So 2015 then. As with last year, it was a case of whittling down everything I've listened to and reviewed for Pure Rawk down to one list which I actually managed to do without too much of a problem. The list came to 47 albums this year in total, four of which were disqualified due to being released in 2014 (due apologies to Straight To Video, Vice Squad, the Idol Dead and Ricky Warwick's double release) and three of which only just missed out (due apologies to PIL, Oh Gunquit and Motor Sister).
But first, I figured I'd add something else on this year. And, if I'm honest, this is going to be the most controversial bit of my end of year review. Unfortunately while there's been several cracking albums that I've heard this year, there's also been a few disappointments and this is what I'm gonna cover in this introductory section.
Please note that I've worded this very carefully - it's not a "Worst Of" chart because I'm pretty sure that if you played me some dross like that shit-awful Adele album then I'd find it far less edifying than these. But the difference is that when it comes to that sort of bland manufactured music I wouldn't expect anything different so it wouldn't really count as a disappointment.
The folks below, on the other hand, should all really know better as they've either delivered great things in the past but have come up with some woefully under-par material this year or they've promised a lot and simply fallen flat on their faces. Either way, the results haven't been good. So here we go, let's get this over with shall we?...
ASH - "Kablammo!"
Aw man, I really wanted to like this as well. Touted by the band as a return to the awesomely addictive pop-punk of "1977" and "Free All Angels" that they made their name with, the truth was that a combination of terrible echoey production and a general lack of top drawer tunes all round combined to make the sixth album from Downpatrick's finest probably their weakest to date. Must do better next time lads.
BACKYARD BABIES - "Four By Four"
I'll admit to approaching this one with trepidation - the reviews were pretty savage across the board. But the truth is, "Four By Four" actually gets off to a decent start - the opening trio of "Thirteen Or Nothing", "I'm On My Way To Save Your Rock 'n' Roll" and "White Light District" were all decent tracks if a bit poppier than we're used to. The trouble is that, ironically enough with its fourth track, a horrible saccharine ballad called "Bloody Tears", "Four By Four" stumbled headlong into the fog never to return and the rest of it is pretty dismal to put it mildly. BYB badly need to rediscover the fire that they had on "Total 13" and "Making Enemies Is Good" next time out.
BITERS - "Electric Blood"
The ingredients all seemed to be there with Biters and they were hyped to high heaven by the mainstream rock press. Unfortunately "Electric Blood" was a total damp squib, sunk by over-polished soulless production and a totally forgettable set of tunes. All the more annoying when you think how many far superior bands (the Chelsea Smiles, the Black Halos, American Heartbreak) have mined this sort of music to little or no interest from the press over the last decade or so. There's a couple of half-decent tracks in the second half of the album if you can be bothered to persevere that far but really, Biters need to get a different producer in next time and get a lot nastier and more in yer face.
BRIAN JAMES - "The Guitar That Dripped Blood"
Okay, let's make no bones about it, Brian James is one of my favourite guitarists ever - not content with being the driving force behind the Damned's classic first album, he was also the man behind a lot of the razor-sharp riffs that powered along the Lords of the New Church, surely one of the '80s' most under-rated bands. Unfortunately, this album was a big disappointment, mainly because of the vocals - Brian may be an awesome guitarist but a singer, unfortunately, he is not. Hopefully if he gets a guest singer in next time he should be capable of delivering something much better.
BUCKCHERRY - "Rock 'n' Roll"
A band who, if I'm honest, have been treading water for a very long time now. The last album of theirs that I really dug all the way through was 2005's "15" and it's been law of diminishing returns time ever since. "Rock 'n' Roll" had a couple of decent songs on it ("The Feeling Never Dies" and "Sex Appeal" are both decent) but elsewhere it was a mix of poor retreads of past glories ("Wood" was basically a Vauxhall Conference version of "Crazy Bitch"), downright embarrassment ("Tight Pants" is every bit the sub-Crue cringefest you'd expect) and songs that were just plain dull. Part of me wants to believe that one day they'll produce something up there with their first three albums but the longer this goes on, the less convinced I am that it's gonna happen.
THE DARKNESS - "Last Of Our Kind"
Okay so you've made your name as a camp, entertaining British rock band coming on like the missing link between AC/DC and Queen and after reforming, you've managed to deliver an album (2013's "Hot Cakes") that was really a lot better than it had any right to be. How do you follow this up? Well, in the Darkness' case, it was with a charmless plodding battle-metal album that eschewed the tunefulness and enthusiasm of its predecessor in favour of sounding like Manowar with a few ill-fitting acoustic ballads thrown in. NEXT!
MARILYN MANSON - "The Pale Emperor"
Speaking of people who've been subject to the law of diminishing returns..."The Pale Emperor" really didn't do anything to dispel the notion that old Mazza's best days are now long behind him. Over-long, overwrought and over-egged, this was a dreary drawn-out mess with only a couple of redeeming moments mixed in with tiresome trip-hop metal and mumbled drugs confessionals. A sad fall from grace for the one time Antichrist Superstar.
W.A.S.P. - "Golgotha"
W.A.S.P.'s last two albums were decent enough workmanlike politico-metal efforts with a couple of standout moments. Blackie Lawless decided for "Golgotha" that a change was needed from the earnestness which is fair enough. Unfortunately the change involved churning out a hollow soulless arena rock album which sounded like Bon Jovi. And there's never any need for that. A couple of the later tracks at least showed some life but really, we expected a lot better.
If any of the above need a crumb of comfort, there's at least two bands on my Top 40 best albums list for this year who I'd previously written off as being well past their sell by date only for them to comeback with an unexpected Lazarus style revival in 2015 so it shows that this sort of situation can be rebounded from. So maybe the best advice I can offer is this - take a look at Therapy? and Wednesday 13's efforts this year and how they've turned things round and make some notes then apply it to your next album.
And speaking of the Top 40...let's get down to business shall we? Click here for part one.
Thursday, 24 December 2015
Wednesday, 23 December 2015
Andy's Wrestling Review 2015
So it's been a while since I covered wrestling on the blog but I thought I'd do a bit of a review for my thoughts on the last 12 months. We'll do this show by show so let's kick off with the obvious...
WWE RAW/SMACKDOWN: Well, the year started with a babyface Royal Rumble winner being given the Rock's seal of approval and still getting booed out of the ring and, apart from a couple of decent moments, it really didn't get much better from there. For the majority of 2015, Raw and Smackdown (let's be honest, they're pretty much interchangable nowadays) have been a convoluted mess of bad booking, misused characters and storylines that nobody cares about.
Credit to WWE, after a horrendous Royal Rumble mis-step, they did come up with two solid PPV's in Fast Lane and Wrestlemania (which was way better than I was worried it was gonna be) but the trouble is that they stumbled off into the fog without a compass straight away afterwards. Seth Rollins winning the title should have been the catalyst for him to finally become the man to carry the company on his back but awful booking saw him pretty much get cut off at the knees due to the terrible "Corporate Champion" character they saddled him with (yeah, that old chestnut...more on that later).
It did look like things were getting better in the run-up to Survivor Series - even before Rollins' injury threw the whole title scene into chaos, Raw had a couple of episodes which were the best for months. And the title tournament, combined with several of the old guard taking time off through injuries, gave a lot of people hope that this was a golden opportunity for WWE to give someone new the ball and see if they could run with it but the end result at Survivor Series was an absolute mess - Roman Reigns winning the title wasn't the end of the world as at least he'd been built up a bit better than 12 months ago but for him to then instantly lose it to Sheamus (a decent wrestler but so far from being over as a heel that he might as well be under) was a total turn-off.
Speaking of injuries...I will give WWE some leeway and say that the number of wrestlers being put on the sidelines over the last 12 months really hasn't helped them at all - Rollins we've dealt with already but 2015 also saw Daniel Bryan's injury woes continue and it looks as though we may now have seen the last of him in a WWE ring. Likewise, John Cena ended up having to take time off on the back of probably his best year in wrestling to date and add to that the likes of Randy Orton, Tyson Kidd, Cesaro, Sting, Sami Zayn, Hideo Otami (yeah I know the last two are technically still on NXT but you're seriously telling me they wouldn't have been called up to the main roster by now if they'd stayed fit?) all being absent for long periods (not to mention the part-timers like Undertaker and Brock Lesnar) and it leaves you at a serious disadvantage.
But even an injury crisis is still no excuse for some of the abysmal booking from WWE in the last year. The main problem is the continuation of the Authority storyline that has been running for close on two decades now and which I think I can safely say that 95% of WWE fans are sick to the back teeth of. Evil authority figures worked in 1999 because Vince McMahon was awesome in the role but it's got so watered down now that nobody buys it anymore. Seriously guys, just drop the whole thing and let the lead heels on your roster try to get over on their own. Add to this a mix of good workers being held down in the midcard (Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro, Adrian Neville), the title scene being clogged up with has-beens like Big Show and Kane and the fact that a lot of the upper card feel as though they're in the wrong roles (I've already mentioned about Sheamus bombing as a heel, I'd add to that that I would turn Dean Ambrose heel as he just seems to have a natural knack for playing the bad guy which is being wasted in his current role. I'd also turn Wade Barrett face - his Bad News gimmick was starting to get him over last year before WWE dropped it and gave him the dreaded King gimmick which is doomed to fail unless your name's Jerry Lawler). Even guys who do start to get over like the New Day faction get their heat killed off when creative tries to take credit for something that's been created naturally and try to take charge of it themselves, usually failing. Even a reboot of the Divas division, which was badly needed, somehow got screwed up by creative as they introduced too many new faces at once leading to the likes of Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks simply getting lost in the shuffle.
I don't think there's any quick fix to WWE's problems going into New Year and with ratings currently at a two decade low, it's gonna take time to turn things around. My suggestion would be that the creative team badly needs to be cut from the 20-odd people who are currently on there to just one or two - giving the storylines a bit of clarity would be a good first step to the ship being righted. My suggestion would simply be to give the book to Paul Heyman but unfortunately he's gone on record as saying that becoming a booker again doesn't interest him.
I guess we'll see but as the Royal Rumble approaches I can't say I'm exactly optimistic about Raw getting much better in 2016...
NXT
Raw's parlous state is even more mind-boggling when you consider how well the junior arm of WWE, NXT, has been booked in the last 12 months. Every week they put on an hour of television that's fast-paced, well-told and with good wrestling to boot. The main contenders are made to look like serious threats and they're getting the sort of rabid following that's reminiscent of ECW back in the day. And the fact that they've got such a talented roster down there with guys like Finn Balor, Sami Zayn, Bayley, Hideo Otami and Samoa Joe, may just be the key to saving Raw.
The trouble is that when NXT stars get called up to the main roster, they often get abandoned to mid card purgatory - just look at Adrian Neville, Sasha Banks, Tyler Breeze and the Ascension. The fact that this could happen to the likes of Balor, Zayn and Bayley in the near future is worrying and unless WWE realises the goldmine they've got in their developmental territory, they're doomed to continue making the same mistakes again and again.
For now though, let's just enjoy NXT and hope that it doesn't get crippled from above in the near future. They've put on at least four classic PPV's in the last 12 months (Revolution, Rivals, Brooklyn and London), all of which would be in my Top 10 for the year (well, Revolution technically took place in the dying days of 2014 but you get my drift). Long may the quality continue.
IMPACT
Impact/TNA have had a weird 12 months. They've not done anything massively earth-shattering...but at the same time they're making steps forward after a calamitous few years financially. I wouldn't say their booking has quite got back up to the standard it was in early 2012 yet but they're definitely moving in the right direction.
The good stuff - the title scene this year has been generally pretty solid with a now face Bobby Lashley having a better than expected second run with the belt to start the year off before a rejuvenated Kurt Angle won it and finally EC3 (definitely the company's star performer this year) taking it in June up until Bound For Glory and the Title Series that followed.
The Wolves have definitely been a huge plus for TNA this year as well with some very entertaining feuds against the likes of the Revolution, Bobby Roode & Austin Aries and the Hardys. The only problem is that the tag team division at the moment is basically just them and TNA really needs to bring in some extra numbers to give them new challengers.
The Knockouts division has also come on in leaps and bounds this year with the likes of Gail Kim and Awesome Kong delivering as usual but even some of the less gifted members of the roster really raising their game to the point where I genuinely think TNA now (just to say) has a more solid and well-rounded womens' division than WWE, not least because it's booked well (with one exception which we'll come to in a bit).
The bad stuff - every faction that has appeared this year seems to have backfired massively. The BDC was a decent idea until everyone associated with it left within a few weeks of each other and just left it looking like it was hobbling along on its last legs for several weeks until MVP's departure from the company finally brought it to a merciful end. Likewise the Dollhouse have been a misfire in what was otherwise a decent year for the Knockouts' division. The original idea of them being creepy voodoo girls had potential but over the year they've just been watered down into a poor man's Beautiful People (not helped by Taryn being injured so much). Really, come 2015, the whole idea needs to be quietly abandoned and the four girls in question, all of whom unquestionably have talent, should be allowed to try and get over on their own without some hokey gimmick like this holding them back. There's also been a couple of goofy storylines which should have been deep sixed like James Storm pushing Mickie James in front of a train and Eric Young (who's otherwise had a very good year following his heel turn) stealing Chris Melendez's leg.
I think the main problem with TNA is the continuing uncertainty over their future and the closing days of 2015 see them exactly where they were a year ago, about to move to a new network and facing the prospect of a total creative reset. It's cost them a bit in terms of talent departures (Samoa Joe, Austin Aries, Low Ki, James Storm, MVP, Magnus) and they're gonna need to do a bit of roster rebuilding in the new year. Getting Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis in from ROH is a good start - we shall see what else follows...
