ARCHIVE REVIEW #27 - The Dirtbombs - Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey

I was reminded of this LP recently after discussing Bubblegum pop with a pal of mine. I dug it when it came out but it sounds even sweeter now! My original review ran on Subba Cultcha when the album was first released.

Mick Collins and co. finally release their much promised Bubblegum LP!

Think you know The Dirtbombs? Purveyors of Detroit garage rock for what seems like forever, with front man Mick Collins previously responsible for the force of nature that was The Gories? Yes that band. The band that have been promising an album of bubblegum pop for almost a decade, an album most people thought would never materialise. You could almost think of it as some sort of ruse or joke. Well that album is here and it's pretty damn good!

Quick history lesson – Bubblegum for those that don't know is a genre of music that was created by journeymen record producers back in the late '60s as a kid-friendly cash-in. With musical roots in the accessible end of flower-power, beat music and folk-rock, it was often fronted by manufactured cartoon friendly bands, blokes in animal costumes or actual cartoons. Think The Banana Splits, The Archies, or 1910 Fruitgum Company. Though despised by serious music fans at the time, it's since developed a kitsch charm and appeal.

There's something about the music of one's childhood, it's deeply ingrained and has a sway over you that the music you hear later doesn't. It's obvious listening to Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey! (best album title of the year?) that Mick Collins has a deep affection for this music. The ten original songs pay homage to this strain of sunshine pop. It's twee, not in a sexless C86 way, there's just the right amount of fuzz and groove to keep the faithful happy.

Candy, ice cream, sunshine and fairground rides all get a look in on this LP of innocence re-found. The Gories this ain't, but it sure is fun dammit! I defy anyone to listen to the album's opening track “Sugar On Top” and not have a smile on their face. Also listen out for the deliberate melodic steal form The Beach Boys' “God Only Knows” on album closer “We Come In The Sunshine.”

Garage rock is a genre that often prides itself in being a ghetto. Mick Collins may upset the garage rock purists by opting to make music that has roots in exploitative pop, but hey how cool is it to exploit the exploiters! Sweet indeed!

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Killer Boogie - Detroit

Put your hands up for Detroit! Italian fuzz-rockers tribute to Rock City.

Detroit has long been recognized as the spiritual home for all things gritty, dirty and deranged in rock 'n' roll. Ever since The Stooges and MC5 burst on the the global scene after formulating their sounds in the Motor City there's been a steady stream of bands in their wake carrying on that legacy. From Alice Cooper to The Gories, Suzi Quattro to The White Stripes, they've all shared a love for stripped-to-the-bone hard rock delivered with humour and intelligence. Ditto Killer Boogie, whose blues-rock roots are souped up like a custom muscle car.

Killer Boogie don't hail from Detroit but they would make good adopted sons. Instead they hail from Rome, a city more renowned for its Colosseum and Sistene Chapel than it is for hard riffing rock music. The three-piece band are something of a supergroup, featuring Gabriele Fiori on guitars and vocals (Black Rainbows), Luigi Costanzo on drums (The Wisdoom), and Matteo Marini on bass (though Eduardo Mancini played bass on these studio recordings.)

This cross fertilization of bands from the Heavy Psych Sounds roster results in an album that fits perfectly with the label's ethos and aesthetic. HPS is already a label with a strongly defined identity, one that this record reinforces via its proto-grunge and metal. Detroit may be a record of very fixed genre but that's most certainly the point. After all, you don't go to a pizzeria and ask for sushi! So expect some hard rock with a distinctly early '70s hue.

Much like the almost fabled city of the album's title, the record's spirit is one of rebellion, fused with a separateness from the wider musical world. Economically Detroit has been on the decline since its car producing heyday, a city that's both proud and haunted by its golden era. Similarly rock music's purple patch is commonly thought to be the early '70s, so it's in some way fitting that Killer Boogie echo those classic sounds.

That era saw the beginning of rock's love affair with guitar pedals, when pushing the limits of volume, speed and virtuosity was at the forefront of most denim clad musician's minds. Detroit shares all those fascinations and then some. Busy guitar solos and fuzzed-up riffs abound. It says much about the state of contemporary music when such sonic time travel can reward more than today's state of the art releases.

No wonder then that each new generation eventually discovers the music made by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy et al. Thank goodness there's a new breed of contemporary bands making music that carries a similarly heavy punch. Hats off to Killer Boogie and Heavy Psych Sounds for flying the flag for all things heavy!

