The Metal Underground

The Metal Underground

Chuck Eddy

I know you already know how great Metallica's new all-covers EP is (“Crash Course In Brain Surgery” by Budgie! Yes!), so I’ll skip that one and start out instead with a couple of just-reissued records by Metallica’s spiritual granddaddies (who Metallica no doubt never heard of, but with those guys you never know). Dust: 1971’s Dust and 1972’s Hard Attack are back (on Performance, 2 Oak St., POB 156, New Brunswick, NJ 08903), and it’s about time, ’cause these babes are speedmetal-before-they-called-it-that landmarks. First one’s more shack-like, more down-to-the-dirt, with lotsa cloggedup and sped-up blues-bashes about mean women who won’t let you be free, heftiest of which is this sorta MC5 rip called “Love Me Hard.” There’s a slow, heavy scorched long one called “From A Dry Camel” too, and a bass-based instrumental attack (a la Blue Cheer’s “Magnolia Caboose Babyfinger”) known as “Loose Goose,” and plenty more definitive and historical moments, but nothin’ fancy. Hard Attack actually is a little fancy, what with all this epic acoustical and mythological penwork (“Amethyst and lace/Broken women and their dossier/Bleeding clowns with tongues that badly shake/’Tis the dawning of the snake”!!!!) leading into pygmy-hipposdoing-the-bump-in-the-rain-forest sludgestomps such as the awesome “Learning To Die,” but if I said it didn’t rock I’d be a perjurer, at least if I said it in court. Drummer Marc Bell went on to become Marky Ramone, axeman Richie Wise went on to produce Kiss records, bassist Kenny Aaronson went on to play with Billy Squier and Rick Derringer, but now that the albums are back in the stores maybe Dust’ll reform, right? We can only pray they do.

Moving into the present tense we’ve got Screaming Trees, four young hicks from the outskirts of Seattle who act like it’s still 1969 or thereabouts—but they do it in such a cool way we won’t hold it agin’ ’em. Even If And Especially When (SST, POB 1, Lawndale, CA 90260) sounds to me like end-of-the-line Seeds mixed with middle-of-the-line Amboy Dukes with maybe some end-of-the-line Love tossed in, and it’s all about how you wanna just get in your car and drive to who-knows-where. Wanderlust, I guess it’s called, and with those huge caterwauling twin-guitar hooks and those highstrung high-wire-without-a-net vocalisms, it sure does feel fine. Lazy Cowgirls are sonic reactionaries of a sort also, very Detroit-rooted though they’re from Indiana by way of California, but what I dig about Tapping The Source (Bomp, POB 7112, Burbank CA 91510) is how (kinda like the MC5’s Back In The U.S.A.) it yanks hard rock back to its conception in the 1950s, a real long time ago in my book. Yackety-sax on the “outside” side, covers of tunes by the Coasters and Jim Reeves and Don & Dewey, perceptive originals about being bored (best song title: “Bullshit Summer”), killer riffs, no production values whatsoever, pret’near perfect for what it sets out to do, I’d say.

Couch Flambeu are these Wisconsin jokers who grind away like Voivod meets Captain Beefheart meets Martin Mull on their new Models (It’s Only A Record EP, 5419 Olympia Dr., Greendale Wl 53129), and they’re about as honest as a band can be these days without being truly stupid. Convoluted guitars, Sabdisco drums, jazz changes, misanthropic goofiness, a harmonica/slide-utilizing “White Boy Blues” (“My BMW needs a new starter/and my IRA account is mess/Lawd have mercy”), a Master Of Reality homage entitled “Satan’s Buddies,” and the messages on “Song With A Message” come from an answering machine. Another ensemble with a wry sense of humor was the Girls, who wore chefs’ hats and aprons on stage, or at least they do on the back of Reunion (Brasch, POB 99, Belmont MA 02179), which ain't a reunion at all, but rather a compilation of stuff they recorded in Boston in the late '70s but (mostly) never released ’til now. Real swooshy soaring creepy music with rickety synths doing nuclear things and atonally squawky guitars combusting like rocketships; sounds a bit like metal-era Pere Ubu, if that means anything to you. If not, think of Hawkwind, Blue Cheer, Velvet Underground, maybe even predancefloor Devo or Kraftwerk, and if you’re still lost I guess you’re outta luck. Songs named “Doggie Auto,” “Methodist Church,” “Golf,” “Down Syndrome” (and their amazing five-minute ’79 single “Jeffrey I Hear You” is on there, too); surreal as Brussels sprouts in your TV dinner.

We’re gettin’ real artsy-fartsy here, so I might as well mention Live Skull’s Don’tGetAnyOn You (Homestead, POB 570, Rockville Centre NY 11571), Gotham hate-your-neighbor phony-guttersnipe “rock” that’s not offensive or unlistenable or anything, just kinda dumb, but I guess it has some snazzy guitar parts because it’s their umpteenth record—but the first one I’ve played all the way through. Loud but lousy, bound to get rave reviews in the New York Times, not near as funny as Manowar or even Sonic Youth, doesn’t rock as hard as the new .38 Special bestof, more like Gentle Giant doing Steppenwolf songs or something, but at least their version of “The Pusher’’ is better than Pseudo Echo’s version of “Funkytown.” Live Skull should sound more like their homeboys Last Exit, who on Last Exit (Enemy, 187-07 Henderson Ave., Hollis, NY 10107) seem like they’re all playing in different rooms, which oughta be a recommendation of some sort. Like, recommended to people who like guitars (by Sonny Sharrock) that resemble steam locomotives digging up asphalt with boilingover teapots for shovels, above electrictoothbrush bass, pre-tribal drums, dyinggoose sax. Real headache material, impossible to play much unless you’re trying to piss off your landlord; baby, that is rock and toll.

Etc. Das Damen’s Jupiter Eye (SST) has more intriguing classical-punquerocque time-changes than their debut EP, but said changes go nowhere, and prissy/evasive walking-on-air singers annoy me. ..“Nightrain,” “Mr. Brownstone,” and “Rocket Queen” on Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction (Geffen) are funky-beat bottle-induced two-axe platinum-destined slide-shimmies that’d turn Aerosmith’s or Skynyrd’s heads, but the band needs a screecher who strains less and a songwriter who’s not scared of women and an editor to weed out the filler. . . Side one, of Portland’s Wipers’ Follow Blind (Restless, 1750 E. Holly, El Segundo, CA 90245) is way too jangly and laid-back to keep me awake, but side two’s got some very suicidal earlyStooge-type trusty-steed-in-flames guitarbuck numbers. . .Birdhouse’s “My Birdman”/“Don’t Wanna Shake” (Powerhouse import single) has incomprehensible singing and hardcore leanings and uncooked surf-licks in a generic-lggy context, but they come from France, so who cares?... So anyway, is that cute kid with the jean jacket on the skateboard in that Def Leppard video a boy or a girl? I’d really like to know.