OTHER STUFF
I can't really say too much about ROH as I haven't seen a lot of their stuff but the one PPV I did catch ("Best In The World") I really enjoyed. They've got a good roster with the likes of AJ Styles, Jay Lethal, the Briscoes, Adam Cole, ReDragon, the Kingdom and the Addiction but like TNA they're currently facing cutbacks after losing their TV deal and going to an Internet only broadcast. Hopefully they can keep hold of a lot of their best wrestlers and keep moving forward in 2016.
I haven't seen too much of GFW other than their appearance on Impact over a few weeks in the summer. Jeff Jarrett has assembled a decent roster there with the likes of PJ Black, Magnus, Shelton Benjamin and Sonjay Dutt on board and I'll be interested to see if they manage to get some shows out there for people to see in the new year.
Others who deserve an honourable mention are House of Hardcore (I watched a couple of PPV's over the year and really enjoyed them) and PWG (their "Battle of Los Angeles" is definitely well worth a watch). Over here in the UK, I've seen good shows by RPW and Southside this year and would definitely recommend both to anyone who likes decent wrestling.
So there ya go - 2015 wrestling in a nutshell. Hopefully the New Year will see Raw finally pull out of its creative tailspin, TNA finally get their ship properly steadied, NXT continue to be its usual awesome self and ROH and GFW both get deals to put their programming out there. It should be interesting as always either way...
WWE RAW/SMACKDOWN: Well, the year started with a babyface Royal Rumble winner being given the Rock's seal of approval and still getting booed out of the ring and, apart from a couple of decent moments, it really didn't get much better from there. For the majority of 2015, Raw and Smackdown (let's be honest, they're pretty much interchangable nowadays) have been a convoluted mess of bad booking, misused characters and storylines that nobody cares about.
Credit to WWE, after a horrendous Royal Rumble mis-step, they did come up with two solid PPV's in Fast Lane and Wrestlemania (which was way better than I was worried it was gonna be) but the trouble is that they stumbled off into the fog without a compass straight away afterwards. Seth Rollins winning the title should have been the catalyst for him to finally become the man to carry the company on his back but awful booking saw him pretty much get cut off at the knees due to the terrible "Corporate Champion" character they saddled him with (yeah, that old chestnut...more on that later).
It did look like things were getting better in the run-up to Survivor Series - even before Rollins' injury threw the whole title scene into chaos, Raw had a couple of episodes which were the best for months. And the title tournament, combined with several of the old guard taking time off through injuries, gave a lot of people hope that this was a golden opportunity for WWE to give someone new the ball and see if they could run with it but the end result at Survivor Series was an absolute mess - Roman Reigns winning the title wasn't the end of the world as at least he'd been built up a bit better than 12 months ago but for him to then instantly lose it to Sheamus (a decent wrestler but so far from being over as a heel that he might as well be under) was a total turn-off.
Speaking of injuries...I will give WWE some leeway and say that the number of wrestlers being put on the sidelines over the last 12 months really hasn't helped them at all - Rollins we've dealt with already but 2015 also saw Daniel Bryan's injury woes continue and it looks as though we may now have seen the last of him in a WWE ring. Likewise, John Cena ended up having to take time off on the back of probably his best year in wrestling to date and add to that the likes of Randy Orton, Tyson Kidd, Cesaro, Sting, Sami Zayn, Hideo Otami (yeah I know the last two are technically still on NXT but you're seriously telling me they wouldn't have been called up to the main roster by now if they'd stayed fit?) all being absent for long periods (not to mention the part-timers like Undertaker and Brock Lesnar) and it leaves you at a serious disadvantage.
But even an injury crisis is still no excuse for some of the abysmal booking from WWE in the last year. The main problem is the continuation of the Authority storyline that has been running for close on two decades now and which I think I can safely say that 95% of WWE fans are sick to the back teeth of. Evil authority figures worked in 1999 because Vince McMahon was awesome in the role but it's got so watered down now that nobody buys it anymore. Seriously guys, just drop the whole thing and let the lead heels on your roster try to get over on their own. Add to this a mix of good workers being held down in the midcard (Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro, Adrian Neville), the title scene being clogged up with has-beens like Big Show and Kane and the fact that a lot of the upper card feel as though they're in the wrong roles (I've already mentioned about Sheamus bombing as a heel, I'd add to that that I would turn Dean Ambrose heel as he just seems to have a natural knack for playing the bad guy which is being wasted in his current role. I'd also turn Wade Barrett face - his Bad News gimmick was starting to get him over last year before WWE dropped it and gave him the dreaded King gimmick which is doomed to fail unless your name's Jerry Lawler). Even guys who do start to get over like the New Day faction get their heat killed off when creative tries to take credit for something that's been created naturally and try to take charge of it themselves, usually failing. Even a reboot of the Divas division, which was badly needed, somehow got screwed up by creative as they introduced too many new faces at once leading to the likes of Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks simply getting lost in the shuffle.
I don't think there's any quick fix to WWE's problems going into New Year and with ratings currently at a two decade low, it's gonna take time to turn things around. My suggestion would be that the creative team badly needs to be cut from the 20-odd people who are currently on there to just one or two - giving the storylines a bit of clarity would be a good first step to the ship being righted. My suggestion would simply be to give the book to Paul Heyman but unfortunately he's gone on record as saying that becoming a booker again doesn't interest him.
I guess we'll see but as the Royal Rumble approaches I can't say I'm exactly optimistic about Raw getting much better in 2016...
NXT
Raw's parlous state is even more mind-boggling when you consider how well the junior arm of WWE, NXT, has been booked in the last 12 months. Every week they put on an hour of television that's fast-paced, well-told and with good wrestling to boot. The main contenders are made to look like serious threats and they're getting the sort of rabid following that's reminiscent of ECW back in the day. And the fact that they've got such a talented roster down there with guys like Finn Balor, Sami Zayn, Bayley, Hideo Otami and Samoa Joe, may just be the key to saving Raw.
The trouble is that when NXT stars get called up to the main roster, they often get abandoned to mid card purgatory - just look at Adrian Neville, Sasha Banks, Tyler Breeze and the Ascension. The fact that this could happen to the likes of Balor, Zayn and Bayley in the near future is worrying and unless WWE realises the goldmine they've got in their developmental territory, they're doomed to continue making the same mistakes again and again.
For now though, let's just enjoy NXT and hope that it doesn't get crippled from above in the near future. They've put on at least four classic PPV's in the last 12 months (Revolution, Rivals, Brooklyn and London), all of which would be in my Top 10 for the year (well, Revolution technically took place in the dying days of 2014 but you get my drift). Long may the quality continue.
IMPACT
Impact/TNA have had a weird 12 months. They've not done anything massively earth-shattering...but at the same time they're making steps forward after a calamitous few years financially. I wouldn't say their booking has quite got back up to the standard it was in early 2012 yet but they're definitely moving in the right direction.
The good stuff - the title scene this year has been generally pretty solid with a now face Bobby Lashley having a better than expected second run with the belt to start the year off before a rejuvenated Kurt Angle won it and finally EC3 (definitely the company's star performer this year) taking it in June up until Bound For Glory and the Title Series that followed.
The Wolves have definitely been a huge plus for TNA this year as well with some very entertaining feuds against the likes of the Revolution, Bobby Roode & Austin Aries and the Hardys. The only problem is that the tag team division at the moment is basically just them and TNA really needs to bring in some extra numbers to give them new challengers.
The Knockouts division has also come on in leaps and bounds this year with the likes of Gail Kim and Awesome Kong delivering as usual but even some of the less gifted members of the roster really raising their game to the point where I genuinely think TNA now (just to say) has a more solid and well-rounded womens' division than WWE, not least because it's booked well (with one exception which we'll come to in a bit).
The bad stuff - every faction that has appeared this year seems to have backfired massively. The BDC was a decent idea until everyone associated with it left within a few weeks of each other and just left it looking like it was hobbling along on its last legs for several weeks until MVP's departure from the company finally brought it to a merciful end. Likewise the Dollhouse have been a misfire in what was otherwise a decent year for the Knockouts' division. The original idea of them being creepy voodoo girls had potential but over the year they've just been watered down into a poor man's Beautiful People (not helped by Taryn being injured so much). Really, come 2015, the whole idea needs to be quietly abandoned and the four girls in question, all of whom unquestionably have talent, should be allowed to try and get over on their own without some hokey gimmick like this holding them back. There's also been a couple of goofy storylines which should have been deep sixed like James Storm pushing Mickie James in front of a train and Eric Young (who's otherwise had a very good year following his heel turn) stealing Chris Melendez's leg.
I think the main problem with TNA is the continuing uncertainty over their future and the closing days of 2015 see them exactly where they were a year ago, about to move to a new network and facing the prospect of a total creative reset. It's cost them a bit in terms of talent departures (Samoa Joe, Austin Aries, Low Ki, James Storm, MVP, Magnus) and they're gonna need to do a bit of roster rebuilding in the new year. Getting Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis in from ROH is a good start - we shall see what else follows...
OTHER STUFF
I can't really say too much about ROH as I haven't seen a lot of their stuff but the one PPV I did catch ("Best In The World") I really enjoyed. They've got a good roster with the likes of AJ Styles, Jay Lethal, the Briscoes, Adam Cole, ReDragon, the Kingdom and the Addiction but like TNA they're currently facing cutbacks after losing their TV deal and going to an Internet only broadcast. Hopefully they can keep hold of a lot of their best wrestlers and keep moving forward in 2016.
I haven't seen too much of GFW other than their appearance on Impact over a few weeks in the summer. Jeff Jarrett has assembled a decent roster there with the likes of PJ Black, Magnus, Shelton Benjamin and Sonjay Dutt on board and I'll be interested to see if they manage to get some shows out there for people to see in the new year.
Others who deserve an honourable mention are House of Hardcore (I watched a couple of PPV's over the year and really enjoyed them) and PWG (their "Battle of Los Angeles" is definitely well worth a watch). Over here in the UK, I've seen good shows by RPW and Southside this year and would definitely recommend both to anyone who likes decent wrestling.
So there ya go - 2015 wrestling in a nutshell. Hopefully the New Year will see Raw finally pull out of its creative tailspin, TNA finally get their ship properly steadied, NXT continue to be its usual awesome self and ROH and GFW both get deals to put their programming out there. It should be interesting as always either way...
Friday, 18 December 2015
Flashback Friday #3: The Wonder Stuff - "Construction For The Modern Idiot"
"I have seen every mountain I'm expected to climb...but they're not mine" - "Change Every Lightbulb"
Okay so I'm cheating slightly here. I suspect most people my age know the Wonder Stuff - those happy bouncy Brummie lads who charmed the nation with "Size Of A Cow" and "Welcome To The Cheap Seats". What this particular instalment of "Flashback Friday" is about is a reappraisal of possibly their most under-rated album. And yeah, I'll say it, my favourite Wonder Stuff album.
We're all familiar, I assume, with the concept of break-up albums. Those collections of songs you sit in your room listening to moodily for days when the girl/boy you lost your head over has upped and left you for reasons as yet unexplained. When you're questioning whether it's all fucking worth it and where the hell you're supposed to go next. Those albums where the songs seem to speak to you and make some sort of sense in the darkest of hours.
"Construction For The Modern Idiot" is a distant cousin of that sort of album in that it's a band break-up album. Bitter and angry odes to when that group of lads who got together as teenagers has reached the point where they can't stand the sight of each other, where dreams have been soured, friendships twisted apart. Where you realise that the whole "last gang in town" mentality that the Clash sung of is unfortunately complete and total bullshit when you've all been stuck in studios and tour vans with no escape for several years. Where you realise that you're basically slaves to a record company wage that's dependant on you sticking with something you've long since lost the enthusiasm for but you're not sure you actually know how to function without. You know it's all unravelling, you can see the crash coming miles off but are powerless (even unwilling) to stop it and you're scared as hell as to what's going to happen next.
I'll be honest, I've never been anywhere near the levels of success that the Wonder Stuff enjoyed but even as someone who's only ever been in bands playing local gigs and maybe very occasionally opening up for a band that a few people might have heard of at 7pm in front of an audience of about ten while every other bugger's still in the bar, I've still been in the situation where you come to the horrible realisation that the ship has sailed. When the optimism of when it started and it felt as if you had the world at your feet and it was just a question of when, rather than if, your big break came gives way to the sinking feeling two years later that you're still stuck at the same level as you were, going round and round in circles with no way out in sight, eventually coming to the conclusion that it's probably best to just end the whole thing with no hard feelings.
Those sentiments are scattered all over "Construction..." and indeed, the Wonder Stuff would split within a year of it being released. From the panicky opening riff of "Change Every Lightbulb", you can hear frontman Miles Hunt's disillusionment with the situation he's in - the general gist of the song is that you can do everything you can to change your surroundings but when you know the game's up, it makes no difference. There's the odd diversion off with the ferocious anti-paedophile fury of "I Wish Them All Dead" and odes to Diana Dors ("Hot Love Now") and Mickey Rourke ("Full Of Life (Happy Now)") but for the most part, this is the sound of a band who are opening the musical equivalent of Pandora's Box.
"Cabin Fever" is self-explanatory as is first single "On The Ropes" and its tale of trying to reconcile the ideals you had when you first started out on this road with what you've become ("Take this time to lie about everything/About who you are and who you've been, don't let the world get in..."). The truth is, the Wonder Stuff had had these sort of sentiments slipping into their songs for years (even big hits such as "Caught In My Shadow" and "Size Of A Cow"'s line about "These should be the best years of my life/But life is not what I thought it was" drop some pretty big hints that the band weren't happy) but here they're really laid out in a quite brutally raw fashion.
