R.I.P. Jerry Fuchs

An incredibly nice guy and an incredible talent. You will be missed.

Under the Rose

Kiss
Music from the Elder
1981

I'll try to keep this brief, but understand my love for this record is almost unparalleled. Let's look at the facts:
1. I love KISS. I mean, they are seriously my absolute favorite band ever. No one else is even close.
2. I love Bob Ezrin, particularly his work in the 70s, when he was pushing bands up and up and producing these huge, ambitious projects (some of which were total failures, *cough*maybe like this one*cough*)
3. I love it when bands do weirdo records that are totally out of sync with the rest of their catalog, as this blog is a testament to.

So maybe you can understand why this album is so dear to me. I love it. I mean, it's like a desert island album for me. Not like a "so bad it's good" thing, either. I genuinely love it.

Some background for the uninitiated: Kiss was at an all-time low in the late 70s. Peter Criss had left, and they'd just released the two worst-selling records of their career, the wrongly maligned Dynasty and the rightly maligned Unmasked. Peter hadn't played much on either of those, but they'd finally officially replaced him with the phenomenal Eric Carr (The Fox) and had promised fans a return to the straight-up rock'n'roll of their earlier records. Eric Carr was just the kick in the pants they needed, too. He was a much heavier drummer than his predecessor (and probably the most talented guy to ever play in Kiss), and they were in the perfect position to reclaim their glory. They called in Bob Ezrin, who'd produced the wildly successful Destroyer to helm the board, and Ezrin inexplicably convinced them to do a concept record. He was hot off of doing Pink Floyd's The Wall. That's the only explanation. The record bombed so hard it's a wonder the band persevered. They didn't even tour for it. Given the way future members were treated, it's a wonder Eric Carr wasn't fired on the spot. Ace Frehly had had enough at this point and bolted for a solo career.

At any rate, this album was downright legendary when I was a kid. It was out of print (or, barring that, very, very hard to find) and was widely considered a joke. My brother tracked it down through a mail-order company, and was so disgusted by it that he purposely scratched it and sent it back. They knew the deal, though, and promptly sent it right back, and that very album is sitting in my record bin a foot or so away from me as I type.

So why the beef? It doesn't sound like Kiss. It's not particularly rock'n'roll, really. Gene Simmons once said that it sounded like a bad Genesis record. Paul Stanley, clearly exhibiting the better taste of the two, once said that it was a good record, just not a good Kiss record. But it was the perfect soundtrack to my young-life of being obsessed with The Legend of Zelda and The Hobbit and crap like that. That's definitely the vibe I get. Does it sound like Kiss? Not really. Is it a failure? Probably. But I still love these songs, and I truly wish the band would treat this album with a tad more respect. Some of these songs are just incredible. "The Oath" is one of the heaviest songs in the band's catalog, certainly the heaviest up to that point. "Just A Boy" is good for reasons I can't quite explain. And "Escape from the Island" is the first Kiss instrumental since their debut record 8 years (and 8 albums, not including live and solo records [which brings up a crazy point about how prolific this band was in the 70s. From 1972 to 1980 they released 8 studio albums, 2 live albums, and 4 solo albums for a total of 14 records in 8 years]) earlier.

Oh, by the way, maybe you're familiar with the 33 1/3 book series (books dedicated to specific albums, written by music journalists, musicians, etc). There are like 70 of them at this point, but back in 2005 they were gearing up to do the second or third run and sent out a call for idea submissions, and I promptly threw my hat in the ring for this record. For the intitial screening (which preceded the official pitch), the editor, David Barker, responded with something along the lines of, "Yeah, huh, not many people like that album." Needless to say, my book isn't on the shelves.

But I demand this record be given a second chance. And I guess I didn't keep this brief after all. But trust me, there's a lot of stuff in my head that I didn't type.

Music from the Elder

Let's Get Hurt

Teengenerate
Get Action!
1994

Last weekend I went to see AC/DC with a friend of mine, and beforehand we were talking about punk rock. The conversation wound its way to the New Bomb Turks, which led me to ask my friend if he'd heard Teengenerate. He had not. It occurred to me that though these guys were pretty well known back in the 90s, their abrupt breakup (a friend asked one of them why they were breaking up when they played their final show in Atlanta, and the response was hilariously excited "I DON'T KNOW!") and the fact that they were from Japan means they've sort of dropped off the radar. Guitar Wolf perseveres, but the far superior Teengenerate drifts of in the sands of punk rock time.

So anyway, this is the punkest record released by any band in between The Dwarves' Blood Guts and Pussy and Turbonegro's Ass Cobra (or the 2003 re-issue of Ass Cobra for that matter). Maybe it's punker than Ass Cobra, actually. At any rate, if you don't have this, get it. Oh, they were originally called American Soul Spiders, and The New Bomb Turks wrote a song about them that appeared on their Drunk on Cock ep, which also included a cover of The Queers' "This Place Sucks". Get Action! has a cover of The Queers' "Kicked Out of the Webelos". So see, it sort of all comes full circle. Or something.

