Sunday, July 25, 2010

Kevin K and the Real Kool Kats - "Addiction" (Lollipop Records - 2004)

Hi lads.
It's been a while since the last time here. I took some days off work to go on vacations with my family but the sad news of losing a beloved cousin, in such a young age, throw me a little mentally and physically. Anyway. For some reason when I'm sad for losing someone, i wanna hear Kevin K.
For those not in the know about Kevin K, he's quite simply the last of the true holdovers of the N.Y. City's street rock n' roll tradition. A true admirer/follower of Johnny & Jerry. A tattooed Paul Westerberg that pain and sorrow needle him from the early days. A Stiv Bators for the younger generation. I like every single work by him, from the Road Vultures days and the Lone Cowboys, to his recent essays with Real Kool Kats or the Hollywood Stars. I had the honor to interview him a couple of years ago for our then zine. Manolis, one of my best friends and comrade on Gang Bang Press & Sound, uploaded some things from our old mag pages on the net and if anyone's interested can found this codling dash here. He was cool enough to send me a pack of CD's that I'll never was able to catch in this small corner of the world, named Greece and guess what, he didn't charge me a dime. I'm looking forward these days for his book under the title "How to Become a Successful Loser". The record I'm offering, is among my very favorites. Recorded back in 2004 with the french guys the Real Kool Kats, and of course it's in the vein of the Heartbreakers (a brilliant cover of "One Track Mind" is included), the Stones, Paul Westerberg plus a lil' power pop powder for a bitter sweet result.
Support Kevin K on whatever he does. He's the last of a kind. Sadly...
R.I.P. Kanellos
320 Kbps
  
Addiction



Kevin K's book


Monday, July 12, 2010

Jerry Nolan - Interview on VOICE ROCK & ROLL QUARTERLY - "My Life As A Doll" (1991)

Coming in here and not knowing who Jerry Nolan was it's something like an offense!
So go back a little, google, read, buy Dolls and Heartbreakers albums and come back again later. Jerry before the Dolls and Johnny Thunders had another street pal.  Peter Criss. C'mooon, everybody knows Peter Criss- that's the cat behind KISS drum stool on their best moments. Well, blame Jerry for taught him playing the bongos. I remember Suzi Quatro saying me in an e-mail about how Jerry got involved with Cradle (some of Suzi's earlier bands) just because fell in love with her sister. Jerry always was a cool dude. Ask Nancy Spungen and poor Sid Vicious (OK that's difficult but you better believe me).  Got the job on the Dolls after Billy Murcia's death and with his chunk and steady beats those cuties get what they deserved. No money, no fame but a special position in our hearts. There's no true rock n' roller not loving them. Jerry was Johnny's 'older brother' till the end. They formed together the Heartbreakers, helped him with the Cosa Nostra Band, on his solo efforts and on thousands of gigs around the globe. That's why they died together, cause they lived together. Jerry was also behind the kit on legendary street brats like the London Cowboys and in Sweden formed the excellent Heartbreakers expedient, the Tenerifa Cowboys . The best thing i ever read on what now called "music journalism" was the last chapter on "Please Kill Me" book by Legs Mc Neil n' Gillian Mc Cain. A pastiche of many interviews, brilliantly edited, giving the whole punk (hi)story the way this written. Jerry on his last moments remembering Johnny, life on the streets, his tough chick sis and the hole in the shoe of an infamous greasy kid named Elvis Presley! If you haven't read it yet, do it straightforward. If your back not crawl on this, give up, you have absolutely no relation with this devil's thing called Rock & Roll! What we got here is the complete source for that last chapter. Never a pdf document had so many ass shakes inside his many zeros and aces data. MANY THANKS to the unknown cat, for scanning this piece of history! As Colin Gray wrote on Vicious Kitten zine back in the late 90s, "If Johnny Thunders is rockin' n rollin' somewhere in the unknown, you can bet your life that Jerry will be behind the kit, keeping the beat as he always did. May his memory live on, with those immortal words of David Johansen - "Give me one Jerry"!....