"Hush" is a ferocious tirade about the compromises of fame ("If this is a prize, it feels like a threat/It hangs like a fist over my head") while "A Great Drinker" and "Storm Drain" (probably my favourite track on the album as the lyrics are uncomfortably similar to the fate of at least one of my old bands) see Hunt voice his sadness about how easy it is to fall into a self-destructive cycle over booze and hash to try and forget about things when life is going against you.
The mournful "Sing The Absurd" which closes the album sums it all up perfectly - "And I can reflect on the days when respect had nothing to do with behaviour/And I can recall a time when we'd all just laugh in the face of our failure/But I'm old enough to know, old enough to know.../And guess who just threw up when he learned that he grew up/And guess what he learned when his fingers got burned/That we'd all sing the absurd".
I loved "Construction For The Modern Idiot" when it first came out but it seems that as I grow older and wiser (and possibly more weary and bitter) that it seems to resonate more each year. It was swiftly disowned by the band and only "On The Ropes" still survives in their live set nowadays (though they've been known to play "Sing The Absurd" on occasion and the excellent B-side from this era "Room 512 (All The News That's Fit To Print)" is still played regularly by Miles at his acoustic shows). Personally, I think they're being way too hard on it - I very nearly interviewed the Stuffies in Hertford a few years ago (unfortunately I couldn't get the afternoon off work and ended up just going to the gig instead) and was planning to ask Miles about his thoughts on the album. I guess maybe it's that when an album had a difficult genesis (as that one obviously did) that people maybe prefer not to talk about them. I guess if I ever do meet the guy I'll ask him - we shall see...
As for me? Well, I'm still out there and still trying to get a band working even though I'm well into my late thirties by now. Once the music bug bites you it's a bugger to get rid of. Suffice to say that my expectations these days are quite a bit lower than they used to be - just getting it together to the point where we're a regular fixture on the local scene and hopefully getting an EP or two out would do nicely - anything above that would be a bonus really. Watch this space. In the meantime, as I said at the start, I think it's high time "Construction For The Modern Idiot" got the critical reappraisal it deserves. Give it a listen and see for yourself, you might just be pleasantly surprised...
Okay so I'm cheating slightly here. I suspect most people my age know the Wonder Stuff - those happy bouncy Brummie lads who charmed the nation with "Size Of A Cow" and "Welcome To The Cheap Seats". What this particular instalment of "Flashback Friday" is about is a reappraisal of possibly their most under-rated album. And yeah, I'll say it, my favourite Wonder Stuff album.
We're all familiar, I assume, with the concept of break-up albums. Those collections of songs you sit in your room listening to moodily for days when the girl/boy you lost your head over has upped and left you for reasons as yet unexplained. When you're questioning whether it's all fucking worth it and where the hell you're supposed to go next. Those albums where the songs seem to speak to you and make some sort of sense in the darkest of hours.
"Construction For The Modern Idiot" is a distant cousin of that sort of album in that it's a band break-up album. Bitter and angry odes to when that group of lads who got together as teenagers has reached the point where they can't stand the sight of each other, where dreams have been soured, friendships twisted apart. Where you realise that the whole "last gang in town" mentality that the Clash sung of is unfortunately complete and total bullshit when you've all been stuck in studios and tour vans with no escape for several years. Where you realise that you're basically slaves to a record company wage that's dependant on you sticking with something you've long since lost the enthusiasm for but you're not sure you actually know how to function without. You know it's all unravelling, you can see the crash coming miles off but are powerless (even unwilling) to stop it and you're scared as hell as to what's going to happen next.
I'll be honest, I've never been anywhere near the levels of success that the Wonder Stuff enjoyed but even as someone who's only ever been in bands playing local gigs and maybe very occasionally opening up for a band that a few people might have heard of at 7pm in front of an audience of about ten while every other bugger's still in the bar, I've still been in the situation where you come to the horrible realisation that the ship has sailed. When the optimism of when it started and it felt as if you had the world at your feet and it was just a question of when, rather than if, your big break came gives way to the sinking feeling two years later that you're still stuck at the same level as you were, going round and round in circles with no way out in sight, eventually coming to the conclusion that it's probably best to just end the whole thing with no hard feelings.
Those sentiments are scattered all over "Construction..." and indeed, the Wonder Stuff would split within a year of it being released. From the panicky opening riff of "Change Every Lightbulb", you can hear frontman Miles Hunt's disillusionment with the situation he's in - the general gist of the song is that you can do everything you can to change your surroundings but when you know the game's up, it makes no difference. There's the odd diversion off with the ferocious anti-paedophile fury of "I Wish Them All Dead" and odes to Diana Dors ("Hot Love Now") and Mickey Rourke ("Full Of Life (Happy Now)") but for the most part, this is the sound of a band who are opening the musical equivalent of Pandora's Box.
"Cabin Fever" is self-explanatory as is first single "On The Ropes" and its tale of trying to reconcile the ideals you had when you first started out on this road with what you've become ("Take this time to lie about everything/About who you are and who you've been, don't let the world get in..."). The truth is, the Wonder Stuff had had these sort of sentiments slipping into their songs for years (even big hits such as "Caught In My Shadow" and "Size Of A Cow"'s line about "These should be the best years of my life/But life is not what I thought it was" drop some pretty big hints that the band weren't happy) but here they're really laid out in a quite brutally raw fashion.
"Hush" is a ferocious tirade about the compromises of fame ("If this is a prize, it feels like a threat/It hangs like a fist over my head") while "A Great Drinker" and "Storm Drain" (probably my favourite track on the album as the lyrics are uncomfortably similar to the fate of at least one of my old bands) see Hunt voice his sadness about how easy it is to fall into a self-destructive cycle over booze and hash to try and forget about things when life is going against you.
The mournful "Sing The Absurd" which closes the album sums it all up perfectly - "And I can reflect on the days when respect had nothing to do with behaviour/And I can recall a time when we'd all just laugh in the face of our failure/But I'm old enough to know, old enough to know.../And guess who just threw up when he learned that he grew up/And guess what he learned when his fingers got burned/That we'd all sing the absurd".
I loved "Construction For The Modern Idiot" when it first came out but it seems that as I grow older and wiser (and possibly more weary and bitter) that it seems to resonate more each year. It was swiftly disowned by the band and only "On The Ropes" still survives in their live set nowadays (though they've been known to play "Sing The Absurd" on occasion and the excellent B-side from this era "Room 512 (All The News That's Fit To Print)" is still played regularly by Miles at his acoustic shows). Personally, I think they're being way too hard on it - I very nearly interviewed the Stuffies in Hertford a few years ago (unfortunately I couldn't get the afternoon off work and ended up just going to the gig instead) and was planning to ask Miles about his thoughts on the album. I guess maybe it's that when an album had a difficult genesis (as that one obviously did) that people maybe prefer not to talk about them. I guess if I ever do meet the guy I'll ask him - we shall see...
As for me? Well, I'm still out there and still trying to get a band working even though I'm well into my late thirties by now. Once the music bug bites you it's a bugger to get rid of. Suffice to say that my expectations these days are quite a bit lower than they used to be - just getting it together to the point where we're a regular fixture on the local scene and hopefully getting an EP or two out would do nicely - anything above that would be a bonus really. Watch this space. In the meantime, as I said at the start, I think it's high time "Construction For The Modern Idiot" got the critical reappraisal it deserves. Give it a listen and see for yourself, you might just be pleasantly surprised...
Thursday, 17 December 2015
Throwback Thursday - A Beginner's Guide To Alice Cooper
For a few months in 2011-12, I worked for a goth webzine called Sinzine. I only did a few articles for them before they did a full reset and all the content I put on there was deleted in the relaunch.
I didn't contribute a lot to the 'zine as I was only there for a few months but one thing I did enjoy doing was a retrospective on the one and only Mr Alice Cooper to tie in with his big Halloween gig at Ally Pally in 2011 and the then-new "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" that had just hit the shops at the time. I'm still a huge Coop fan and thought that this blog would be a good place to re-print the article along with a few audio links to spice it up a bit. I've also brought it up to date to include Alice's "Hollywood Vampires" collaboration album from this year. Hope you enjoy...
40 YEARS OF SHOCK ROCK - A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO ALICE COOPER
As Alice's big Halloween gig at Alexandra Palace approaches, Sinzine's Andy James takes a look back at 40 years of albums from the man who wrote the book on Shock Rock and assesses the good, the bad and the downright weird...
Alice Cooper is, of course, a man who needs no introduction. As well as being the man who invented shock rock and, arguably, goth as well, it's fair to say that he casts a shadow over nearly any alternative musical genre you'd care to mention. 2016 will mark the fifty year anniversary of Alice's first single and what better way to honour the Grand Lord of all things Dark and Twisted than by doing a retrospective on his albums. No easy task as the title suggests, it's now 46 years since the Alice Cooper band (as they then were) made their recording debut and when you've made close to thirty albums, not all of them are going to be stone cold classics. But from the classics to the good, the bad and the plain insane, this has been one mammoth but incredibly fun feature to compile. So here it is a full guide to the musical history of the Coop complete with handy ratings. Enjoy...
The Alice Cooper band rose up out of San Francisco in the late '60s under the tutelage of Frank Zappa under whose guidance they released 1969's "Pretties For You" (4/10) and 1970's "Easy Action" (4). They're not without a curious trippy sort of charm in places but they really don't bear any relation to what came afterwards and there's an awful lot of filler on both. The story really starts with the group's 1971 album "Love It To Death" (9) and the spooked out single "I'm Eighteen" that brought the band into the public consciousness.
Even forty years later the sheer darkness of songs like "Black Juju" and "The Ballad Of Dwight Fry" send shivers down the spine so Lord only knows what it must have sounded like to a world which had never really experienced anything like this before the Doors had the darkness but were much less heavy while the Stooges had the chaos but not the sinister themes at its core. Mix in some killer rock anthems like "Caught In A Dream", "Hallowed Be My Name" and the deliciously sinister "Is It My Body?" (which still contains one of the best riffs to an Alice song ever) and you've got a stone cold classic.
And as if that wasn't enough, it only took them a matter of months to follow up "Love It To Death" with the equally awesome and aptly named "Killer" (9). Bursting into life with the sheer power of leadoff single "Under My Wheels" and the laid back cool of "Be My Lover", this album really is all killer no filler. "Halo Of Flies" took the prog rock template and twisted it into all kinds of nasty new shapes while the haunting Wild West ghost town lament "Desperado" and the downright ominous closing duo of "Dead Babies" and "Killer" still sound thoroughly vicious today. Want to know where shock rock all started? This is the place.
1972's "School's Out" (7) was a concept album of sorts (the first of many that Alice has done over his career as we'll see through this article). The title track officially put the band in the big time, reaching the top of the charts both in Britain and the States and remains a classic of its time. Elsewhere, there's a bit of filler here and there but the skulking "Luney Tune" and the ferocious "Public Animal #9" show that this isn't a one-track album by any means and a worthy addition to your collection.
It would be 1973's "Billion Dollar Babies" (10) though that would make up the final part of the Holy Trinity of early Alice albums. A chart-topper on both sides of the Atlantic, pretty much every track on this one could have been a single (as it turned out, it spawned four Top 10 hits in Britain in "Elected", "No More Mr Nice Guy", "Hello Hooray" and the title track, all with killer singalong choruses to match). Elsewhere, the sheer chaos of "Generation Landslide" and "Unfinished Sweet" shows that the unhingedness that made the band great was still running unchecked through the band and the ultra sick but wonderfully camp "I Love The Dead" which closes the album are all highlights as well. If you only listen to one Alice album, it really should be this one.
Fair to say that any group would have problems following an album like that and by 1974's "Muscle Of Love" (5), the group were on the verge of imploding. The weirdest thing about this album is that it sounds like it should have been made about four years earlier (somewhere between "Easy Action" and "Love It To Death") as it contains a lot of the same style of garage rock that the group were specialising in around this time but lacks the spookiness that made the latter stand out so much. It's not entirely without its charm (lead-off single "Teenage Lament '74" is the best of an otherwise unremarkable bunch), it just sounds rather tame in comparison to what's gone before.
Following disappointing sales of "Muscle Of Love", the group would splinter with Alice keeping the name and the rest of the group going off to form the Billion Dollar Babies. It would be the singer who'd emerge with the gold though in the form of his first solo album, 1975's "Welcome To My Nightmare" (8). A return to the sinister showmanship of "Billion Dollar Babies", it saw Alice adding a much wider variety of sounds to his repertoire, ranging from the almost jazz-funk title track through the Broadway musical stylings of "Some Folks" (one of the album's high points) to the straight down the line rock of "Cold Ethyl". It also gave Alice another monster hit with the AOR balladry of "Only Women Bleed" (ironically, probably one of the weaker songs on here). Sure, it doesn't always hold together as well as some of the earlier albums but, as the man himself has often said about it, that's the thing about nightmares, they rarely make any sort of coherent sense...
1976's "Alice Cooper Goes To Hell" (6) is effectively "Welcome To My Nightmare" only minus the best bits. It's another themed album, this time revolving around Alice going to hell (funnily enough) and meeting the Devil. However, it's hobbled by lacking the twisted variety of its predecessor and by the presence of too many ballads for its own good, presumably trying to follow up the success of "Only Women Bleed" though lead-off single "I Never Cry", a reflective look at the Coop's growing alcoholism at the time, isn't too bad. Elsewhere, the content ranges from the spooked out lounge rock of "I'm The Coolest" through to a couple of ill-advised attempts at disco in "You Gotta Dance" and "Wish You Were Here". Hit and miss basically.
Which is a good summary of 1977's "Lace And Whiskey" (6) as well (another concept album but this one doesn't really sit together as well as the previous two did). On the one hand, opening track "It's Hot Tonight" swaggers in on an absolute stormer of a riff and is a fine song while the vaudeville "King Of The Silver Screen" shows that Alice was still willing to try and branch out a bit as does his cover of the rockabilly classic "Ubangi Stomp" (which the Stray Cats would hit paydirt with a few years later). On the other hand, lead off single "You And Me" is a ballad by numbers and there's another abortive attempt at disco in "No More Love (At Your Convenience)". It's not quite the disaster that some people paint it as but it's really only average.
