A lot of artists have been doing covers to pass the time thanks to quarantine due to coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Watch Mike Portnoy (Sons of Apollo, The Winery Dogs, Neal Morse Band, BPMD) cover The Ramones classic ‘We’re A Happy Family’ on vocals and all the instruments. Extra points if you catch where he changed the lyrics to his own happy family!
Connecticut based photographer Tom Hearn was fortunate enough to document The Ramones at the height of the burgeoning Punk scene in the mid-1970s. This weekend in New York a new exhibition of his photography, The First Time I saw the Ramones, a solo exhibition by Hearn opens at 72 Gallery in New York City. The collected photos are from July 22 1976 when Tom was asked by his friend Legs McNeil (Please Kill Me) to see the Ramones play at the Arcadia Ballroom in New Haven. The exhibition runs until June 6th and the gallery is typically open Tuesday through Sunday, with details below.
The new trailer for Spider Man: Far From Home just dropped and once again Queens, New York legends The Ramones are being repped by the movie. Spider-Man’s character is actually from Forrest Hills, the same neighborhood as The Ramones, and the iconic Punks are synonymous with New York attitude and style. ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ can be heard at the top of the trailer, much like ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ was used in the trailers and the movie Spider-Man: Homecoming. The trailer always has an orchestral version of the popular original Spider-Man Cartoon theme song from the 1960s. Spider-Man Far From Home releases on July 5th 2019 from Sony Pictures. Continue reading
A 60s classic rock song covered by The Ramones was featured on Episode 2 of the current season of The X-Files. ‘California Sun’, originally by Joe Jones, and was covered many times, was originally recorded by The Ramones on their second album, Leave Home (Sire) in 1977. The song is heard in the cold open of the show and the Ramones can be seen on a TV the main characters Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are watching on the couch in that scene. Continue reading
The music world was rocked last night as news of the death at age 90 of iconic originator Chuck Berry spread over the internet. Berry’s monumental influence on generations of guitarists and bands is hard to measure, but not to quantify in importance to music. Chuck personally led to the wide-spread love and understanding of rock and roll through a string of hit songs and other anthems championing the nascent genre in the early 1950s. He died near his home of St. Charles County, MO and his death was confirmed by the St. Charles County, Mo., police department.
Hailing from Sierra Vista, Arizona are Fuzz Evil, formed in 2014 by Wayne (guitar/vocals) and Joseph Rudell (bass/vocals) whose previous band was the wonderfully named Powdered Wig Machine, with Marlin Tuttle on drums rounding off the trio. This Fuzz Evil’s self titled début came out last month on Battleground Records and it is a loud blast of punk energy, with a wonderfully colourful and psychedelic front cover that the Blues Pills would be proud of.Continue reading
The 1990s was a simpler time in the world. Before the internet was huge, and before everyone had a cell phone. Before apps, downloading, WiFi, and streaming. The rock music seemed a bit more genuine in the post Nirvana second half of the decade especially and even the bands with hits, didn’t have a hard time being sincere while making catchy rock music for the masses. For four years the annual Summerland Tour has been the traveling home to this party tour that still knows what you did last summer, and every time. Summerland 2016 featured all returning bands from previous tours, each one capable of headlining this show any day: Sugar Ray, Everclear, Lit, and Sponge. Sponge opened the proceedings and had the shortest set, but they have always been one of the best and most underrated live acts to come from that era. Lit followed with their infectious pop-rock and closed with their biggest hit, ‘My Own Worst Enemy’. Everclear has led this tour several times and the depth of their set list always proves their credibility to this day. Led by Art Alexakis, the band plays hit after hit and still goes pretty hard nightly. Smash radio hits (when radio was radio still) may have softened the fury that Sugar Ray once had in their youth. But you can’t deny the catchiness of the majority of their songs or the fun they bring. Even though they eschewed some of their stronger originals for some odd covers on this tour (EMF and The Ramones) one can’t deny that this music just smacks of warm nights, cold beers, and good memories. Caught and captured for Ghost Cult in Las Vegas by Jesse Lambert of Arch Angel Studios, you can see why year after year the Summerland Tour still packs em in!
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Rather unsurprisingly, Rob Zombie records are much like Rob Zombie films. You either like them or you don’t. His films are nightmarish, brutal gore-soaked rides featuring masked or grease-painted trailer trash homicidal maniacs, old B-movie references (and actors), a marvelously excessive use of the word “motherfucker”, and of course, Sheri Moon Zombie. His albums are almost identical except possibly for more gasoline guzzling, psychoholic undead werewolf go-go dancers.
So, if you’re reading this review then there’s a good chance you already have more than a reasonable idea of what’s waiting for you even before you start listening. All you really want to do now is read about how fucked up it is and how much you’re going to like it.
The preposterously titled The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser (Zodiac Swan) begins with ‘The Last of the Demons Defeated’, a short intro featuring the voice of infamous occultist Aleister Crowley. The first proper song, ‘Satanic Cyanide! The Killer Rocks On!’, is a typically
bombastic assault, featuring quotes from leader of the Texas Cornerstone “Megachurch”, Pastor John Hagee (amusingly sped up so he sounds like some kind of loopy religious Minion) and author Steven Jacobson speaking about mind control.
‘The Life and Times of a Teenage Rock God’ begins slowly with keyboard effects acting like the soundtrack to a mad scientist’s laboratory, but soon hits you with a driving beat and an Alice Cooper vibe. As a bit of an unusual departure, RZ releases his inner Les Claypool with ‘Everybody’s Fucking in a UFO’. If you haven’t already heard it, just imagine ‘Winona’s Big Brown Beaver’ by Primus, but with a crunching riff, more profanity, and huge spurts of green alien jizz.
