcuffed to antique wooden kitchen chairs wearing headphones. Unbuckle their “slacks” and place them at knee level. Now place The Lazy Cowgirls in a CD player, turn the volume up to 10 and watch. They’d be flopping like a trout on the beach in about 30 seconds and they’d all be dead before the beam reached “Bad News,” the seventh track on A Little Sex and Death. Of course, death is always accompanied by shitting, pissing and an ejaculation for males. It would be the best shit, piss, orgasm any of them ever had.
If the reader is not a suit wearer and actual music is of interest, the latest “product” from The Lazy Cowgirls is pretty much a ripper of a listen. After a very long year and thousands of recordings, it is my #1 and that is no bullshit. —Sweet Thing Let Me Take You From Behind
The Van Pelt
Art Monk Construction
This is a very special EP full of not-so-inventive lyrical imagery. The song “The Speeding Train” is merely stagnant images repeated “The speeding train / the puppy’s chin / the perfect pitch” The only other song is set to “I Want Candy.” The best thing I can say is it was only seven minutes long. I salute this belch of a recording with a belch of a review. —Mad Reverend
Kittens
Bazooka and the Hustler
Sonic Unyon
“Overall it’s like country noise rock,” says singer Shawn Fedorchuck. Sonic Unyon sent two CDs. It’s a Canadian label and I have no idea where in this stupid city to purchase the music. The website is www.sonicunyon.com. The band is from Winnipeg, but an interview included with the CD has the information on their rural roots. Evidently rural roots equal country music. Bazooka and the Hustler barely hints at country music. I guess in the Kittens’ minds, banging away like the rhythm band in an insane asylum is creating country music. This guy Shawn is in a rage. At least that’s what it sounds like and I’m not going to attempt to decipher the lyrics he spews from his wounded-mother-bear-in-search-of-a-lost-cub throat. The animal reference applies because seven of the 14 songs have an animal in the title. If any animals survive the coming Apocalypse, the noise of their pain as they walk the scorched earth is previewed by the Kittens on the Bazooka and the Hustler CD. —Jeremiah
King Sour
Instrumentally Retarded
Morphius Records
The title gives it away. King Sour doesn’t have a vocalist. The CD is mood music for the wasted. Here’s a story. This guy was telling me how all local bands are stuck doing A-B-A-B music. He did enjoy Blanche. Everyone enjoys Blanche. But King Sour titled a song “A.D.D.” just for him. It isn’t A-B-A-B, but it is close enough and the man in question probably can’t say his A-B-C’s anyway. So King Sour is interested in tone and dynamics. The musicianship is hardly spectacular. The pieces are all quite similar in nature, but when notes are sustained or just minimally embellished with some blast and grate texture the music becomes enjoyable. Another technique used by King Sour is old fashioned repetition. The technique goes all the way back to, I guess, a Phillip Glass influence. Lock into it until the repetition reaches the point of unbearable irritation and then move on to the next phase of repetition. “Math Rock, My Ass” is Instrumentally Retarded’s best example. Play that little number for the neighborhood progressive rock freak or the technically proficient Eric Johnson buff. Actually restrain the unit, and I say unit because the vast majority of these people aren’t human, and force them to listen. Keep a syringe full of Thorazine handy because there is some probability that insanity will occur. —Doc Eko
Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band
Trouble Is…
Revolution
Kenny Wayne Shepherd is one of the new Vaughan family. He joins Chris Duarte Vaughan, Corey Stevens Vaughan, Johnny Lang Vaughan and about a hundred or so lesser known names in the sweepstakes to replace Stevie Ray Vaughan in the record collections of minimally intelligent males. A few females are involved as well (“Kenny Wayne Shepherd rocks my world. When he plays it makes me wanna holler,” says Wynonna Judd), but the phenomenon is mostly male. Just in case the target is fuzzy, look at who is guesting. Why there’s Double Trouble. That trio could make a million guesting on albums by every Stevie Ray wanna-be coming down the road, and they probably already have. “Trouble Is… is definitely not De-ja Voodoo all over again, but an astonishing piece of work that accomplishes exactly what Kenny set out to do: reinvent blues rock for a new generation.” That’s what the bio says. Why then does it all sound like something I heard around 1984? You’re telling me the playing on “Everything Is Broken” doesn’t counterfeit Chris Duarte Vaughan? What does Kenny Wayne Shepherd Vaughan do for his very next attempt at “reinventing blues rock history” but cover, oh, I mean, interpret Jimi Hendrix? I might as well save my time and my money and stick with vinyl copies of Couldn’t Stand The Weather, Texas Flood, Soul To Soul or In Step. —Billy Boy Vaughan
Honeydogs
Seen A Ghost
debris
God take me back a few years. The band has received a No Depression feature. Their song, “Rum0r Has It,” is a perfect example of ’70s California soft rock with hints of ’60s pop rock and a slight twang. The second number reveals more of the reason No Depression jumped on the band. “John Brown” is a folk rock ballad, but there is a twist. Al Kooper has a guest spot on Hammond organ. With the third song, the Honeydogs’ mission is finally realized and as the fourth, fifth and sixth numbers slip into the consciousness their place is secure. Sort of. The Honeydogs are straddling the hippie rock and country rock fence. It’s a barbed wire fence and the band is in danger of slipping in the mud. If one boot slips, their balls are caught in barbed wire. Now, anyone who has had their balls caught in barbed wire is aware of how unpleasant the experience can be.