By now, Alice's alcoholism was running out of control and the early days of 1978 saw him thrown in a mental institution to get his head straight. The drying out process was actually fairly brief and he opted to stay around for a few more weeks writing about his observations about the place and its inmates. On his release, he teamed up with Elton John's co-songwriter Bernie Taupin to put these observations to music and came up with his best album since "...Nightmare" in "From The Inside" (7). Reclaiming a lot of the oddball charm that had been slightly absent from its two predecessors, it veers from the pure rock 'n' roll showmanship of the title track and the awesome "Wish I Were Born In Beverly Hills", an ode to broken down Hollywood socialites that you can almost imagine Elton singing in one of his rockier moments (and which Alice savvily reintroduced into his set some 25 years later when the mental breakdowns of the likes of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were hitting the headlines) to ballads such as "The Quiet Room" and the heartstopping "How You Gonna See Me Now?" (written about Alice's nervousness at his wife seeing him sober for the first time) which had an added heart lacking in some of the slower songs on Alice's previous albums.
"From The Inside" would also be the last sighting for some years of the old mascara clad monster that was '70s Alice. 1980's "Flush The Fashion" (5) saw him doing an almost full 180 degree turn and entering the world of synth swamped new wave with a toned down image to match. This really is an album of two halves as the first five songs are generally pretty dreadful wishy washy synth rock which just doesn't leave any lasting impression. However, side two sees a bit of attitude and guitars return to the mix and "Nuclear Infected", "Grim Facts" and the hilariously wry "Dance Yourself To Death" (poking fun at the same synth-heavy new wave music that Alice was now semi-embracing) are well worth a listen.
1981's "Special Forces" (7) sees Alice getting to grips with the formula a bit better as he mixes his new musical stylings with some of his old school ferocity. It doesn't hit the target every time but the snarling likes of "Who Do You Think We Are?" and "You Look Good In Rags" are solid efforts and rock much harder than anything on "Flush The Fashion" as does the lead off single, a high-powered electro-rock cover of Love's "Seven And Seven Is". Elsewhere, there's the typical twisted Alice sense of humour with the hilarious stiff upper lip English vocals of "You're A Movie" and the tale of a transvestite vice squad policeman that is "Prettiest Cop On The Block". It's far from typical Alice but it's well worth a listen all the same.
If there's one album in Alice's back catalogue that deserves the title of being something of a lost classic, it's 1982's "Zipper Catches Skin" (8). By this point, Alice was firmly back off the wagon to the extent that he claims to not even remember making it due to his booze intake, record sales were circling the bowl and yet somehow he managed to really hit the mark with this album. Marking a semi-return to his rock roots, it contains some of the most bizarre yet fun songs in the Coop's back catalogue with subjects as diverse as the death of Zorro (the storming "Zorro's Ascent"), tightwad millionaires (the ultra-camp "Make That Money (Scrooge's Song)") and directing slasher movies ("Tag, You're It") all getting the Alice treatment. There's also a real playful sense of humour at work on the likes of the pop-punk one-two of "I Like Girls" and "Remarkably Insincere" and the hilariously sarcastic "I Better Be Good" (probably the album's high point). And really, how can you honestly dislike an album which has both a semi-acoustic ditty about aliens ("No Baloney Homosapiens") and a song called "I'm Alive (That Was The Day My Dead Pet Returned To Save My Life)"?
1983's "Dada" (6) is another album that Alice claims to have been too far gone on alcohol to remember making. Much darker than its predecessor, it's unfortunately not quite of the same quality. It has its moments "I Love America" sees the classic Alice sarcasm in full flow for the album's highlight while "No Man's Land" (a tale of a man working as Santa in an Atlanta department store who encounters a girl with a rather handy sexual fantasy while working on the job one day) is similarly entertaining. Elsewhere though, while the darker subject matter works in some places such as "Former Lee Warmer", other moments such as "Enough's Enough" and "Scarlet And Sheba" just sound dull.
Alice would finally kick the booze in the wake of its release and take a three year break from recording. Unfortunately, his comeback, 1986's "Constrictor" (4) remains probably one of his weakest albums to date. It has one standout moment, the teenage angst rock of opener "Teenage Frankenstein" but elsewhere it's hobbled by a mix of dated '80s production and below par songs. In retrospect, it's a bit of a bridge between the synth rock of early '80s Alice and the late '80s metal version but unfortunately it just combines the worst bits of both.
1987's "Raise Your Fist And Yell" (8) is a big improvement. Drawing heavily on the mid'80s shock rock bands who'd claimed his band's early work as an influence such as WASP and Twisted Sister, it's the sound of the scumbag Alice of old confidently announcing his return. The ferocious anticensorship ode "Freedom", the sneering "Lock Me Up" and the storming "Give The Radio Back" make for a fantastic opening one-two-three while elsewhere the sicko thrills of "Chop Chop Chop" and "Roses On White Lace" see him gleefully pushing the boat out to get a reaction from the Tipper Gore-led pro-censorship brigade. It could've been the start of a new dawn but unfortunately what followed it makes it more of a false dawn...
While 1989's "Trash" (4) gave Alice a massive radio hit in the form of rock club mainstay "Poison" (still a great track), it also contained some horribly over-produced mush-rock of the worst kind (then again, it was produced by Desmond Child so maybe not that much of a surprise). Follow up single "Bed Of Nails" and the Joan Jett co-penned "House Of Fire" both just about rock hard enough to earn a pass but elsewhere, the title track is dumbed down hair metal of the worst kind which is only outdone in the bloatedness stakes by the corpulent balladry of "Hell Is Living Without You" which stinks like a graveyard during a heatwave. It may have been a commercial highpoint for Alice but it was definitely a creative low.
1991's "Hey Stoopid" (5) was a small step back in the right direction but still not great. On the one hand it produced two killer Alice singles in "Love's A Loaded Gun" and his cover of Zodiac Mindwarp's "Feed My Frankenstein" and the epic "Might As Well Be On Mars" but there's an awful lot of filler on there even if it does suffer a lot less from the overproduction issues of its predecessors. Which makes what followed it all the more remarkable...
1994's "The Last Temptation Of Alice Cooper" (8) was arguably the best album Alice had done for over a decade. A return to the concept albums of late '70s Alice but with a much darker mid-'90s twist to them (the man who helped him with the ideas for the central story was none other than Neil Gaiman). Bursting into life with the driving "Sideshow", it's the story of a boy growing up in '90s American trying to stay true to himself and avoid the temptations of self-destruction. Songs such as the punky lead-off single "Lost In America", the almost musical-style "Bad Place Alone" and the unsettling "Unholy War" combine to make it a solid, varied and above all, very good album. Hell, there's even that most rare of beasts a good quality Alice ballad in the form of "It's Me" for you to enjoy.
Unfortunately, while "Last Temptation" was a good album, it didn't save Alice from the grunge backlash and failed to sell. Losing his record deal, he took a sabbatical from the music business, returning in 1999 with "Brutal Planet" (5). A much heavier affair than anything Alice had previously done, it owed a debt in its sound to Alice's late '90s successors like Marilyn Manson. Lyrically, it was incredibly stark with songs about the genocide in Rwanda ("Pick Up The Bones"), spousal abuse ("Take It Like A Woman") and neo-Nazi thugs ("Wicked Young Man") although "It's The Little Things" does at least allow a bit of Alice's trademark humour to shine back through. It's an intriguing listen but a bit lacking on the killer tunes front.
2001's "Dragontown" (6), while stylistically similar to its predecessor, at least adds a bit more melody to the proceedings as evidenced by the driving opener "Triggerman" which keeps the ferocity of "Brutal Planet" but adds a bit more nous to it. It's not all plain sailing the likes of "Deeper" and the ominous title track drift a bit too close to the best-forgotten nu-metal sounds of the time for comfort. However, you can at least see glimpses of the old Alice trying to break through the guitar swamp on this one such as on the sarcastic "Fantasy Man", the surprisingly poignant ballad "Every Woman Has A Name" and the hilarious Beatlesesque "It's Much Too Late" (about a righteous man who ends up in Hell through an administrative error). It was a sign of what was to come the following year when nu-metal collapsed and Alice was free to return to his roots...
The reinvention duly came with 2003's "The Eyes Of Alice Cooper" (8) which saw Alice returning to the garage roots which originally brought him to the public attention in the early '70s. Bursting with shit-kicking rock 'n' roll stormers like "Between High School And Old School" and Alice's ode to his hometown "Detroit City", it sees his trademark sense of humour and playfulness returning on the stormingly sarcastic "Man Of The Year" and the brilliant pisstake of manufactured pop that is "The Song That Didn't Rhyme". No question, this one definitely saw the Coop back on top form.
Realising he was on to a good thing, the follow up, 2005's "Dirty Diamonds" (7) was pretty much a straight continuation of its predecessor. Although this one's not quite as good, it's still a solid offering with the frenetic "Sunset Babies (All Got Rabies)" and "Your Own Worst Enemy" and the storming title track definite highlights while the countrified tale of a transvestite jailed for shooting up a redneck burger bar "The Saga Of Jesse Jane" is well worth a listen. It's only real problem is that it sounds a bit contrived in places especially when put against its predecessor.
2008's "Along Came A Spider" (6) saw Alice returning to the concept album theme that had served him so well in the mid-'70s, this time about a serial killer with an arachnid obsession. Unfortunately, this isn't in the same league as its other post-1980 equivalent "The Last Temptation". It's a bit like a bridge between the previous two garage Alice albums and what would come next but it just doesn't sit together as well as it could and also strays a bit too close to the humourless bludgeoning of "Brutal Planet" at times. That's not to say it doesn't have its charm though the storming "Vengeance Is Mine" (complete with a guest spot by Slash on guitar), the lean mean "Wrapped In Silk" and the Stonesy "I'm Hungry" are all well worth a listen but this feels like a bit of an opportunity missed.
Which is not something you could say about the follow-up "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" (8). Probably the most ambitious album that Alice had done in quite some time, it was a great musical present to the fans drawing on influences throughout his career but quality-wise it harked back to his '70s heyday. From the opening sinister slow-building ballad "I Am Made Of You", this takes in ferocious rockers like "Caffeine" and "Runaway Train" (which featured the four surviving members of the original Alice Cooper Band reunited at long last), slinky garage rock ("I'll Bite Your Face Off"), music hall pizazz ("Last Man On Earth") and even a well-aimed piss-take at disco kids ("Disco Boogie Bloodbath Fever"). It basically does what you'd have put good money it'd fall short on and proves itself to be a worthy follow-up to the original "Welcome To My Nightmare". Well worth your time and money in other words.
Since then, a new Alice album outright has been slow in coming although this year did see him put a supergroup together along with co-collaborator and longtime fan Johnny Depp to put out the self-titled "Hollywood Vampires" (6) covers album (albeit with a couple of new originals in the form of the storming "Raise The Dead" and the seasick "My Dead Drunk Friends") and featuring a guestlist of everyone from Paul McCartney through Brian Johnson to Christopher Lee. The quality of the covers is variable as you'd expect - on the one hand their versions of "My Generation" and "Cold Turkey" are both done well. On the other, their butchering of the Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park" is brutal to put it mildly.
So where does this all leave Alice as 2016 and the fiftieth anniversary of the forming of the original Alice Cooper band approaches. Well, put it this way, I'm pretty sure we've not seen the last of him. As the man said himself in an interview many years ago, he's like one of those sharks that lurks just below the surface letting the other smaller ones splash about and grab the limelight. Then, when they're least expecting it...BANG! I think I can safely say that I'll continue to roll with the guy as long as he's around - hopefully a new album of originals should be coming soon and when it does rest assured I'll be right at the front of the line to buy it. Respect.
I didn't contribute a lot to the 'zine as I was only there for a few months but one thing I did enjoy doing was a retrospective on the one and only Mr Alice Cooper to tie in with his big Halloween gig at Ally Pally in 2011 and the then-new "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" that had just hit the shops at the time. I'm still a huge Coop fan and thought that this blog would be a good place to re-print the article along with a few audio links to spice it up a bit. I've also brought it up to date to include Alice's "Hollywood Vampires" collaboration album from this year. Hope you enjoy...
40 YEARS OF SHOCK ROCK - A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO ALICE COOPER
As Alice's big Halloween gig at Alexandra Palace approaches, Sinzine's Andy James takes a look back at 40 years of albums from the man who wrote the book on Shock Rock and assesses the good, the bad and the downright weird...
Alice Cooper is, of course, a man who needs no introduction. As well as being the man who invented shock rock and, arguably, goth as well, it's fair to say that he casts a shadow over nearly any alternative musical genre you'd care to mention. 2016 will mark the fifty year anniversary of Alice's first single and what better way to honour the Grand Lord of all things Dark and Twisted than by doing a retrospective on his albums. No easy task as the title suggests, it's now 46 years since the Alice Cooper band (as they then were) made their recording debut and when you've made close to thirty albums, not all of them are going to be stone cold classics. But from the classics to the good, the bad and the plain insane, this has been one mammoth but incredibly fun feature to compile. So here it is a full guide to the musical history of the Coop complete with handy ratings. Enjoy...
The Alice Cooper band rose up out of San Francisco in the late '60s under the tutelage of Frank Zappa under whose guidance they released 1969's "Pretties For You" (4/10) and 1970's "Easy Action" (4). They're not without a curious trippy sort of charm in places but they really don't bear any relation to what came afterwards and there's an awful lot of filler on both. The story really starts with the group's 1971 album "Love It To Death" (9) and the spooked out single "I'm Eighteen" that brought the band into the public consciousness.
