FRANTIC! EXCITING! NON-THERAPEUTIC!

FRANTIC! EXCITING! NON-THERAPEUTIC!

FEAR The Record (Slash)

by Gregg Turner

This L.A. band runs circles around all the rest of the pussucking, starstruck Surf City swill breeds, and I�m not talking airheaded null-sets the likes of GoGo�s or Blasters or semi-related powerpop/rockaboogie yuk. Black Flag, X, Angry Samoans—forget it, they all stink. Fear�s got the message and it sticks out like a sore thumb caught in the chainsaw of life. Antipathy mixes humor and hate with snarling fast-rock acrobatics, the �message� gets real wild, and the whole thing starts to sound like some weird amphetamine analog of The Dictators Go Girl Crazy (in case you hadn�t noticed, one of the great LPs of all time).

Yes, Lee Ving is the latter day Adny Shernoff—tunes like �Let�s Have A War� (�...so you can go die�), �Fresh Flesh,� �Camarillo� (about when they played Camarillo State Mental Hospital—the performance abbreviated by hospital hierarchy labeling the sounds of Fear �non-therapeutic�!!) and �1 Don�t Care About You� have Ving, a visual cross of Freddie Blassie and a Korean war POW, ranting mellifluos epithets of sex and retch with crazy-man conviction:

�My house sounds just like the zoo

It�s chock full of shit and puke Cockroaches on the walls Crabs crawling on my balls Oh, I�m just so cleancut I just wanna fuck some slut Cos —I love living in the city...� The wise-ass punk-snotty celebration of two-guitar pulse, thrashing bass arid drums cranking out hyper 4/4�s on snare, toms and trashcans (true), never bogs down or stagnates with �take me seriously� rockstar attitude. The selfimbued tongue-in-mouth wit and accompanying cleverness adds credence and an unrestrained streak of originality to already uh, original ideas:

(negro blues:)

�My ba-by

My ba by�s low-down skag-a-doo...

(punk-manic rant.)

�1234-1234

Don�t like salami

She don�t like pastrami

She don�t want a chicken

She don�t want a roast

She just wants a double dose

Of that BEEF BEEF BEEF

Beef Baloney

BEEF BEEF BEEF

Beef Baloney... �

Lead guitarist Philo Cramer buzzes crypto-psychedelic with spazzed-out bends, rhythm section Derf Scratch and Spet Stix who hold accelerated (real fast) tempos tight and steady. But it�s Ving who really shines as the unleashed caged animal throughout both sides of this platter. Deranged Jim Jones fixations collide with gay community editorials, as the epilepsy in this cat�s voice eggs on the cretin credo disseminated in generous scoops:

�All the prime-time TV shows

Say the middle class are homos

Dis-co-nec-ted Dis-co-nec-ted...

See the Kool-Aid in the compound

Stir it up and pass it around

Disc-co-nec-ted as it was before

DISCO-nected .

Dis-co-nec-ted...�

Time-synch switches scatter punk-rock fast-beat format, and the flavor of the music waxes markedly different from all else you�ve ever heard. Actual ingenuity and proficiency of musicianship (not kidding) separates Fear from the mainstream of less ambitious, less talented combos of like orientation.

As torrid as the grooves on this disc burn, those familiar with the caustic cattle-prod sting of the band live will probably be disappointed that at least 25% of Fear�s spontaneous raw power di6s in the transmutation to vinyl, probably cuz producers Gary Lubow (REO Speedwagon—not lying) has traded maximal aggression and ferocity vis a vis sonic attack and sheer presence for a more palatable, perhaps radio-playable, somewhat soft-pedaled abrasiveness. That 75% still remains is what pushes The Record over the -top, though Fear�s 50% (even) pales the recorded likes of everything else. The anthemic close of side two, Fear�s veritable call to colors �No More Nothing� stabs at the heart of darkness with sociopolitic dead aim:

�NO MORE FUCKING

NO MORE SUCKING

NO MORE SCIENTOLOGY

NO MORE EST

NO MORE JIM JONES

NO MORE SUCKASS

PHILOSOPHY

NO MORE NOTHING... �