As long as the Honeydogs stick with tear jerkers such as “Those Things Are Hers” — which not only features piano and organ from Kooper, but also fiddle from Mike “Razz” Russell, a lap steel solo and some fancy country guitar picking — I’m in love with them. Country rockers were pretty much punks in the ’70s anyway, punks with broken hearts and alcohol problems. “Into Thin Air” is one example of a near slip. “Your Blue Door” just isn’t a very good song. The strings and overemphasis on production makes things worse. Since I’m such an expert I’ll give the band some hints. The best songs feature both fiddle and lap steel. Forget the cellos and violins. Keep the production lean and don’t let the guitars rock, acoustic is fine, but kindly keep it country. Overall Seen A Ghost is very good if country rock is at all appealing. If you don’t like Uncle Tupelo, the Jayhawks, the Delvantes and that entire crowd then forget it. —City Dick
Fu Manchu
The Action Is Go
Mammoth
The one-sheet provided with the CD proclaims Fu Manchu as metal. It must be so because the people where I work whine like a two-year-old every time they hear the disc. “Imagine a 70’s rock feel with a 90’s SoCal attitude.” Well, whoever wrote the one-sheet missed it, a not uncommon happening. If Fu Manchu sounds like anything, it is Blue Cheer. Who are they trying to fool? The band is a quartet and not a trio like the Blue Cheer boys, but Scott Hill (vocals), if he will admit it, has spent some time studying Dickie Peterson, the Blue Cheer vocalist/bassist. The riffs, the hard rock, psychedelic heavy metal-acid rock — it’s all taken from Blue Cheer.
Don’t take me wrong, sounding like Blue Cheer is certainly not bad in 1997. Hardly anyone remembers the true godfathers of modern metal today, although Steve Albini produced an album for them in, I believe ’95 or ’96. So the Fu Manchu guys studied Peterson, Paul Whaley (drums) and Leigh Stevens (guitars). The Action Is Go sounds as fresh in 1997 as Vincebus Eruptum did in 1968. Even though the album is promoted as heavy metal the aspects of heavy metal I’ve come to hate are missing. Don’t mention pop metal or glam metal around Fu Manchu because their clues are taken from the ’60s, not the idiots filling stadiums during the ’70s and ’80s. Pick any song at random — actually I like to set my player on shuffle for the disc and experience total and complete acid rock and psychedelia as it actually was. Where’s the light show? Where’s the chicks completely naked under flowing dresses? If there was a band to shout out a “rock on!” to it is Fu Manchu and·their new CD The Action Is Go. I like a lot of albums, rarely does one come along that I love and I love this fucker totally and completely. —Holden Caulfield
Guitar Wolf
Planet Of the Wolves
Matador
I’ve collected records for more years than I will ever tell at this point in time and I’ve spent more years than I will ever reveal in the so-called music industry. After all those years and all those records, I’ve decided that the only thing that matters anymore is trashy, extreme music. I don’t care about dynamics, melodies, harmonies or technical proficiency anymore. I want something extreme, I want something noisy, I want something that will make me feel all the pain of everyday existence.
I’m sorry, but pretending to replace pain by meditating to some stupid recording by Cusco, Eko, Danny Wright or Giovanni is the same as masking the pain with drugs or alcohol. Don’t mask the pain; accept it, embrace it, absorb the painful and extreme sounds of Guitar Wolf. Turn this shit up until the speakers blow, it sounds better through blown speakers. Take a ball point pen and pretend you are Link Wray. Shove the fucking pen into the cone of a $1,000 speaker and crank the motherfucker. “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” is an old Rolling Stones song, “mother fuckin’, mother fuckin’, let’s go” is a Guitar Wolf lyric. Don’t even attempt to clean the needle fuzz from the CD player laser beam because it is impossible. Planet Of The Wolves is your inspirational, meditation music and a daily listen will remove the need for a therapist. —Shit For Brains
The Derailers
Reverb Deluxe
Sire/Watermelon
Tony, Brian, Terry and Ethan — I look at their faces pictured on the back cover as I finally listen to their completed major label debut. I’ve seen the boys play these songs three times. The songs and the band are like old friends and Reverb Deluxe is as close to my heart as some old girlfriend who hasn’t called in ten years.The advance cassette has been my constant companion for at least four months. Without question, the best song is “Pawnshop Wedding Rings.” Tony Villanueva wrote the song with Monte Warden. The names are unfamiliar to the loyal SLUG reader because your musical taste is about as well developed as your brains. The song is about rescuing two wedding rings from the pawnshop and teaching them about love. The Derailers play country. Ain’t no bullshit country either. “California Angel” is Buck Owens playing in a surf band. “No One To Talk To But The Blues” beats Garth Brooks‘ latest “piece of crap” (I’m copying Neil Young there) “Long Neck Bottle” for a drinking song and “It’s Too Late” is another barroom weeper. Reverb Deluxe is a honky tonk disc out of Austin that sounds like Bakersfield in ’65. Bakersfield in ’65 was filled with punks, but back then they thought they were cowboys. —Tooter Boatman
Blue Stingrays
Surf-N-Bum
Epitone
Hype comes in many forms. In the case of the Blue Stingrays, the hype came in the form of a prefabricated biography, prefabricated LP releases that never were and anonymity. I believe that the Blue Stingrays are actually the Residents. The record label Epitone is remarkably similar to· Epitone, a label the Dave & Deke Combo have been known to use, so it could actually be Dave and Deke with members of Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys. Pictured inside the little CD booklet are the record covers for Let’s Go, Surf Party and Valley Of The Days. According to reference materials, these albums were never released, by Epitone, Del-Ray, or anyone else.