Even forty years later the sheer darkness of songs like "Black Juju" and "The Ballad Of Dwight Fry" send shivers down the spine so Lord only knows what it must have sounded like to a world which had never really experienced anything like this before the Doors had the darkness but were much less heavy while the Stooges had the chaos but not the sinister themes at its core. Mix in some killer rock anthems like "Caught In A Dream", "Hallowed Be My Name" and the deliciously sinister "Is It My Body?" (which still contains one of the best riffs to an Alice song ever) and you've got a stone cold classic.
And as if that wasn't enough, it only took them a matter of months to follow up "Love It To Death" with the equally awesome and aptly named "Killer" (9). Bursting into life with the sheer power of leadoff single "Under My Wheels" and the laid back cool of "Be My Lover", this album really is all killer no filler. "Halo Of Flies" took the prog rock template and twisted it into all kinds of nasty new shapes while the haunting Wild West ghost town lament "Desperado" and the downright ominous closing duo of "Dead Babies" and "Killer" still sound thoroughly vicious today. Want to know where shock rock all started? This is the place.
1972's "School's Out" (7) was a concept album of sorts (the first of many that Alice has done over his career as we'll see through this article). The title track officially put the band in the big time, reaching the top of the charts both in Britain and the States and remains a classic of its time. Elsewhere, there's a bit of filler here and there but the skulking "Luney Tune" and the ferocious "Public Animal #9" show that this isn't a one-track album by any means and a worthy addition to your collection.
It would be 1973's "Billion Dollar Babies" (10) though that would make up the final part of the Holy Trinity of early Alice albums. A chart-topper on both sides of the Atlantic, pretty much every track on this one could have been a single (as it turned out, it spawned four Top 10 hits in Britain in "Elected", "No More Mr Nice Guy", "Hello Hooray" and the title track, all with killer singalong choruses to match). Elsewhere, the sheer chaos of "Generation Landslide" and "Unfinished Sweet" shows that the unhingedness that made the band great was still running unchecked through the band and the ultra sick but wonderfully camp "I Love The Dead" which closes the album are all highlights as well. If you only listen to one Alice album, it really should be this one.
Fair to say that any group would have problems following an album like that and by 1974's "Muscle Of Love" (5), the group were on the verge of imploding. The weirdest thing about this album is that it sounds like it should have been made about four years earlier (somewhere between "Easy Action" and "Love It To Death") as it contains a lot of the same style of garage rock that the group were specialising in around this time but lacks the spookiness that made the latter stand out so much. It's not entirely without its charm (lead-off single "Teenage Lament '74" is the best of an otherwise unremarkable bunch), it just sounds rather tame in comparison to what's gone before.
Following disappointing sales of "Muscle Of Love", the group would splinter with Alice keeping the name and the rest of the group going off to form the Billion Dollar Babies. It would be the singer who'd emerge with the gold though in the form of his first solo album, 1975's "Welcome To My Nightmare" (8). A return to the sinister showmanship of "Billion Dollar Babies", it saw Alice adding a much wider variety of sounds to his repertoire, ranging from the almost jazz-funk title track through the Broadway musical stylings of "Some Folks" (one of the album's high points) to the straight down the line rock of "Cold Ethyl". It also gave Alice another monster hit with the AOR balladry of "Only Women Bleed" (ironically, probably one of the weaker songs on here). Sure, it doesn't always hold together as well as some of the earlier albums but, as the man himself has often said about it, that's the thing about nightmares, they rarely make any sort of coherent sense...
1976's "Alice Cooper Goes To Hell" (6) is effectively "Welcome To My Nightmare" only minus the best bits. It's another themed album, this time revolving around Alice going to hell (funnily enough) and meeting the Devil. However, it's hobbled by lacking the twisted variety of its predecessor and by the presence of too many ballads for its own good, presumably trying to follow up the success of "Only Women Bleed" though lead-off single "I Never Cry", a reflective look at the Coop's growing alcoholism at the time, isn't too bad. Elsewhere, the content ranges from the spooked out lounge rock of "I'm The Coolest" through to a couple of ill-advised attempts at disco in "You Gotta Dance" and "Wish You Were Here". Hit and miss basically.
Which is a good summary of 1977's "Lace And Whiskey" (6) as well (another concept album but this one doesn't really sit together as well as the previous two did). On the one hand, opening track "It's Hot Tonight" swaggers in on an absolute stormer of a riff and is a fine song while the vaudeville "King Of The Silver Screen" shows that Alice was still willing to try and branch out a bit as does his cover of the rockabilly classic "Ubangi Stomp" (which the Stray Cats would hit paydirt with a few years later). On the other hand, lead off single "You And Me" is a ballad by numbers and there's another abortive attempt at disco in "No More Love (At Your Convenience)". It's not quite the disaster that some people paint it as but it's really only average.
By now, Alice's alcoholism was running out of control and the early days of 1978 saw him thrown in a mental institution to get his head straight. The drying out process was actually fairly brief and he opted to stay around for a few more weeks writing about his observations about the place and its inmates. On his release, he teamed up with Elton John's co-songwriter Bernie Taupin to put these observations to music and came up with his best album since "...Nightmare" in "From The Inside" (7). Reclaiming a lot of the oddball charm that had been slightly absent from its two predecessors, it veers from the pure rock 'n' roll showmanship of the title track and the awesome "Wish I Were Born In Beverly Hills", an ode to broken down Hollywood socialites that you can almost imagine Elton singing in one of his rockier moments (and which Alice savvily reintroduced into his set some 25 years later when the mental breakdowns of the likes of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were hitting the headlines) to ballads such as "The Quiet Room" and the heartstopping "How You Gonna See Me Now?" (written about Alice's nervousness at his wife seeing him sober for the first time) which had an added heart lacking in some of the slower songs on Alice's previous albums.
"From The Inside" would also be the last sighting for some years of the old mascara clad monster that was '70s Alice. 1980's "Flush The Fashion" (5) saw him doing an almost full 180 degree turn and entering the world of synth swamped new wave with a toned down image to match. This really is an album of two halves as the first five songs are generally pretty dreadful wishy washy synth rock which just doesn't leave any lasting impression. However, side two sees a bit of attitude and guitars return to the mix and "Nuclear Infected", "Grim Facts" and the hilariously wry "Dance Yourself To Death" (poking fun at the same synth-heavy new wave music that Alice was now semi-embracing) are well worth a listen.
1981's "Special Forces" (7) sees Alice getting to grips with the formula a bit better as he mixes his new musical stylings with some of his old school ferocity. It doesn't hit the target every time but the snarling likes of "Who Do You Think We Are?" and "You Look Good In Rags" are solid efforts and rock much harder than anything on "Flush The Fashion" as does the lead off single, a high-powered electro-rock cover of Love's "Seven And Seven Is". Elsewhere, there's the typical twisted Alice sense of humour with the hilarious stiff upper lip English vocals of "You're A Movie" and the tale of a transvestite vice squad policeman that is "Prettiest Cop On The Block". It's far from typical Alice but it's well worth a listen all the same.
If there's one album in Alice's back catalogue that deserves the title of being something of a lost classic, it's 1982's "Zipper Catches Skin" (8). By this point, Alice was firmly back off the wagon to the extent that he claims to not even remember making it due to his booze intake, record sales were circling the bowl and yet somehow he managed to really hit the mark with this album. Marking a semi-return to his rock roots, it contains some of the most bizarre yet fun songs in the Coop's back catalogue with subjects as diverse as the death of Zorro (the storming "Zorro's Ascent"), tightwad millionaires (the ultra-camp "Make That Money (Scrooge's Song)") and directing slasher movies ("Tag, You're It") all getting the Alice treatment. There's also a real playful sense of humour at work on the likes of the pop-punk one-two of "I Like Girls" and "Remarkably Insincere" and the hilariously sarcastic "I Better Be Good" (probably the album's high point). And really, how can you honestly dislike an album which has both a semi-acoustic ditty about aliens ("No Baloney Homosapiens") and a song called "I'm Alive (That Was The Day My Dead Pet Returned To Save My Life)"?
1983's "Dada" (6) is another album that Alice claims to have been too far gone on alcohol to remember making. Much darker than its predecessor, it's unfortunately not quite of the same quality. It has its moments "I Love America" sees the classic Alice sarcasm in full flow for the album's highlight while "No Man's Land" (a tale of a man working as Santa in an Atlanta department store who encounters a girl with a rather handy sexual fantasy while working on the job one day) is similarly entertaining. Elsewhere though, while the darker subject matter works in some places such as "Former Lee Warmer", other moments such as "Enough's Enough" and "Scarlet And Sheba" just sound dull.
Alice would finally kick the booze in the wake of its release and take a three year break from recording. Unfortunately, his comeback, 1986's "Constrictor" (4) remains probably one of his weakest albums to date. It has one standout moment, the teenage angst rock of opener "Teenage Frankenstein" but elsewhere it's hobbled by a mix of dated '80s production and below par songs. In retrospect, it's a bit of a bridge between the synth rock of early '80s Alice and the late '80s metal version but unfortunately it just combines the worst bits of both.
1987's "Raise Your Fist And Yell" (8) is a big improvement. Drawing heavily on the mid'80s shock rock bands who'd claimed his band's early work as an influence such as WASP and Twisted Sister, it's the sound of the scumbag Alice of old confidently announcing his return. The ferocious anticensorship ode "Freedom", the sneering "Lock Me Up" and the storming "Give The Radio Back" make for a fantastic opening one-two-three while elsewhere the sicko thrills of "Chop Chop Chop" and "Roses On White Lace" see him gleefully pushing the boat out to get a reaction from the Tipper Gore-led pro-censorship brigade. It could've been the start of a new dawn but unfortunately what followed it makes it more of a false dawn...
While 1989's "Trash" (4) gave Alice a massive radio hit in the form of rock club mainstay "Poison" (still a great track), it also contained some horribly over-produced mush-rock of the worst kind (then again, it was produced by Desmond Child so maybe not that much of a surprise). Follow up single "Bed Of Nails" and the Joan Jett co-penned "House Of Fire" both just about rock hard enough to earn a pass but elsewhere, the title track is dumbed down hair metal of the worst kind which is only outdone in the bloatedness stakes by the corpulent balladry of "Hell Is Living Without You" which stinks like a graveyard during a heatwave. It may have been a commercial highpoint for Alice but it was definitely a creative low.
1991's "Hey Stoopid" (5) was a small step back in the right direction but still not great. On the one hand it produced two killer Alice singles in "Love's A Loaded Gun" and his cover of Zodiac Mindwarp's "Feed My Frankenstein" and the epic "Might As Well Be On Mars" but there's an awful lot of filler on there even if it does suffer a lot less from the overproduction issues of its predecessors. Which makes what followed it all the more remarkable...
1994's "The Last Temptation Of Alice Cooper" (8) was arguably the best album Alice had done for over a decade. A return to the concept albums of late '70s Alice but with a much darker mid-'90s twist to them (the man who helped him with the ideas for the central story was none other than Neil Gaiman). Bursting into life with the driving "Sideshow", it's the story of a boy growing up in '90s American trying to stay true to himself and avoid the temptations of self-destruction. Songs such as the punky lead-off single "Lost In America", the almost musical-style "Bad Place Alone" and the unsettling "Unholy War" combine to make it a solid, varied and above all, very good album. Hell, there's even that most rare of beasts a good quality Alice ballad in the form of "It's Me" for you to enjoy.
Unfortunately, while "Last Temptation" was a good album, it didn't save Alice from the grunge backlash and failed to sell. Losing his record deal, he took a sabbatical from the music business, returning in 1999 with "Brutal Planet" (5). A much heavier affair than anything Alice had previously done, it owed a debt in its sound to Alice's late '90s successors like Marilyn Manson. Lyrically, it was incredibly stark with songs about the genocide in Rwanda ("Pick Up The Bones"), spousal abuse ("Take It Like A Woman") and neo-Nazi thugs ("Wicked Young Man") although "It's The Little Things" does at least allow a bit of Alice's trademark humour to shine back through. It's an intriguing listen but a bit lacking on the killer tunes front.
2001's "Dragontown" (6), while stylistically similar to its predecessor, at least adds a bit more melody to the proceedings as evidenced by the driving opener "Triggerman" which keeps the ferocity of "Brutal Planet" but adds a bit more nous to it. It's not all plain sailing the likes of "Deeper" and the ominous title track drift a bit too close to the best-forgotten nu-metal sounds of the time for comfort. However, you can at least see glimpses of the old Alice trying to break through the guitar swamp on this one such as on the sarcastic "Fantasy Man", the surprisingly poignant ballad "Every Woman Has A Name" and the hilarious Beatlesesque "It's Much Too Late" (about a righteous man who ends up in Hell through an administrative error). It was a sign of what was to come the following year when nu-metal collapsed and Alice was free to return to his roots...
The reinvention duly came with 2003's "The Eyes Of Alice Cooper" (8) which saw Alice returning to the garage roots which originally brought him to the public attention in the early '70s. Bursting with shit-kicking rock 'n' roll stormers like "Between High School And Old School" and Alice's ode to his hometown "Detroit City", it sees his trademark sense of humour and playfulness returning on the stormingly sarcastic "Man Of The Year" and the brilliant pisstake of manufactured pop that is "The Song That Didn't Rhyme". No question, this one definitely saw the Coop back on top form.
Realising he was on to a good thing, the follow up, 2005's "Dirty Diamonds" (7) was pretty much a straight continuation of its predecessor. Although this one's not quite as good, it's still a solid offering with the frenetic "Sunset Babies (All Got Rabies)" and "Your Own Worst Enemy" and the storming title track definite highlights while the countrified tale of a transvestite jailed for shooting up a redneck burger bar "The Saga Of Jesse Jane" is well worth a listen. It's only real problem is that it sounds a bit contrived in places especially when put against its predecessor.