‘A Hearse That Overturns With the Coffin Bursting Open’ is a an acoustic interlude that lasts only a little longer than it takes to say the title. This is followed by ‘The Hideous Exhibitions of a Dedicated Gore Whore’ which includes a Vox organ and a creepy audio sample featuring Charles Manson family member Leslie Van Houten (taken from the same interview, incidentally, that White Zombie used for ‘Real Solution #9’).
‘Medication For the Melancholy’ is a fast and furious affair, the obligatory featured audio sample coming this time from Pam Grier blaxploitation flick, Coffy. ‘In The Age of the Consecrated Vampire We All Get High’ (come on, Rob. Really?) is a thunderously good signature Zombie tune that doesn’t sound a million miles away from long-time fan favourite, ‘Superbeast’, and ‘Super-Doom Hex-Gloom Part One’ is another instrumental interlude, but unfortunately doesn’t really do anything that interesting.
‘In The Bone Pile’ comes with bags of attitude and a surprisingly short title, while ‘Get Your Boots On! That’s The End of Rock and Roll” is absurdly catchy with its “Gabba Gabba Hey, Be-Bop-A-Lula” chorus, and album closer ‘Wurdalak’ is a slow, grinding, atmospheric tribute to Boris Karloff in the 1963 Mario Bava horror film “Black Sabbath”.
Zombie has referred to his new album (there’s no way I’m writing that title out again) as “seriously our heaviest most fucked up musical monster to date”, and although it’s clearly a beast, it’s not dramatically heavier than his last couple of releases. It’s also a relatively short album, coming in at only just over thirty minutes in length. But the truth is that it doesn’t have to be heavy as hell or longer than the average album to make an impression. Each song is a short, sharp jab of (sick) bubblegum Americana, a swift, strikingly confident punch in the face that knocks you down but makes you want to get straight back up to take more of its addictive abuse.
8.0/10
GARY ALCOCK
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Motörhead © Kevin Estrada / kevinestrada.com
The music world lost one of its true great baddasses when Ian Frasier Kilmister, known to scores of fans by his eponymous nickname Lemmy of Motörhead, passed away suddenly from cancer on December 28th. The shockwave felt with from announcement of his death at age 70 on social media, and then confirmation by the band was heartbreaking for many who followed his career of nearly five decades. Although he has struggled with health issues the last few years, Motörhead was last seen on tour in Europe three weeks earlier, supporting their recent new album Bad Magic (UDR). One of the most enduring sounds in rock music, the obscenely loud volume of the bands’ live backline, unmatched by any band in any genre, will never be heard again. Continue reading
The Truth of Revolution, Brother: An Exploration of Punk Philosophy (Situation Press) is an interesting look at many of the common philosophies within the rebellious genre and it also acts as a biography for some of its key figures. Through a series of interviews authors Lisa Sofianos, Robin Ryde and Charlie Waterhorse, have crafted an insightful and at times dense examination of the personal beliefs that fuel the music, particularly in anarcho-punk.
Culled from over 20 different interviews with subjects including the likes of former Dead Kennedy’s vocalist Jello Biafra, producer Steve Albini and firebrand Gavin McInnes, The Truth of Revolution, Brother feels like a great documentary that hasn’t been shot yet. Punk isn’t just music, for the faithful it’s an unshakable bond that informs all of their daily decisions. It was an artistic liberation because it wasn’t the usual prog and arena rock that permeated the 1970s. If you had something to say now you can now express yourself even if you can’t play your instrument very well or have a record label to back you up. All the weirdos were allowed.
“Punk changed the whole world for me,” says Albini. “Punk changed all of my friends. Everything that I do with my life. This studio. All of this that I am doing for a living. Everyone I know. Every significant friend I’ve ever had. Every significant life experience that I have had, I owe that to the Ramones.”
However, it is also quick to point out that while punk was the undiscriminating genre when it came to musical prerequisites, age or sex; it is also very much steeped in hierarchy as you are allowed to come in and participate only if you wear the right boots and black shirts. The prevailing Do-It-Yourself ethos acts as the backbone that allows punk to stand, but also means that there is less focus on quality control as anyone can come in and take a swing at it. Doing it yourself can sometimes lead to doing it badly.
But for me what was most interesting about this tome is that so many of the interviewed always pointed to anarcho-punk trailblazers Crass as one of their main inspirations and the reason for adopting the punk lifestyle. The consensus is that they were the first punk band to adopt the DIY mantra, foster pro-environmentalist habits and call for everyone to drop competiveness out of their nature in order to improve the community.
“What is so deeply emotional for me about Crass, in particular, is that when I was sent to the correctional boarding school I was completely alone” says Jon Gnarr. “And I was so afraid that I carried a knife. I felt so alone, and there was nobody to tell me right from wrong, there weren’t even teachers at that place, so at a very difficult time in my life, Crass was there for me.” Feeling dissatisfied with his government’s handling of the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis, Gnarr would use some of that punk influence and form the satirical Best Party. In a shocking upset Gnarr ran and was elected mayor of Reykjavík in 2010.
So many other of the interview subjects continuously cite the short lived anarchist bent Essex unit, that it starts to feel like that you are getting an oral history of the band. Adding to that feel are insightful chapters directly from former Crass members Steve Ignorant, Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher.
Something worth noting is that with so many citing the same artists and similar philosophies as vital the book can begin to feel a tad repetitive towards the middle, but all things considered it shines a bright light on the inner machinations of one of rock’s most extreme wings. Now if we could only get that complete Crass biography.
8.0/10
HANSEL LOPEZ