Friday, July 9, 2010

Hanoi Rocks - "Lean On Me" (Castle - 1986)

The sad thing for every pioneer out there is to be on the corner and watch all second hand wannabes takin' all the chicks and all the money that were designated for them. That happened to poor Johnny (Thunders) and the rest of the Dolls familia. The same thing for the only band deserves the sign "Sons of the Dolls", the Hanoi Rocks!
Johnny loved them, fans too (even Guns N Roses...). That's the first piece by them (along with their live album at Marquee) i bought and still remains a favorite listen. For all those suckers who thinks of Hanoi as a sleaze band, i have just one thing to say... Good night and so long.
Hanoi Rocks are basically a punk rock band. Just like the Dolls or the Clash. They loved also early Alice Cooper and T-Rex. They wrote (or steal) the best riffs and melodies of the rock n' roll history, even from 60s girl groups like the Shangri-Las but they did it with respect and devotion. We're not talking here about parthenogenesis. Good ol' rock n' roll for kids to dance as Johnny Thunders used to say. Not the best place for a newbie since it's a collection with some of their (many) best tracks ("Tragedy", "Taxi Driver", "Back to the Mystery City", "Motorvatin'", "Rebel on the Run" etc) plus some brilliant sounding demos they did with Rene Berg (R.I.P.) and Razzle (fuck you Vince Neil! - R.I.P.). The reasons i post this and not par example, "Two Steps from the Move" it's for the one & only "Hanoi" appearance of Rene's masterpiece "Fast Car" and all the fond memories re-birthing every time i put it on! I still get the chills and all of my skittles going up when i hear Michael Monroe singin':

"I got skintight jeans and high-heel shoes
A leather jacket and nothin' to lose
Gonna rock the nation down the filling station
Don't try to get a ride in my Cadillac
You don't look good enough for that
Sure I am a loner but I'm never alone I get by on my own
I gotta pull... I'm motorvatin
'"


Fucking ESSENTIAL!
320 Kpbs

Lean On Me 


Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The J. Geils Band - " 'Live' Full House " (Atlantic - 1972)

From the time i was a lil' kid, i was full of hatred on everything hippie related. To tell you the truth i still am and i don't give a fuck if somenone puts me right away on the 'one track minds' territory! I'm damn proud about it!
So, one of my lotsa 'fanatic' mistakes was to do judge by the cover on many things, even though Big Bad Bo had warned me about it. When you're 15 y.o. all you really want it's action in every level. And i wanted my favorite bands not only to sound like grease motherfuckers but look like too! Through my weekly journeys on the local record shops, any band from the 60s that had beard and long hair was disregarded directly. What a dumb ass! For this reason solely i had lost for many years the magic of true rock n roll bands like the Creedence Clearwater Revival or the J. Geils Band.
J. Geils Band were true ass kickers! Killer rhythm section, blasting harmonica, rip-roaring guitars and howlin' vocals! In a time where the Rolling Stones were trully ountouchables, J. Geils Band along with the Flamin Groovies were the only two who wad the nuts and the guts to kick Mick and Keith's asses!
They had amazing original tunes and great taste on what cover to pick up. They had huge following in the States and they packed arenas by any minute but unfortunately the sales on their records never mirrored due to the fact that the engineers and the producers failed constantly to catch and re-produce that 'raw' sound they had on stage.
Their first three studio albums should be in every household's disc box ("The J. Geils Band" - 1970, "The Morning After" - 1971, "Bloodshot" - 1973) but if you wanna get the real raw sounding of the J. Geils Band should check this live blast here! Recorded in 1972 at Detroit (homeland of many pure rock n roll acts) with the band working like a 16 valve engine on a maximum performance!
If you are not already familiar with these filthy animals, well it's time to kick out the jams with them!
320Kpbs



Live - Full House!



Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Johnny Thunders - "Dead Or Alive / Downtown" (7" Single - Real Records - 1978)

When the Heartbreakers broke up (actually for a while), Thunders formed the Living Dead and relocated with his family back to London. In February of 1978 began playing with the loose and floating line up of the Living Dead that included at times, Steve Jones & Paul Cook (Sex Pistols), Peter Perrett & Mike Kellie (the Only Ones) or Steve Nicol and Paul Gray both members of Eddie & the Hot Rods. A&R dude, Dave Hill saw them and made a deal with Johnny with an end result this single. "Dead Or Alive" & "Downtown" recorded with the Eddie & the Hot Rods rhythm section guys and released through Real Records in May 1978. Power guitars and gutsy rhythms on both sides of this dynamite, which still remains and ace among Thunders catalog. 
320 Kpbs

Vocals, Guitar - Johnny Thunders
Bass - Paul Gray (2)
Drums - Steve Nicol
Producer - Steve Lillywhite & Johnny Thunders





Friday, July 2, 2010

Wild Zero (DVD - Guitar Wolf - 2000)

Let's talk about cinema a little and concentrate our view on the unproved term, "Rock & Roll Movies". So, what's a rock n' roll movie? Were Elvis movies for example "Rock & Roll"?
- Surely NO! Maybe some of them got a little rockin' but absolutely no rollin'.
OK, were movies like "Tommy" by the Who, any rock & roll?
- Fuck no again!  At this point the Who were no rock n' roll at all in their records, so don't ask to were rock n' roll on a movie!
I'm sure every visitor in this space may add a rock n' roll movie that he like, but I'm not sure if are "rock n' roll" at name only or at heart too. To not bore you more with all these stupid things, for me at least there's ONLY ONE TRUE ROCK & ROLL MOVIE in the half a century of our favorite's music existence..."THE WILD ZERO"...period.

There's this guy named Ace. A cool dude cause as you can see clearly on the opening scene, in his room are hanged posters by the Ramones and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. He's preparing his self to go on a concert. Not any concert though. A Guitar Wolf concert. On his way to the gig, space aliens invade planet Earth (go figure!) and the from this very moment the ACTION starts and never stops! If there's someone can help our hero, that are of course the "Jet Rock N Roll" motherfuckers, Guitar Wolf!

What's next are Tarantino's jealousy on a cool script and twist! Crazy Rock & Roll managers in super-tight shorts, shemales, naked women shooting all over the place and blood thursting zombies ready to destroy what's on this planet! You can find also lotsa guns, lotsa bikes and muscle cars, tons of loud ass rock n roll music and the highlight of them all, laser guitar picks! Fuckin' Wow, huh?

On a past chat i did many years back in a forum about this masterpiece, some guys obviously more into movies and cinema genres than me, told me that this shit belongs to the best 10 zombie-gore-splatters ever! Who am I to disagree? The fuel injected action in the whole 98 mutes of this classic gonna make you drink gallons of alcohol and eat kilos of pizza. The goofy effects and the fucked up editing of the movie puts on grades than ablates and all the clichés we like as a clan, not only are present, but are twitched by the hair!  The soundtrack's got fuckers like the Guitar Wolf (obviously), Teengenerate, the Devil Dogs and the Vikings but sadly no Link Wray or Joan Jett (Wolf's favorites), i guess due to copyright reasons. Every two scenes you can hear the screaming phrase. "Rock n' Roooooollllllll'!

The last 20 minutes are - to put it mildly - over the top action cinematography! Of course if you came here and waiting to see a Marvel metaphor on the big screen or for worse a "Gladiator" or a "Patriot", i'm sorry you're in the wrong place lad! This thing it's the perfect bastard son of a gang bang night by "Plan 9 from Outter Space", Rock N' Roll High School", "Night of the Living Dead" and Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon"! If you don't believe me, well here's your chance. You're just a click away from the ultimate trash experience. What captured here, is the reason to forget undisputed classics like "From Dusk Till Dawn"!  If Link Wray, MC5, Joan Jett, Ed Wood, Dario Argento, George Romero and Quentin Tarantino are among your heroes, you're in the right place pal!

Important as the D chord of the Link Wray's "Rumble"! No Shit!




Rating: Are you kidding me? 10/10
Directed by : Tetsuro Takeuchi
Awarded on Philadelphia's Film Festival as "Audience Award on Best Horror Film"
Runtime : 98 minutes

Many thanks to the original ripper!