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Paul Collins - Feel The Noise

The heart of rock 'n' roll is still beating! The power pop guru returns with a celebration of the simple things in life.

Girls, guitars and rock 'n' roll – a simple enough recipe for happiness that's endured through the decades ever since Chuck, Buddy, Jerry Lee, Elvis and Little Richard laid down the template. Music may have mutated over the intervening years but those roots are as strong as ever. Paul Collins' latest long-player is an unashamed celebration of all these rock 'n' roll touchstones; the pleasure of beat music, new love, and cranking up the volume of your favourite slabs of vinyl. As a founding member of The Nerves Collins' reputation as one of power pop's key movers is assured. It's further cemented by this latest platter. Recorded by legendary Detroit producer Jim Diamond (who also plays guitar, bass and provides backing vocals and percussion), it's a punchy, melodic affair with a strong transatlantic thread, part British invasion, part US garage.

With A Girl Like You is not the Troggs' song of the same name but does tip its hat to British shores with its distinct Merseybeat flavour, whereas Baby I'm I'm Love With You resurrects and punks-up the sound of Buddy Holly & The Crickets. Detroit's musical heritage gets a look in with a cover of The Four Tops' Reach Out I'll Be There, its soulful longing supplemented with guitar band urgency. Album closer Walk Away further underlines this soul/guitar crossover, taking doo-wop as its basis. It would make an emotive track for a teen-movie credit roll should any Hollywood producers be reading this. Paul Collins will be on tour in the States later this month and throughout October. Get along to a gig and Feel The Noise! If you can't make a gig get this record instead. It won't disappoint.

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Luder - Adelphophagia (OUT NOW!)

A winning mix of shoegaze and Sabbath-inspired riffage from female-fronted Detroit four piece.

If a band was to pick a Davie Bowie song to cover, most would opt for for something from his '70s or early '80s output. There are not many bands that would choose Bowie's 1997 single “I'm Afraid Of Americans”. But there again Luder (for it is they) are no ordinary band. On Adelphophagia, the band's 2^nd long-player and follow up to 2009's Sonoluminescence, the band's version of the lesser-spotted-Bowie-single adds a rock guitar slant to Bowie and Eno's squelchy electro-funk. It's a choice that tells you much about Luder. They've one foot in the four-square grunge rock classicist camp, while slyly casting admiring eyes and taking note of the more avant-garde, artful and experimental. The Lady Gagas of rock if you can picture that for a second. Well maybe not, but if anyone remembers electronic rock duo Curve, that may give you an idea of what we're dealing with.

It's this mix of leftfield rock and big choruses that gives the album it's strength. It's moody, but big on groove. The album's release on Small Stone Records marks something of a stylistic departure for a label that's usually associated with a more macho stoner rock sound. This branching out into more cerebral meditative territory can do no harm though. The riffs when they do come will still satisfy die-hard rock fans, they're hard hitting and perhaps all the more effective for the band's otherwise restrained use of dynamics. While difficult to pigeon-hole into one stylistic genre, as there are various strands in Luder's musical DNA, it's this effortless blending that ultimately stands in the band's favour, and anyone willing to listen will no doubt be won over. Oh and the album title? It's what happens when an embryo consumes another in utero. So now you know!

Click here for Luder's website.

Click here for Small Stone Records.

 

Infernal Overdrive - Last Rays Of The Dying Sun (Small Stone Records 2012)

 Debut album of classic rock riffage from New Jersey's hard rocking quartet.

Having recently reviewed a couple of their releases for www.audioscribbler.co.uk, I've recently become an admirer of Small Stone Records, a record label that's based in Detroit, Michigan. Home to an ever growing roster of classic rock, hard rock, blues rock, metal, and stoner rock bands, they're purveyors of a sound that wouldn't cut it with your Shoreditch fashionista but has a loyal and discerning worldwide audience. Defiantly anti-fashion, it's a label that does what it likes and likes what it does.

I also like the label's tradition of fantasy fuelled album covers. Each illustrated cover harking back to hard rock's golden era, usually featuring some sort of mythical beast emerging from the earth, sky or sea to endanger the lives of your humble rock band and fan. The cover of Last Rays Of The Dying Sun, the debut album from New Jersey's Infernal Overdrive is no exception; a horned, winged, red-skinned monster/devil peers over a hillside, his fiery tongue merging with the road on which our hapless heroes travel along in their souped up automobile. The inside sleeve shows a burning road sign declaring it “Route 666”. Crikey! Shall we go for a ride then?

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