Bullets

Bullets

KING KOBRA KOMETH

Jeff Tamarkin

King Kobra already knows what their first movie will be. In fact, they’ve already made it. Imagine if Easy Rider starred Motley Crue and you’ll get an idea.

"We pulled into this place in South Carolina which was sort of like a Waffle House,” begins drum basher and KKTV cameraman Carmine Appice.

“It was one or two in the morning and across the street was this place called Sad Sam’s Fireworks, which was open 24 hours. So we said, ‘Let’s get some fireworks.’ We walk in and there’s Sad Sam, his brother, his wife and a drunk.”

Now that the scene is set, let’s pause for a description of the leading chjaracllrs. King Kobra was fornmfby veteran rocker Appice, formerly with Vanilla Fudge, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Ted Nugent, Rick Derringer, Ozzy Osbourne and—who can forget this legend?—Cactus. The other four Kobras are newcomers— vocalist and Three Stooges fan Mark Free, guitarist/supermarket breakdancer David Michael-Phillips, bassist/mudwrestling enthusiast Johnny Rod, and guitarist Mick Sweda, whose relatives inelude Ziggy Swedasky, inventor of the cash register. Oh yeah, all of these guys, save Carmine, are bleached-blonds, heavy metal Police as it were. And all five, including Carmine, have flaming purple splotches running through their hair. We return to the movie.

"So they look at us when we walk in and that was it: ‘Are you guys entertainers or are ya faggots?’ We bought some fireworks and we’re out at our motor home shooting them off when the old guy comes out of the store.”

The plot thickens. Continues Appice, “He said, ‘If you guys are entertainers, sing us a song.’ We tried to explain that we didn’t have our equipment with us, but then he says, ‘Well, I’m the sheriff of this here town, and if you don’t sing us a song you ain’t gettin’ outta this county.’ So I said, ‘Uh, Dave, uh, don’t you maybe have an acoustic guitar irkyaere?’ He did, and he broke it out, and I broke out my video Camera, and here we were singing the blues with these guys. It was pretty bizarre.”

“Aye, laddie then it's blonds you be a-wantin’!”

King Kobra, by the way, also plays a rather louder, more intense sort of music, that is, when they’re not sitting around with the local law enforcement agents trying out prairie dog harmonies. The five-piece band, whose debut Capitol album Ready To Strike was released early this year, was put together by Appice when he decided he’d had enough of being every superstar’s favorite hired-hand drummer.

“Carmine just wanted to start his own band,” explains Michael-Phillips, who had just moved to L.A. from Phoenix when he heard that Appice was auditioning musicians. “He’s through playing as a hired drummer. You don’t have a lot of creative control or leadership or direction when you’re in that position.”

Michael-Phillips had played with the band Keel, while the others, all from different parts of the country before relocating to California, impressed Appice with the right combination of “playing, looks and attitude.” And though they all know who’s boss in this band, the leader says he’s “no dictator”.

“I’m the brains of the outfit,” explains Appice, “but basically I’m the leader because I have the experience. I’ll make sure that we don’t get ripped off like a lot of new bands do.”

Appice admits that he did concoct the band’s visual image after seeing Motley Crue, who opened for an Osbourne tour while Appice drummed with the latter. “I saw that they were a pretty good band but their image is mostly what you hear about. I had done my hair black and purple and I figured if I had a band that looked the opposite of Motley Crue, with color in it, the color would show through really vividly. So we tried it and it definitely turns heads. And if you can do that in New York you can do it anywhere.”

Despite their appearance, though, Appice insists that King Kobra isn’t a metal band. Like several other bands on the crunch rock circuit, he finds that the tag can often cause unwarranted trouble. ‘‘I don’t mind being called heavy rock,” he says, ‘‘because that’s what we basically are. But to me, heavy metal is satanic, it’s demonic, it’s whip someone and take their guts out. I think Dio is the best at that—my brother’s in that band—but even Ronnie Dio says he’s not heavy metal. We stayed away from all the studsand leather stuff on the album cover because it’s all been so overdone.”

Michael-Phillips agrees. ‘‘Judas Priest is a heavy metal band, but we’re not. We even changed a line on our album that went ‘I wanna sin with you’ to ‘I wanna begin with you.’ So there’s nothing like that on the album.”

You can call it whatever you want; Appice’s seen it all come and go. And for the king of King Kobra, this is a welcome change. ‘‘I’ve seen three decades of rock ’n’ roll already,” says Appice, ‘‘and now I’m playing to kids who are young enough to be my kids. But that’s cool. The main thing is that I’m still doin’ it. It’s my business but it’s also my hobby. It’s the love of my life and I’m glad to be around doing it.”