2008's "Along Came A Spider" (6) saw Alice returning to the concept album theme that had served him so well in the mid-'70s, this time about a serial killer with an arachnid obsession. Unfortunately, this isn't in the same league as its other post-1980 equivalent "The Last Temptation". It's a bit like a bridge between the previous two garage Alice albums and what would come next but it just doesn't sit together as well as it could and also strays a bit too close to the humourless bludgeoning of "Brutal Planet" at times. That's not to say it doesn't have its charm though the storming "Vengeance Is Mine" (complete with a guest spot by Slash on guitar), the lean mean "Wrapped In Silk" and the Stonesy "I'm Hungry" are all well worth a listen but this feels like a bit of an opportunity missed.
Which is not something you could say about the follow-up "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" (8). Probably the most ambitious album that Alice had done in quite some time, it was a great musical present to the fans drawing on influences throughout his career but quality-wise it harked back to his '70s heyday. From the opening sinister slow-building ballad "I Am Made Of You", this takes in ferocious rockers like "Caffeine" and "Runaway Train" (which featured the four surviving members of the original Alice Cooper Band reunited at long last), slinky garage rock ("I'll Bite Your Face Off"), music hall pizazz ("Last Man On Earth") and even a well-aimed piss-take at disco kids ("Disco Boogie Bloodbath Fever"). It basically does what you'd have put good money it'd fall short on and proves itself to be a worthy follow-up to the original "Welcome To My Nightmare". Well worth your time and money in other words.
Since then, a new Alice album outright has been slow in coming although this year did see him put a supergroup together along with co-collaborator and longtime fan Johnny Depp to put out the self-titled "Hollywood Vampires" (6) covers album (albeit with a couple of new originals in the form of the storming "Raise The Dead" and the seasick "My Dead Drunk Friends") and featuring a guestlist of everyone from Paul McCartney through Brian Johnson to Christopher Lee. The quality of the covers is variable as you'd expect - on the one hand their versions of "My Generation" and "Cold Turkey" are both done well. On the other, their butchering of the Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park" is brutal to put it mildly.
So where does this all leave Alice as 2016 and the fiftieth anniversary of the forming of the original Alice Cooper band approaches. Well, put it this way, I'm pretty sure we've not seen the last of him. As the man said himself in an interview many years ago, he's like one of those sharks that lurks just below the surface letting the other smaller ones splash about and grab the limelight. Then, when they're least expecting it...BANG! I think I can safely say that I'll continue to roll with the guy as long as he's around - hopefully a new album of originals should be coming soon and when it does rest assured I'll be right at the front of the line to buy it. Respect.
Friday, 11 September 2015
Flashback Friday #2 - These Animal Men
"Qualified for nuthin'/Are you ready to show off?..." - These Animal Men - "Sharp Kid"
For about six months in 1994, These Animal Men were pretty much my favourite band in the world before I discovered the Wildhearts at the end of the year. I was 15 years old at the time and it's fair to say that since the era of the Senseless Things and Carter USM a couple of years previously, not much had come along that had really grabbed me. The charts were full of boring anodyne dance music and mass manufactured boy band crap like East 17 and Take That. And even if you were into guitar music, the majority of it was taken up by whiny grunge second wavers like Stone Temple Pilots. Even Nirvana had gone completely downhill with the over-rated "In Utero" album.
Desperate times. And then this happened.
Okay, I'll admit it, "Speeed King" (replete with a cover featuring a bowl of white powder with four straws sticking out of it) hasn't maybe aged as well as some of These Animal Men's other songs have but in the tepid musical climate of late '93 to early '94, it really did feel like a massive breath of fresh air. It felt dangerous instead of whingy. It felt like it was celebrating life rather than hating yourself and wanting to die (message to the grunge hordes - at the time I was 15 years old, hating school and having problems at home. I didn't want to listen to music to make me feel worse thank you).
It was one Saturday morning watching "Going Live!" (I think) that I realised this band were something special. They'd been on the show playing the single and the gormless presenter (I'd like to think it was that irritating berk Andi Peters who I couldn't stand) asked them what it was about. Their admittedly honest answer (taking loads of amphetamines and having a really good time) quickly got the interview cut off a few seconds later!
I was quick to snap up "Too Sussed?", the mini-album that followed "Speeed King" and it was this that quickly made me realise that they were my new favourite band. Yeah, the lyrics were still very nihilistic but this was angry rather than mopey, it had an energy behind it, it made you want to channel your frustrations with life into doing something rather than sitting in and feeling sorry for yourself. Their third single "This Is The Sound Of Youth" was pretty much my soundtrack for that whole summer that year. I really was "stacking shelves to live for the weekend" working Saturdays in Netto at the time. Oasis may have been the band writing the tunes that were turning the heads of a nation at the time but looking back, These Animal Men really were capturing the frustrations of a whole generation of angry mid-'90s teenagers in their lyrics.
It's just a pity nobody really noticed. "Sound of Youth" just to say grazed the Top 40 as did their debut album proper "Come On Join The High Society", a storming breakneck collection of punk tunes in the vein of the three singles. But by the autumn the tide was already turning against These Animal Men and other groups like S*M*A*S*H* and Mantaray who'd been lumped in with the "New Wave of New Wave" scene that had sprung up around them in the NME and Melody Maker. August saw Blur release "Park Life" and Oasis put "Definitely Maybe" out thus signalling the official arrival of the more commercially friendly Britpop. A few of the more tuneful NWONW bands like Elastica, Shed Seven and Ash managed to quickly switch bandwagons but for These Animal Men who were so closely identified with NWONW (guitarist Hooligan had admitted "even if it is a bandwagon, we're probably driving it" in one interview), the game was pretty much up.
They stuck around for a while afterwards though, putting out a mini album "Taxi For These Animal Men" in the first weeks of 1995 (the name came from a festival appearance where their gear conked out ten minutes in leading to the band simply sitting around on stage for the remaining twenty minutes of their set and angry fans chanting the above slogan). It showed a more reflective side to their work but didn't really make a lot of sense. Mind you, the following year would see them drift even further from their punk roots to startling effect...
It would be 1997 before the world heard from These Animal Men again - in the meantime they changed drummers, got a new keyboard player and were undergoing something of a musical transformation. By the time they returned in 1997 with the "Life Support Machine" single, they sounded (and looked) pretty much nothing like they had previously. And it was brilliant.
"Accident And Emergency", TAM's 1997 comeback album, really is a lost gem of an album that I'd advise everybody to track down. It's the sound of a band knowing their time's up, shrugging their shoulders, saying "fuck it" and making the sort of album they've always wanted to make. "24 Hours To Live", probably the closest thing to their debut, rushes through on sheer adrenalin like the best end of the world party song you ever heard while elsewhere they tackle sinister dark reggae ("Going Native") and poisoned sea shanty murder ballads ("Riverboat Captain") among other things. Seriously, get this one now.
I seem to remember the B-side for the single being the most awesomely sinister cover of "Wichita Lineman" ever for some reason as well but unfortunately that one isn't on Youtube.
Anyway, predictably These Animal Men weren't too long for the world afterwards and they'd split before 1997 was out. Frontman Boag and guitarist Hooligan would resurface a couple of years later with soul power rock 'n' rollers Mo Solid Gold. They were great live but couldn't quite capture that energy on record. Anyway, have a listen and judge for yourself.
Boag and Hooligan would also resurface in garage rockers Thee Orphans a few years back (with Hooligan now taking over vocals) but a few months back, it was announced that TAM would be reforming for a one off gig to mark a new documentary being released on the band. And I'm happy to say that gig is tonight, I'm going and I can't wait personally. See yas down the front.
I'd say this band were probably to me what the Manics circa "Generation Terrorists" were to those who came a couple of years earlier or King Adora were to those who came along a few years later. Do we dare dream a third These Animal Men record might surface one day? I think it's probably unlikely but we can always hope. In the meantime, go give this band a listen.
For about six months in 1994, These Animal Men were pretty much my favourite band in the world before I discovered the Wildhearts at the end of the year. I was 15 years old at the time and it's fair to say that since the era of the Senseless Things and Carter USM a couple of years previously, not much had come along that had really grabbed me. The charts were full of boring anodyne dance music and mass manufactured boy band crap like East 17 and Take That. And even if you were into guitar music, the majority of it was taken up by whiny grunge second wavers like Stone Temple Pilots. Even Nirvana had gone completely downhill with the over-rated "In Utero" album.
Desperate times. And then this happened.
Okay, I'll admit it, "Speeed King" (replete with a cover featuring a bowl of white powder with four straws sticking out of it) hasn't maybe aged as well as some of These Animal Men's other songs have but in the tepid musical climate of late '93 to early '94, it really did feel like a massive breath of fresh air. It felt dangerous instead of whingy. It felt like it was celebrating life rather than hating yourself and wanting to die (message to the grunge hordes - at the time I was 15 years old, hating school and having problems at home. I didn't want to listen to music to make me feel worse thank you).
It was one Saturday morning watching "Going Live!" (I think) that I realised this band were something special. They'd been on the show playing the single and the gormless presenter (I'd like to think it was that irritating berk Andi Peters who I couldn't stand) asked them what it was about. Their admittedly honest answer (taking loads of amphetamines and having a really good time) quickly got the interview cut off a few seconds later!
I was quick to snap up "Too Sussed?", the mini-album that followed "Speeed King" and it was this that quickly made me realise that they were my new favourite band. Yeah, the lyrics were still very nihilistic but this was angry rather than mopey, it had an energy behind it, it made you want to channel your frustrations with life into doing something rather than sitting in and feeling sorry for yourself. Their third single "This Is The Sound Of Youth" was pretty much my soundtrack for that whole summer that year. I really was "stacking shelves to live for the weekend" working Saturdays in Netto at the time. Oasis may have been the band writing the tunes that were turning the heads of a nation at the time but looking back, These Animal Men really were capturing the frustrations of a whole generation of angry mid-'90s teenagers in their lyrics.
It's just a pity nobody really noticed. "Sound of Youth" just to say grazed the Top 40 as did their debut album proper "Come On Join The High Society", a storming breakneck collection of punk tunes in the vein of the three singles. But by the autumn the tide was already turning against These Animal Men and other groups like S*M*A*S*H* and Mantaray who'd been lumped in with the "New Wave of New Wave" scene that had sprung up around them in the NME and Melody Maker. August saw Blur release "Park Life" and Oasis put "Definitely Maybe" out thus signalling the official arrival of the more commercially friendly Britpop. A few of the more tuneful NWONW bands like Elastica, Shed Seven and Ash managed to quickly switch bandwagons but for These Animal Men who were so closely identified with NWONW (guitarist Hooligan had admitted "even if it is a bandwagon, we're probably driving it" in one interview), the game was pretty much up.
They stuck around for a while afterwards though, putting out a mini album "Taxi For These Animal Men" in the first weeks of 1995 (the name came from a festival appearance where their gear conked out ten minutes in leading to the band simply sitting around on stage for the remaining twenty minutes of their set and angry fans chanting the above slogan). It showed a more reflective side to their work but didn't really make a lot of sense. Mind you, the following year would see them drift even further from their punk roots to startling effect...
It would be 1997 before the world heard from These Animal Men again - in the meantime they changed drummers, got a new keyboard player and were undergoing something of a musical transformation. By the time they returned in 1997 with the "Life Support Machine" single, they sounded (and looked) pretty much nothing like they had previously. And it was brilliant.
"Accident And Emergency", TAM's 1997 comeback album, really is a lost gem of an album that I'd advise everybody to track down. It's the sound of a band knowing their time's up, shrugging their shoulders, saying "fuck it" and making the sort of album they've always wanted to make. "24 Hours To Live", probably the closest thing to their debut, rushes through on sheer adrenalin like the best end of the world party song you ever heard while elsewhere they tackle sinister dark reggae ("Going Native") and poisoned sea shanty murder ballads ("Riverboat Captain") among other things. Seriously, get this one now.
I seem to remember the B-side for the single being the most awesomely sinister cover of "Wichita Lineman" ever for some reason as well but unfortunately that one isn't on Youtube.
Anyway, predictably These Animal Men weren't too long for the world afterwards and they'd split before 1997 was out. Frontman Boag and guitarist Hooligan would resurface a couple of years later with soul power rock 'n' rollers Mo Solid Gold. They were great live but couldn't quite capture that energy on record. Anyway, have a listen and judge for yourself.
Boag and Hooligan would also resurface in garage rockers Thee Orphans a few years back (with Hooligan now taking over vocals) but a few months back, it was announced that TAM would be reforming for a one off gig to mark a new documentary being released on the band. And I'm happy to say that gig is tonight, I'm going and I can't wait personally. See yas down the front.
I'd say this band were probably to me what the Manics circa "Generation Terrorists" were to those who came a couple of years earlier or King Adora were to those who came along a few years later. Do we dare dream a third These Animal Men record might surface one day? I think it's probably unlikely but we can always hope. In the meantime, go give this band a listen.
Wednesday, 12 August 2015
One man to unite them all?
The political rise of Jeremy Corbyn in recent weeks has been an interesting one. And, dare I say it, it could be the most exciting thing to happen in British politics for years.
Of course, there's some in the Labour party who would disagree, principally those associated with "New Labour" who seem oblivious to the fact that what they're seeing is a proper grassroots uprising, an attempt by party members to take back the party where they see the elite as having become hopelessly out of touch with the footsoldiers of the movement. And I'm guessing that for those who've been pushing the whole "we know best now just shut up and get on with distributing those leaflets" mantra for the last decade and a half, it must be giving them a fair few sleepless nights. Hence the vitriolic nature of the attacks on Corbyn from people like Tony Blair and co.
