KICKIN’ OUT THE JAMS WITH THE CELIBATE RIFLES

KICKIN’ OUT THE JAMS WITH THE CELIBATE RIFLES

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Celibate Rifles • Cutting Crew • Scruffy The Cat • Hoodoo Guru • Redd Kross • Thrashing Doves

When Australia’s Celibate Rifles played Ann Arbor, Michigan last year, they met Scott Asheton, a major thrill indeed, and Scott told ’em that their live renditions of the Stooges’ “No Fun” and the Sonic Rendezvous Band’s "City Slang” kicked up more dust than any versions the Stooges or S.R.B. ever executed; quite a compliment seeing as how he used to pound cans (like a raving maniac) for both outfits. When the Rifles played Ann Arbor this year, crooner/composer Damien Lovelock met me, no big deal, and agreed with my assertion that all those Detroit-rock epithets that get strewn in his band’s direction are a wee bit off-base. Sure, they tap the Mo-City/ASquared O-Mind for trailer-park Chevy-metal stamina, but fact is, unlike the Stooges or MC5, these guys write killer ballads, like this one called “Ice Blue” about a teenage heroin death (inspired by Damien’s experience as a drug counselor, which also gives him a keen perspective on our First Lady: “Some kid who’s been in a welfare family in Detroit, selling crack for $500 a week, and if he didn’t he’d starve to death, tell him to just say no.”)

Anyway, I’m thinking of a less self-conscious Mott the Hoopie, circa Brain Capers', Damien says he kinda likes somebody’s description of the Rifles as “how the Velvet Underground would sound if they played with a real hard rhythm section.” But wait: Damien’s a fan of Bobby Darin, John Coltrane, Lenny Bruce, Irish folk music and 14th-Century Gregorian chants, and the Rifles cover Tony Joe White’s swampy “Groupie Girl” on vinyl, and they’ve been known to kick out the disco jams on Donna Summer’s "Hot Stuff” live. (But the name ain’t a play on Rick James’s “Love Gun.”)

Okay, here’s the deal. The Celibate Rifles were formed in Sydney at around 11:59 on the clock that was the 1970s, largely inspired by Radio Birdman, Aussies led by Deniz Tek, who was indeed a Detroit boy looking to live out the grunge he’d been too young for in the late ’60s.

“Birdman appeared at a time when everything seemed dead,” Lovelock remembers. “They were never popular, nobody bought their records, but they played with such commitment, and they had a politics of believing in yourself, not compromising—you can’t duplicate that stuff.” Lovelock joined the Rifles in '81, they put out their first EP in ’82, their first album in ’83, and their second album in ’84. Songs from these three records were shuffled to make up Quintessentially Yours and Mina Mina Mina, their first two American LPs, and they’ve since released The Turgid Miasma Of Existence: Happening Sounds For The New Degeneration (which has a real long name) and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (recorded live). Gets confusing, but all these records are pretty fine; the early ones are the most streamlined, the live one is the loudest, and Turgid has the best individual song (“Sometimes”). The band features two able guitarists with well-greased wah-wah pedals, and recently toured America with a brand-new rhythm section.

Lovelock is a moralist whose lyrics occasionally touch on world-scope issues (like Falklands, Falwell), but his specialty is urban/monogamous/nine-to-five tedium, and he scribes with a sense of humor and eye for detail that suggest he knows of what he sings; most liken his style to Lou/Patti, but I’m reminded of a more consistent, less bathetic, pre-nostalgia Bob Seger. “When I point the finger I don’t exclude myself—I don’t have a good enough imagination to do that. I understand to an extent what motivates people to do crazy things,” he tells me. “Life promises a lot, delivers very little, and just grinds you in. Some people pop out with something to show for it, but mostly it’s a one-sided game, and the hand always wins.”

I ask him what’s the best thing Oz has that the U.S. doesn’t. “Thirty million people,” he deadpans. “And we don’t have squillionaires who belong to fundamentalist religions and can afford their own TV networks. A guy like Falwell in Australia would be laughed at. Americans have a much greater need for something to believe in—here, life is like running a marathon, and if you make one wrong step it’s over; in Australia, if we make a wrong step, we just say, ‘I’m tired, let’s go to the pub.’ And you’re much more catered for here, which is great if you’re on the consumer end, but not if you’re the guy washing the dishes.”

First time the Celibate Rifles played New York, Lovelock was so nervous he couldn’t open his eyes. And in England, like their countrymen the Saints before them, they were chided for their less-than-fashionable appearance (no haircuts) and sound (no synthesizers). Lovelock shrugs it off; socalled modernization doesn’t interest him. After all, the singer spent 18 months as a baby on a ship floating from Ireland to Australia, and he now lives with world-champ surfer Pam Burridge in a lovely oceanside rental 26 minutes from downtown Sydney. Like he says, “Swimming is older than the human race, and that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t swim, does it?” Not hardly. “I like detective movies,” he adds, "and I hope they don’t get so I can’t understand them just to keep up with technology.” They might, but them fancy Limeys can rest assured that the un-fancy Celibate Rifles won’t, not for awhile anyhow. Punk rock is dead and buried (and not a minute too soon). Long live raw power.

Chuck Eddy