PELL-MELL TORME!

Mary Anne Hobbs

On street level Torme are the buzz; the word...f/7e band. Scorching their insignia deep in the hearts of the yearning, they seduce their hungry street following with dazzling live expertise and tease those who have craved so long for an outfit of such exceptional calibre.

Wanna meet the band?

Founding member Bernie Torme, undisputed Prince of outrage amongst today’s high ranking guitarists, brought the outfit together in November ’83. Renowned for his flamboyance with Gillan and Ozzy Osbourne (following the tragic and untimely death of Randy Rhoads), he boasts insatiable live flare and astounding fretboard genius.

Phil Lewis, of the late and lusty teen idols Girl, fronts the outfit with rare grace and the wild, almost animal prowess of a deliciously dangerous sixth sense. Vivacious, transfixing and disgracefully inviting, he flaunts subtle sex masterfully before his prey, melting the coldest heart at a mere glance.

Fitting as perfectly as a kid glove, blond bombshell Chris Heilmann completes the reckless front line-up. His fiery and intricate redrawing of the somewhat mundane and average rock ’n’ roll bass lines add zest and intrigue to Torme’s extravagant sound, and is accompanied by sparkling stage presence.

Sitting pretty behind the leading trio, commanding a fierce and pounding tribal rhythmn section is Ian Whitewood. The strongest and most colorful rock ’n’ roll backbone in the business.

“Torme is a development of our own individual personalities and riotous lifestyle,” declares Bernie. And their very own hardcore sound and style, Phil claims, “appeals enormously to young girls and druggies.”

Unlike the repeatedly disappointing manufactured garbage spewed incessantly from the proverbial “rock” production line, this is one outfit who have had the guts to stand by their own individuality—and the willpower to resist the temptation of a soft option commercial sell-out.

Seeing is believing—and Torme are one in a diminishing handful who know the real meaning of the word “show.” The band proves that continually by selling out 1,500-seater venues without even vinyl to back them up, let alone unscrupulous, purchased hype that the kids are looking to them as future trendsetters. Tripping and twirling a megavolt heaven, they weave a web of power, passion and fantasy shrouding onlookers in a tailor-made cape of intoxicating excitement.

I’m talkin’ Torme, we’re talkin’ the future of rock ’n’ roll, and you’d better believe it. The writing’s on the wall, and not only metaphorically. Scrawled all over our own world-famous Marquee Club walls are inscriptions such as, and I quote, “Bernie Torme is God” and “Phil Lewis is the sexiest singer alive.”

Dangerously desirable, nobody but nobody smolders the sweet smell of sex, can tempt the temptresses and lick the borders of seduction like Torme. The band stands untouched in a class way out on their own, injecting shimmering new life, pouting panache and glittering originality into today’s confused and commercialized musical jungle. Because Torme dare to be different.

The word is out.

ANGELS IN THE CITY

Joanne Carnegie

The “Is it heavy metal?” argument is getting a bit old lately. So old, in fact, that I’m gonna avoid this all-tooimportant issue altogether.

Let’s talk about Angel City instead.

Angel City is an Australian rock band. Their hit single “Be With You’’ might be playing on your local AOR radio station this very moment. It’s a ballad. No shoutin’-at-the-devil here.

“We’ve gotten labeled far too much. It’s a bit of a drag for us,” lead singer Doc Neeson says. “Someone once called us punk, new wave, hard rock, romantics,” he laughs. “But, we’ve had this problem all along.”

Mainly from Americans, though. Australians have accepted Angel City’s diverse rock style from the beginning. And that was back in 1974. Long before anything metal became mainstream.

“Americans tend to need classifications for music. Australians don’t do that very much,” Doc says. “And, we’re very loyal to our tastes. Here in America they’ll go see U2 and then see Motley Crue the next night. There’s nothing wrong with that. American tastes are just broader,” he figures.

Angel City is currently on a North American tour to introduce their first release on MCA Records, Two Minute Warning. The band recently finished a tour through the U.S. and Canada with Triumph. Now they’re on their own in smaller halls in the States. Plans are to return to these same American cities and play larger arenas later this summer.

Doc Neeson was born in Belfast, Ireland, and (with his parents) hopped over to Australia when he was 15. While studying drama at the University in Sydney, he met two of his bandmates, Rick and John Brewster. (The other two band members are Jim Hilbun and Brent Eccles.) Together they formed Angel City.

But, before Angel City was Angel City, it was the Angels. So as not to be, uh, confused with the American band Angel (who later became reincarnated, in a way, as Giuffria), they altered the name.