Final note: Some day I'll post 5 4 Baby 3 2 1, the unreleased album by an old garage punk band I was in called The Drummonds, and you'll see just how far Teengenerate worship can get you (the answer, of course, is not very far, which is why the album never got released).

Get Action!

Ain't Nothin' To Do

Nine Pound Hammer
"Radar Love" b/w "Ain't Nothin' To Do"
1995
Vinyl Rip

The greatest redneck punk band in history covering two songs that are awesome in their own right, Golden Earring's "Radar Love" and The Dead Boys' "Ain't Nothin' To Do". Forget all the cowboy-hat wearing, rebel-flag sporting, faux-country posewads; this is the real deal. It's a shame Nine Pound Hammer called it a day shortly after this, paving the way for the far inferior Nashville Pussy, and then the equally inferior reunited version of Nine Pound Hammer. So maybe it's not a shame they called it a day, but rather a shame they didn't stay down. Or maybe I'm just selfish.

At any rate, chug a beer, download this, crank it, play air guitar, and go smash something. Or, you know, be a pussy. The choice is yours.


"Radar Love" b/w "Ain't Nothin' To Do"

Science and Trucking

Textbook
A Garden to Tear Apart
unreleased

Shameless self promotion alert!

Textbook started back in 2003 or so, with an original lineup featuring three former members of Flux Capacitor (Jeremy Spake, Shane Secor, and Brian Crow) and some other dude on drums. Eventually that other dude was replaced by Gregory Case. Around this time, Brian was playing with me in a band called Atlantic (with another former member of Flux Capacitor, incidentally). He jumped ship to focus on Textbook exclusively, and eventually Atlantic folded. Fast-forward a year or so and Shane and Textbook decided to part ways amicably, and lo and behold, I get called up as his replacement.

I was in Textbook for roughly 1 year before we went on hiatus due to a great career opportunity for Jeremy. That 8-month hiatus turned into a year-long hiatus, then a year-and-a-half, and long story short, we never reformed. So here is our never-released full-length debut. Being in the band for only a short time, I'm in a bit of a unique position. I play on 2 of these 9 songs; the rest were recorded with Shane before I joined. So I'm really coming to you as a fan of this record, not just a dude promoting his own shit. If you like heavy post-punk, somewhere between Jawbox and Deadguy, then I think you'll dig this record. I do, anyway.

Oh, and btw, Shane Secor is in a pretty good newer style punk band called 40 Hells, which initially featured both Brian Crow and Gregory Case in its ranks. And yes, I'm aware of the humor in my band going on hiatus and two of the guys making a new band with an old-member and not me. It's really funny. Ha ha.

A Garden to Tear Apart

Kill The King

Masters of Reality
Masters of Reality
1988

Chris Goss is the unsung hero of the desert rock scene that gave us Kyuss and its many offspring. Goss produced the three Kyuss records that matter, and his influence is strong even on current Queens of the Stone Age stuff. That whole oddball, bluesy rock thing w/ the smooth vocals over top that QOTSA does is lifted from Goss's playbook. You already know all of this, I'm sure, so I'll get to the point.

Masters of Reality is Goss's band. They've had a revolving door of a lineup over the years (that's included all the usual suspects [Homme, Oliveri, Lanegan, Catching] as well as Ginger Fucking Baker) and have released 6 or 8 records or so. This is the first album, and it's nuts that this came out 21 years ago. Awesome heavy blues rock that is a hundred times better than anything termed "blues rock" should be. "The Candy Song" was a minor Headbanger's Ball hit. Dig it.

Masters of Reality

Doctor Phibes Rises Again

Kryst The Conqueror
Deliver Us From Evil
Unreleased

Ok. Oof. This is a rough one. Let's just power through it.

After The Misfits disbanded, Jerry Only and Doyle formed this weird metal band called Kryst The Conqueror. Jeff Scott Soto, at the time known as the guy who sang on the first coupl'a Yngwie Malmsteen records and later as one of the dudes who fronted Journey, did the vocals. The bottom line is, he sucks shit on this record. But until the legal dispute between Danzig and the Caiafa bros was resolved, this was "The Misfits". Once they regained control of the name, they basically found a new singer (drummer Dr. Chud was already on board), and released American Psycho (which, at the risk of losing readers, is a record I love).

They never got around to releasing this, though an EP was released that had some of this stuff on it. The bottom line is that knowing this is two of the guys from The Misfits definitely knocks it down a few pegs. HOWEVER, if it wasn't, this is exactly the sort of dumb shit I'd post on this blog anyway. It's corny metal, full of triumphant melodies and silly dark vocals and lyrics. It's not good, but come on, it's not that bad either.

I think they were trying to be a Christian band too, which is totally wtf.

But hey! Whatever, you know I dig this kind of corniness. And a coupl'a these songs are really similar to stuff The Misfits 2.0 did, particularly "Doctor Phibes Rises Again", of which the opening portion appeared as the opening track for American Psycho, only renamed "The Abominable Dr. Phibes". Come on, you know you want to give this one a try.

Deliver Us From Evil