“The Blue Stingrays’ story starts in ‘59 the band formed that summer in SoCal and created a new sound unlike any before or since….These surf guitar pioneers produced three legendary recordings on the now defunct Del-Ray records.” I’m sure the members of the Blue Stingrays are all so famous that anyone would recognize their names if they were printed and I ain’t fallin’ for the hype because… the disc doesn’t move me. Fer sure dude, it’s all well done, but surf music, actual surf music makes my heart quake. The Blue Stingrays are residing in the “lounge.” It’s wallpaper. Very pleasant wallpaper with plenty of twang, but it is still wallpaper. I missed the waves, I missed the sand, I missed the muscle boys, I missed the babes and I certainly didn’t acquire a “woody” from listening, but possibly more important than any of that — I missed the surf. Snore… file the Blue Stingrays in the “New Age” or “Easy Listening” section. —Frankie Funicello
Janes Addiction
Kettle Whistle
Warner Bros
This is a record I felt would need perhaps a little more of a commentary than review. The memories this record conjured in me are sometimes a cruel joke sometimes scandalously revealing. But first off, this is the record that Janes has been promising since their breakup.
Since the thing only has two new songs, it is destined to be a pure nostalgia record. Those of us that have collected Janes’ pieces will no doubt notice the true lack of anything new. So here’s where I get to vent a little bit. Screw you, Mr. Company man, for making me wait to hear stuff I already had.
This is an all too familiar reunion (even without Eric Avery) album. So don’t even start condescending to me how it’s like a new family all fresh and shiny. It’s a glass bead, it’s what you need to keep your other projects going. It’s about the money. Hey, that’s cool, I mean, but have the balls to admit it. I mean, as much as I hate the Sex Pistols at least they let you know it was about the money up front. Even the goddamn Cure has the integrity to let you know it’s for the money and to get out of a record contract (referring to their new album Galore here). Buddy, I want honesty not bullshit.
So why am I so mad? I don’t know, I just have trouble with thinking a group who broke the underground to the world could be so bold as to make this lie about an organic reunion rather than admit the economic reunion that it is. Don’t be fooled, I still have a great deal of respect for J.A. and their movement to expose frat boys to what they were missing. And to expose some of us in the respective scenes to a sense of unity.
I suppose to make that statement ring a bit more to those of you who got involved after 90-91, I should explain things. Before Janes, the underground was a much more divided camp. Skins, Skaters, Goths, Punks (more for look than substance), etc…. Violence was common and the call was unity but it was a half-hearted cry. So we tolerated each other, sometimes. So along comes this band of merry freaks breaking into a mass market. And they put out three albums, and came up with the idea of a traveling concert/festival. So everybody went and there was some of everything for all different tastes. Rollins for the skins, NIN for the skaters, Siouxsie for the goths (boy were they pissed they had to be out in the day light), and Butthole Surfers for the punks. Don’t flame me for the connections cause it crosses over now. And this festival brings us all together and for the most part we all get along. Except for the goths who stayed in the shade tents till Siouxsie and went back afterward, that damn evil sun. But you know what all of us had in common? We all noticed the frat boys, the younger kids, and the hippies. I think a lot of us knew then that what we had was almost over. You see, this was the first time most of these bands had played anything bigger than a thousand-seat hall. Some of them had never played anything bigger than 250. All of the sudden they were exposed to 50,000 or more people at every show. And people dug it.
Hey — to all you people saying, “yeah they screwed with our style.” You’re an idiot. A lot of these bands deserved this break and if it weren’t for Janes Addiction, they would never had turned out anything.
So I guess the true question here would be: Do I like the new album? An acquaintance of mine once said in his liner notes for his first band’s last album: “Breaking up is an idea too few good bands follow through with.” —Sausage King
Read more CD reviews from the archives:
CD Reviews Pt. 1: July 1997
CD Reviews: April 1997
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