Over the years Angel City has opened for greats such as Ike & Tina Turner (“She’s fantastic”) and David Bowie (“He’s so unassuming; a real lesson working with him”) as well as Meatloaf, Chuck Berry (“We opened for him and then we were his back-up band”) and the Kinks.

In 1976 they toured with fellow Aussies AC/DC anSr “actually got more encores than they did,” smiles Doc.

Live, Doc has an abundance of energy. He bounces across the stage in a few swift moves, then marches front center to emphasize a line in a song. He’s found the most suitable place to merge his musical and film interests.

Two Minute Warning is Angel City’s seventh LP (their fifth in America), and although the title and cover imply some sort of doomsday, it actually came about from an American obsession—football. “Brent was watching football on TV in L.A. and heard the ‘two minute warning’ call. He decided it would be a great title.” Doc adds that another interpretation could be that “there’s still time to do something.”

The album was produced by Ashley Howe (Yes & Queen) who “seems to work with guitar bands like us,” says Doc. The band recorded in L.A. with engineer Lee De Carlo, who helped on John & Yoko Lennon’s Double Fantasy and Milk & Honey LPs. “It was thrilling to work with Lee. I felt like, maybe John’s presence was there, too.”

Five videos have been created from Two Minute Warning—the most recent of which is “Underground”— shot in the desert and in the tunnels underneath the city of Sydney. A video for “Be With You” is in the works. Some of the production crew from the “Underground” video previously worked on the great Australian film Road Warrior.

It’s those kind of credentials that have given Angel City the recognition they deserve. The band has worked hard for many years—and they’ve done it without chic leather jumpsuits. Without studs. Without sparkling jewelry. These guys don’t worship no devil. They’re a good guitar band that just wanna rock.

ROUGH CUTT vs. PUTT PUTT

Jim Gustafson

L.A.’s boys & noise quintet Rough Cutt hit Detroit under quintessential^ ultimate circumstances, the sort that give record companies and promo peoploids a severe flair-up of rectal itch. One, they were opening for Krokus, a Swiss aggregate of metal-maniacs unintelligible in at least three languages. Two, it was unseasonably hot in Moiderville that day...the first decent weather since the World Series, and every melonthumper in the sparse crowd was lubricated, pixilated, suffering from sunstroke, or all of the above. Three, they were smack in the middle of a we’lllet-the-lawyers-sort-it-out brouhaha regarding the use of the name Rough Cutt. And the group with the same name was a fairly popular local group with a large and vocal following. Rumor had it that Detroit’s Rough Cut were telling their audiences in the weeks prior to the Krokus show that they would jump into their bathtubs with their hairdryers on if anyone supported the usurpers from the west. And finally, CREEM resident Doctor of Headbanger Mythology Mark J. Norton was suffering from an epic dose of penile absence, and enlisted this old POOPIE (Poor, Old, Overextended Pothead) as a last minute replacement.

How could they go wrong? The show itself was slick and loud, and primarily a showcase for their new Warner Brothers album, Never Gonna Die. Another case of rock ’n’ roll wishful thinking—but a great fuck ’em and feed ’em fish-heads jab at whoever it is these guys are rebelling against. Lead singer Paul Shortino covered the stage like Tinkerbelle on crank, running at least three miles with the cordless mike, jumping from the drum risers with all the confidence of Lois Lane into the arms of Superman, and generally belting out a set full of good rock songs that almost no one had ever heard before due to the name mix-up and the reluctance of local Detroit radio stations to play their music and thus get involved in the name fracas. Still, it very good show and She is a consumate pro—f tially one of the most ente7 ing frontmen in a scene that is continually desperate for new blood.

“We’re not trying to fuck anybody over,’’ he said, “either in our show with any ‘come sleep with me ’cause I personally know the devil’ lyrics. Or in this name thing. Warner Brothers is eventually going to have to spend some serious money to get these guys (Detroit’s RC) off our ass, but they have a lot of money, so I’m just going to concentrate on making the best music I possibly can.”

This is a dangerously good attitude, Paul...be careful.

Shortino and his manager, two lady attorneys and this erstwhile reporter went out for a late dinner at Mario’s, Detroit’s premier Italian Ristorante, with Shortino proceeding to charm the pinstripeand-evening-gown crowd by singing along with the strolling violinists. It was actually more entertaining than the Fox Theater show, to see this young, semi-cherubic long-hair stretch his natural tenor around “Summertime” and a Verdi’s medley. After dinner we all proceeded to Alvin’s, the local version of the Cavern Club, where Shortino again did a cameo. This time he sang Wilson Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour” and a raunchy, classic version of “Gloria” with Detroit’s great party-’til-youpuke band, the Urbations. It was a fun fun fun night.

Shortino: “I can’t help it...I’ve got to entertain.”