Unlike a lot of people on the political left, I happen to think that Tony Blair did do some good as leader of this country looking back with ten years' hindsight - raising the minimum wage, introducing Sure Start centres and helping bring youth unemployment down mainly. But unfortunately the first thing that will always come to mind when his name is mentioned is that he dragged this country into an illegal war that only 9% of the population supported at the time. On top of that there's his nauseous buddying up to Rupert Murdoch and his hateful horde of right-wing publications, the introduction of disastrous PFI schemes into the NHS, university tuition fees which inevitably tilt the education system in this country towards those with the money to afford it rather than those who are actually clever enough to deserve to be there and many others besides.
And don't give me the line about how Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to win an election in the last 40 years. The Tories were in such a mess from 1997-2005 that you could have had a lobotomised Boris Johnson spearheading the Labour campaign and he'd still have picked up a comfortable 100 seat majority. The Conservative party that we're dealing with in 2015 (and will be dealing with in 2020 as well) is much more organised, much more crafty and a much more well-oiled machine and they won't be nearly as easy to defeat as they were under Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith or Howard.
Maybe rather than scornfully deriding Corbyn and his supporters as fantasists, Blair and his followers like Chuka Umunna, Liz Kendall, Simon Danczuk etc should maybe do a bit of history research into their own party. The Labour Party was set up by the trade unions to be a voice for working class people and protect them from the policies of the Tories and Liberals back in the day who were owned by the ruling class. Hence why in the post-World War II years we got a welfare state and a National Health Service which the current Tory government are doing their utmost to destroy and turn our healthcare system into a terrifying US-style free for all (Andy's recommended watching - "Sicko" by Michael Moore. If you think NHS privatisation is in any way a good thing, this will quickly show you why it really really isn't).
But getting back to Labour, this is why so many working class people now look at the party and don't feel it's standing up for them anymore. Since 1995, there may have been a few cosmetic differences between the red and blue side of the political divide but what Blair, Brown and Miliband have essentially been peddling is a Conservative manifesto from the 1970s. And as anyone with any knowledge of politics knows, the Conservatives have never been a party with the interests of the working class at heart no matter how much Sun journalists might want you to think otherwise.
Labour did make a few moves to the left under Ed Miliband but, again contrary to what Blair would want you to think, it's the fact that they didn't go far enough in setting enough distance between themselves and the Tories that cost them the election, not the fact that they didn't try to continue to be the Tories with red rosettes that they were as New Labour. To quote Edwyn Collins, "I heard it once before and unless I got it wrong, you can't defeat your enemy by singing his song". Don't get me wrong, I think Ed Miliband's a genuinely nice guy and the sort of person I would happily give a mortgage reference to if he asked me but as a political leader, he was hopelessly out of his depth. The instant that him and Ed Balls said that they would accept the horrifically brutish spending cuts imposed by George Osborne in about 2012 rather than trying to reverse them was the moment their chances of getting back into power ended.
Which brings me back to where Jeremy Corbyn comes in. Unlike Miliband, he's the sort of person who won't be dictated to by Cameron, Osborne, Duncan-Smith, Hunt etc and won't let them frame the debate over the economy, the NHS, public spending etc. He's smart enough to realise that a lot of people out there will support a party that promises something different from the five years of poverty that 99% of the population now faces under a Tory administration. And he knows that he can back it up with figures. Consider this - while the Tories were putting through another round of cruel and vicious benefits cuts last month (which, of the four leadership candidates, only Corbyn actually voted against), they were actually putting through in the same bill tax cuts for corporations and the richest in society. Still think that Corbynites are a bunch of left wing loonies? I'd say that the truth is that he's more of a realist than anyone on the Labour or Tory front benches and knows how to fix this country.
In fact, Corbyn's manifesto is probably nearer to that of Neil Kinnock than Tony Benn and makes a lot of sense. Fed up of rip-off train prices and energy bills? Nationalise them. Higher top tax rate? If you can afford to pay then yes - that money will go to the people who need it rather than the fallacy of "trickle down" economics. After all, as "Call me Dave" Cameron said, we're all in this together, right? More affordable council housing? In an age where people can't afford a mortgage until their forties at present, I think that's a very sensible idea. Stricter controls on newspapers and media? Given some of the odious practices of the Sun and the Mail as detailed in the Leveson Report, I'm all for it. And if it annoys a few bankers, corporate fat cats and newspaper owners who decide to take their trade off to Hong Kong in protest then good. The country's better off without leeches like them.
What Labour needs to do is to stop trying to hopelessly chase after the 5% of Middle England voters in swing seats. Newsflash guys - they'll never vote for you. These people are Tories and they won't vote for a Labour party while there's a strong Conservative party in government. What they should do is concentrate on winning back the voters that have been haemorrhaging out of the party since 1997. The people who've joined the Greens because they look at them and see the party that Labour used to be, promising a fairer society. The Scots who've migrated en masse to the SNP - not all of them are rabid nationalists who hate the English spend their waking hours searching the web for people who disagree with independence to troll, they just see that the Westminster system is broken and are crying out for a party promising something different which Labour hasn't been for a long time. The people who've scarily moved to the opposite end of the spectrum to UKIP because they see it as a more grassroots movement than Labour (which it is, unfortunately it's also a borderline far right and ultra-racist one which should have had Labour quickly reacting to shoot down the poisonous myths about immigrants that they're spreading). That's a far bigger group of supporters than just a few undecided 2.4 children families who will probably side with the Tories in the end anyway.
One man to unite them all. And his name might just be Jeremy Corbyn. I hope so anyway. And if Blair, Kendall, Umunna, Yvette Cooper et al don't like it they can always do what David Owen did 35 odd years ago and go off and join the Lib Dems. You might want to ask Nick Clegg about how that party's holding up at the moment though...
Of course, there's some in the Labour party who would disagree, principally those associated with "New Labour" who seem oblivious to the fact that what they're seeing is a proper grassroots uprising, an attempt by party members to take back the party where they see the elite as having become hopelessly out of touch with the footsoldiers of the movement. And I'm guessing that for those who've been pushing the whole "we know best now just shut up and get on with distributing those leaflets" mantra for the last decade and a half, it must be giving them a fair few sleepless nights. Hence the vitriolic nature of the attacks on Corbyn from people like Tony Blair and co.
Unlike a lot of people on the political left, I happen to think that Tony Blair did do some good as leader of this country looking back with ten years' hindsight - raising the minimum wage, introducing Sure Start centres and helping bring youth unemployment down mainly. But unfortunately the first thing that will always come to mind when his name is mentioned is that he dragged this country into an illegal war that only 9% of the population supported at the time. On top of that there's his nauseous buddying up to Rupert Murdoch and his hateful horde of right-wing publications, the introduction of disastrous PFI schemes into the NHS, university tuition fees which inevitably tilt the education system in this country towards those with the money to afford it rather than those who are actually clever enough to deserve to be there and many others besides.
And don't give me the line about how Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to win an election in the last 40 years. The Tories were in such a mess from 1997-2005 that you could have had a lobotomised Boris Johnson spearheading the Labour campaign and he'd still have picked up a comfortable 100 seat majority. The Conservative party that we're dealing with in 2015 (and will be dealing with in 2020 as well) is much more organised, much more crafty and a much more well-oiled machine and they won't be nearly as easy to defeat as they were under Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith or Howard.
Maybe rather than scornfully deriding Corbyn and his supporters as fantasists, Blair and his followers like Chuka Umunna, Liz Kendall, Simon Danczuk etc should maybe do a bit of history research into their own party. The Labour Party was set up by the trade unions to be a voice for working class people and protect them from the policies of the Tories and Liberals back in the day who were owned by the ruling class. Hence why in the post-World War II years we got a welfare state and a National Health Service which the current Tory government are doing their utmost to destroy and turn our healthcare system into a terrifying US-style free for all (Andy's recommended watching - "Sicko" by Michael Moore. If you think NHS privatisation is in any way a good thing, this will quickly show you why it really really isn't).
But getting back to Labour, this is why so many working class people now look at the party and don't feel it's standing up for them anymore. Since 1995, there may have been a few cosmetic differences between the red and blue side of the political divide but what Blair, Brown and Miliband have essentially been peddling is a Conservative manifesto from the 1970s. And as anyone with any knowledge of politics knows, the Conservatives have never been a party with the interests of the working class at heart no matter how much Sun journalists might want you to think otherwise.
Labour did make a few moves to the left under Ed Miliband but, again contrary to what Blair would want you to think, it's the fact that they didn't go far enough in setting enough distance between themselves and the Tories that cost them the election, not the fact that they didn't try to continue to be the Tories with red rosettes that they were as New Labour. To quote Edwyn Collins, "I heard it once before and unless I got it wrong, you can't defeat your enemy by singing his song". Don't get me wrong, I think Ed Miliband's a genuinely nice guy and the sort of person I would happily give a mortgage reference to if he asked me but as a political leader, he was hopelessly out of his depth. The instant that him and Ed Balls said that they would accept the horrifically brutish spending cuts imposed by George Osborne in about 2012 rather than trying to reverse them was the moment their chances of getting back into power ended.
Which brings me back to where Jeremy Corbyn comes in. Unlike Miliband, he's the sort of person who won't be dictated to by Cameron, Osborne, Duncan-Smith, Hunt etc and won't let them frame the debate over the economy, the NHS, public spending etc. He's smart enough to realise that a lot of people out there will support a party that promises something different from the five years of poverty that 99% of the population now faces under a Tory administration. And he knows that he can back it up with figures. Consider this - while the Tories were putting through another round of cruel and vicious benefits cuts last month (which, of the four leadership candidates, only Corbyn actually voted against), they were actually putting through in the same bill tax cuts for corporations and the richest in society. Still think that Corbynites are a bunch of left wing loonies? I'd say that the truth is that he's more of a realist than anyone on the Labour or Tory front benches and knows how to fix this country.
In fact, Corbyn's manifesto is probably nearer to that of Neil Kinnock than Tony Benn and makes a lot of sense. Fed up of rip-off train prices and energy bills? Nationalise them. Higher top tax rate? If you can afford to pay then yes - that money will go to the people who need it rather than the fallacy of "trickle down" economics. After all, as "Call me Dave" Cameron said, we're all in this together, right? More affordable council housing? In an age where people can't afford a mortgage until their forties at present, I think that's a very sensible idea. Stricter controls on newspapers and media? Given some of the odious practices of the Sun and the Mail as detailed in the Leveson Report, I'm all for it. And if it annoys a few bankers, corporate fat cats and newspaper owners who decide to take their trade off to Hong Kong in protest then good. The country's better off without leeches like them.
What Labour needs to do is to stop trying to hopelessly chase after the 5% of Middle England voters in swing seats. Newsflash guys - they'll never vote for you. These people are Tories and they won't vote for a Labour party while there's a strong Conservative party in government. What they should do is concentrate on winning back the voters that have been haemorrhaging out of the party since 1997. The people who've joined the Greens because they look at them and see the party that Labour used to be, promising a fairer society. The Scots who've migrated en masse to the SNP - not all of them are rabid nationalists who hate the English spend their waking hours searching the web for people who disagree with independence to troll, they just see that the Westminster system is broken and are crying out for a party promising something different which Labour hasn't been for a long time. The people who've scarily moved to the opposite end of the spectrum to UKIP because they see it as a more grassroots movement than Labour (which it is, unfortunately it's also a borderline far right and ultra-racist one which should have had Labour quickly reacting to shoot down the poisonous myths about immigrants that they're spreading). That's a far bigger group of supporters than just a few undecided 2.4 children families who will probably side with the Tories in the end anyway.
One man to unite them all. And his name might just be Jeremy Corbyn. I hope so anyway. And if Blair, Kendall, Umunna, Yvette Cooper et al don't like it they can always do what David Owen did 35 odd years ago and go off and join the Lib Dems. You might want to ask Nick Clegg about how that party's holding up at the moment though...
Friday, 7 August 2015
Flashback Friday #1 - Antiproduct
"Here's another message for ya, Slipknot Youth/Your nation is your god and your music is your truth/It makes you feel good, yeah, it makes you feel safe/NOW GET OUTTA OUR WAY, WE'RE TAKIN' OVER THIS PLACE!" - Antiproduct - "Better Than This"
So here we go, another new thing on this site. The aim of this (hopefully) weekly rambling will be as a bit of a flashback guide to some of the bands who you may have missed over the last 15-20 years or so. And there really seems no better place to start than Antiproduct, not least because they're one of those bands that you'll probably see linked to a LOT of the other groups who crop up in this column in the weeks ahead in some way or other...
I dunno how many out there remember the years 2000-2003 or so. Let me tell you, it was shit. Ignoring a few decent bands on the fringes like Silver Ginger 5, the Yo-Yo's and the Backyard Babies, the pages of Kerrang! were pretty much saturated first with godawful nu-metal neanderthals like Limp Bizkit, Korn, Crazytown, Slipknot et al, then with horrible whiny pop-punk fratboys like Blink 182, Sum 41, Alien Ant Farm, Wheatus etc. And don't even get me started on the godawful abomination that was emo that followed that. The pages of the NME weren't much better - the demise of the Melody Maker meant that genuinely good bands like King Adora and Easyworld were being ignored in favour of posh boy trust fund "garage bands" with cash from their CEO parents to buy their way to column inches - first the Strokes and a million and one dead-eyed clone bands that slithered across the Atlantic with them, then the Libertines and the Arctic Monkeys and the horrible wave of put on whiny accents and skaghead wannabes that followed them with all the glamour of a 50p chips and saveloy deal at a Barnsley takeaway.
Something needed to change. Something needed to exist as an alternative. Thank fuck we had bands like Antiproduct is all I can say. Imagine walking into a rock club in this era expecting some bunch of mopes with Phil Oakey fringes whinging about how the cute girl in their chemistry class won't go to the prom with them even though they're all a) well into their twenties and b) from somewhere like Peterborough rather than New York or California. And instead you get THIS...
Pretty flippin' good, eh? I first encountered Antiproduct via their frontman Alex Kane's short-lived two-man industrial comedy noise terrorism band Clam Abuse which he formed with Ginger Wildheart following the messy break-up of the 'Hearts in 1997 or so. Though even by then, Kane was a relative veteran of the music scene, having started as guitarist with LA via Chicago glam-shock-rock outfit Life, Sex & Death. LSD's main gimmick was that they had (according to legend) been searching for a singer for months and eventually recruited a random hobo called Stanley who wandered into their rehearsal space by accident. They put out one album, 1993's rather awesome "The Silent Majority" and if you listen to it you can definitely hear the genesis for the full on insanity that was Antiproduct therein.
Anyway, perhaps unsurprisingly given the madness surrounding the band, LSD weren't long for this world and, after a brief spell handling guitar duties in Enuff Z'Nuff mid-'90s, Kane found himself over in England hanging out with Ginger Wildheart. The Wildhearts story has already been told many times elsewhere and suffice to say that without them, my musical education would've been very different. At the time, the Wildhearts had spluttered to a halt with the vicious industrial album "Endless Nameless", an under-rated album but one which was a complete departure from anything they'd done before and completely threw most fans for a loop at the time.
So what happens then when you mix "Endless Nameless"' industrial dynamics with LSD's brand of insanity. Why, funny you should ask, you get Clam Abuse consisting of Clam Savage and Clint Abuse (that'll be Ginger and Alex, I'm not sure which was which). I'm sure they probably deserve a Flashback Friday column all of their own but they kept it together just long enough to make one album, 1998's "Stop Thinking". Again, sane it very much isn't. Bloody good it very much is.
Clam Abuse imploded in 1999 with Ginger going off to form the more straightforward Silver Ginger 5 and Kane rechristening himself A Product, recruiting guitarist Clare Pproduct and Sack Trick's rhythm section of Chris Dale and Robin Guy and letting loose with Antiproduct's opening salvo of "Consume And Die...The Rest Is All Fun" The band quickly became known for their incendiary live shows with Kane, looking like a cross between Gene Simmons and Krusty The Clown, taking time out to scare the hell out of all and sundry.
The line-up would slowly evolve. Dale and Guy would quickly return to Sack Trick (Guy also drumming for countless other bands) and a new line-up would emerge with Argentinian Milena Yum on keyboards, Simon Gonk on drums and first Toshi (who would later join the Ga*Ga's and Slaves To Gravity) and then Marina Metallina on bass.
To those who never experienced them, it's kind of difficult to describe an Antiproduct live show - complete and utter chaos but chaos of the most thrilling kind. Gonk smashing his kit like he was building a shed, Marina and Milena the two cool-as-ice vixens at either side of the stage, Clare stalking the stage like a giraffe on stilts thrashing the hell out of her six string and Kane the tireless generator at the centre of the storm. Whether it was goading the whole audience into joining in with the opening bars of "Bungee Jumping People Die!" (those trying to hide out at the back were often quickly pointed out and had abuse shouted at them), spraying silly string (and occasionally spray paint) around on stage or even getting the whole audience to shout abuse at Trashlight Vision's roadie when they came onstage much to the concern of their unprepared singer Acey Slade (Leeds Met, 2005. I was there. It was probably one of the most awesome things I've ever seen at a gig), you wouldn't forget an Antiproduct gig in a hurry, trust me.
And they were a bloody hard-working band as well, playing anywhere and everywhere that'd have them. Christ, I even followed them to Hebden Bridge once. And that sort of persistence will earn you a seriously hardcore following - Antiproduct's APRA fan club were notoriously loyal even by metal standards. Add a tendency towards every daft publicity stunt imaginable from selling vials of their bodily fluids on their website to being interviewed in adult mag Mayfair, they really were a band outside the box in many senses of the word.
Antiproduct's second album "Made In USA" arrived in 2004 and is probably the nearest they came to capturing the full on chaos of their live sound on record with songs like "Turnin' Me On" and "If I Was Orson Welles". They put one single out from it, "Better Than This". Which had 15 tracks on it. Reviews were good and it should have been the record to put them over the top.
Except...it didn't happen for some reason. Instability set in with various members bailing out to new bands - Marina joined Eyelash and Milena joined Shush (who I'm pretty sure we'll cover in due course in this column as well) while Simon picked up a broken foot on tour and still insisted on drumming throughout. Inevitably at the end, he had to leave the band for fear of risking permanent damage.
The following months saw a revolving door membership with everyone from ex-White Lion drummer Greg D'Angelo to future Eureka Machines frontman Chris Catalyst serving with the band. Live gigs suddenly started to become rarer and rarer and Kane eventually disappeared back to the States for an extended hiatus.
A third Antiproduct album, "Please Take Your Cash" eventually surfaced in 2009 consisting of half new songs and half re-recorded songs. It was good enough but the lack of new material was a bit of a concern. They even came back over to do a few gigs supporting their old mates the Wildhearts in 2009 and 2010. But since then...nothing.
Various ex-Antiproduct members have resurfaced in other peoples' bands down the years. Both Alex and Clare have done time with both Richie and Marky Ramone's live bands while Clare has also served with the appropriately titled Noizee. Of other ex-members, Milena has also been part of electro-rockers Tecnotitlan as well as Shush while Toshi was last seen in the excellent Hey! Hello! with that man Ginger Wildheart again. Robin Guy is currently in Sham 69, Kitty Hudson and probably about three other bands as I write this and Chris Dale occasionally resurfaces with Sack Trick. Simon and Marina? No idea I'm afraid. Phone home if you know.
You know what? I miss Antiproduct. The music world seems a much colder and less entertaining place without them around. And I'm sure most people who went to their gigs would have their own memories that have lasted with them for the last 10-15 years or so. But you know what else? Something tells me we haven't heard the last of them. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that when they come back it's with an album that's as wonderfully unhinged and heavy as only they can be. We live in hope and await the day...
So here we go, another new thing on this site. The aim of this (hopefully) weekly rambling will be as a bit of a flashback guide to some of the bands who you may have missed over the last 15-20 years or so. And there really seems no better place to start than Antiproduct, not least because they're one of those bands that you'll probably see linked to a LOT of the other groups who crop up in this column in the weeks ahead in some way or other...
I dunno how many out there remember the years 2000-2003 or so. Let me tell you, it was shit. Ignoring a few decent bands on the fringes like Silver Ginger 5, the Yo-Yo's and the Backyard Babies, the pages of Kerrang! were pretty much saturated first with godawful nu-metal neanderthals like Limp Bizkit, Korn, Crazytown, Slipknot et al, then with horrible whiny pop-punk fratboys like Blink 182, Sum 41, Alien Ant Farm, Wheatus etc. And don't even get me started on the godawful abomination that was emo that followed that. The pages of the NME weren't much better - the demise of the Melody Maker meant that genuinely good bands like King Adora and Easyworld were being ignored in favour of posh boy trust fund "garage bands" with cash from their CEO parents to buy their way to column inches - first the Strokes and a million and one dead-eyed clone bands that slithered across the Atlantic with them, then the Libertines and the Arctic Monkeys and the horrible wave of put on whiny accents and skaghead wannabes that followed them with all the glamour of a 50p chips and saveloy deal at a Barnsley takeaway.
Something needed to change. Something needed to exist as an alternative. Thank fuck we had bands like Antiproduct is all I can say. Imagine walking into a rock club in this era expecting some bunch of mopes with Phil Oakey fringes whinging about how the cute girl in their chemistry class won't go to the prom with them even though they're all a) well into their twenties and b) from somewhere like Peterborough rather than New York or California. And instead you get THIS...
Pretty flippin' good, eh? I first encountered Antiproduct via their frontman Alex Kane's short-lived two-man industrial comedy noise terrorism band Clam Abuse which he formed with Ginger Wildheart following the messy break-up of the 'Hearts in 1997 or so. Though even by then, Kane was a relative veteran of the music scene, having started as guitarist with LA via Chicago glam-shock-rock outfit Life, Sex & Death. LSD's main gimmick was that they had (according to legend) been searching for a singer for months and eventually recruited a random hobo called Stanley who wandered into their rehearsal space by accident. They put out one album, 1993's rather awesome "The Silent Majority" and if you listen to it you can definitely hear the genesis for the full on insanity that was Antiproduct therein.
Anyway, perhaps unsurprisingly given the madness surrounding the band, LSD weren't long for this world and, after a brief spell handling guitar duties in Enuff Z'Nuff mid-'90s, Kane found himself over in England hanging out with Ginger Wildheart. The Wildhearts story has already been told many times elsewhere and suffice to say that without them, my musical education would've been very different. At the time, the Wildhearts had spluttered to a halt with the vicious industrial album "Endless Nameless", an under-rated album but one which was a complete departure from anything they'd done before and completely threw most fans for a loop at the time.
So what happens then when you mix "Endless Nameless"' industrial dynamics with LSD's brand of insanity. Why, funny you should ask, you get Clam Abuse consisting of Clam Savage and Clint Abuse (that'll be Ginger and Alex, I'm not sure which was which). I'm sure they probably deserve a Flashback Friday column all of their own but they kept it together just long enough to make one album, 1998's "Stop Thinking". Again, sane it very much isn't. Bloody good it very much is.
Clam Abuse imploded in 1999 with Ginger going off to form the more straightforward Silver Ginger 5 and Kane rechristening himself A Product, recruiting guitarist Clare Pproduct and Sack Trick's rhythm section of Chris Dale and Robin Guy and letting loose with Antiproduct's opening salvo of "Consume And Die...The Rest Is All Fun" The band quickly became known for their incendiary live shows with Kane, looking like a cross between Gene Simmons and Krusty The Clown, taking time out to scare the hell out of all and sundry.
The line-up would slowly evolve. Dale and Guy would quickly return to Sack Trick (Guy also drumming for countless other bands) and a new line-up would emerge with Argentinian Milena Yum on keyboards, Simon Gonk on drums and first Toshi (who would later join the Ga*Ga's and Slaves To Gravity) and then Marina Metallina on bass.
To those who never experienced them, it's kind of difficult to describe an Antiproduct live show - complete and utter chaos but chaos of the most thrilling kind. Gonk smashing his kit like he was building a shed, Marina and Milena the two cool-as-ice vixens at either side of the stage, Clare stalking the stage like a giraffe on stilts thrashing the hell out of her six string and Kane the tireless generator at the centre of the storm. Whether it was goading the whole audience into joining in with the opening bars of "Bungee Jumping People Die!" (those trying to hide out at the back were often quickly pointed out and had abuse shouted at them), spraying silly string (and occasionally spray paint) around on stage or even getting the whole audience to shout abuse at Trashlight Vision's roadie when they came onstage much to the concern of their unprepared singer Acey Slade (Leeds Met, 2005. I was there. It was probably one of the most awesome things I've ever seen at a gig), you wouldn't forget an Antiproduct gig in a hurry, trust me.
And they were a bloody hard-working band as well, playing anywhere and everywhere that'd have them. Christ, I even followed them to Hebden Bridge once. And that sort of persistence will earn you a seriously hardcore following - Antiproduct's APRA fan club were notoriously loyal even by metal standards. Add a tendency towards every daft publicity stunt imaginable from selling vials of their bodily fluids on their website to being interviewed in adult mag Mayfair, they really were a band outside the box in many senses of the word.
Antiproduct's second album "Made In USA" arrived in 2004 and is probably the nearest they came to capturing the full on chaos of their live sound on record with songs like "Turnin' Me On" and "If I Was Orson Welles". They put one single out from it, "Better Than This". Which had 15 tracks on it. Reviews were good and it should have been the record to put them over the top.
Except...it didn't happen for some reason. Instability set in with various members bailing out to new bands - Marina joined Eyelash and Milena joined Shush (who I'm pretty sure we'll cover in due course in this column as well) while Simon picked up a broken foot on tour and still insisted on drumming throughout. Inevitably at the end, he had to leave the band for fear of risking permanent damage.
The following months saw a revolving door membership with everyone from ex-White Lion drummer Greg D'Angelo to future Eureka Machines frontman Chris Catalyst serving with the band. Live gigs suddenly started to become rarer and rarer and Kane eventually disappeared back to the States for an extended hiatus.
A third Antiproduct album, "Please Take Your Cash" eventually surfaced in 2009 consisting of half new songs and half re-recorded songs. It was good enough but the lack of new material was a bit of a concern. They even came back over to do a few gigs supporting their old mates the Wildhearts in 2009 and 2010. But since then...nothing.
Various ex-Antiproduct members have resurfaced in other peoples' bands down the years. Both Alex and Clare have done time with both Richie and Marky Ramone's live bands while Clare has also served with the appropriately titled Noizee. Of other ex-members, Milena has also been part of electro-rockers Tecnotitlan as well as Shush while Toshi was last seen in the excellent Hey! Hello! with that man Ginger Wildheart again. Robin Guy is currently in Sham 69, Kitty Hudson and probably about three other bands as I write this and Chris Dale occasionally resurfaces with Sack Trick. Simon and Marina? No idea I'm afraid. Phone home if you know.
You know what? I miss Antiproduct. The music world seems a much colder and less entertaining place without them around. And I'm sure most people who went to their gigs would have their own memories that have lasted with them for the last 10-15 years or so. But you know what else? Something tells me we haven't heard the last of them. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that when they come back it's with an album that's as wonderfully unhinged and heavy as only they can be. We live in hope and await the day...
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