MICHAEL MONROE – Sensory Overdrive (Spinefarm/Universal)
As
someone who championed and worked within the genre for a long time,
I've got to admit: I've veered quite far from the whole glam-punk
thing for some time now. Admittedly, I still always have time for the
two bands who created the music to begin with, being the New York
Dolls and Iggy And The Stooges, of course. But it should be fairly
obvious those bands were the last gasp of Sixties garage rock, given
a coat of lipstick for 1970s consumption. However, when it comes to
things I still love that followed in those bands' wake – Hanoi
Rocks, D Generation, Backyard Babies, The Wildhearts, etc. - I
haven't listened in a long time. My tastes have just gone towards
rawer, bluesier, garage-ier sounds in recent times, for whatever
reason.
Then
something comes tripping over the transom like former Hanoi Rocks
singer Michael Monroe's latest, Sensory Overdrive,
and it can't be denied. After spending most of the last decade trying
to give Hanoi Rocks another run with guitarist Andy McCoy and a cast
of ringers, Monroe has opted to lay his most famous band to rest
again and resume his solo career. For that task, he's assembled an
all-star cast: Former Hanoi Rocks Mk. I bassist Sami Yaffa, guitarist
Steve Conte (Yaffa's colleague in the reunited New York Dolls up
until the past year), Wildhearts mainman Ginger on guitar (since
replaced by Backyard Babies/Hellacopters firebrand Dregen), and
one-time Danzig drummer Karl Rockfist. It's as potent and powerful an
outfit as Monroe has enjoyed fronting since Demolition 23, the back
to-punk-rock-basics band he and Yaffa used to destroy NYC stages in
the early '90s.
And
the album this band has cooked up? A granite-hard riff machine
thickly coated in syrup and Pop Rocks. If, as Monroe proudly
proclaims on the 2nd
track, “You can't take '78 out of the boy,” then Monroe's version
of 1978 owes more to The Boys or Generation X than to Sham 69. In a
better world, this is what radio would sound like: Like a new, angry
Cheap Trick record, shiny and loud and crunchy.
Truth
be told, I suspect this has to do with Ginger's presence. This music
has all the hallmarks of a Wildhearts record: Big, tough riffs owing
as much to '80s metal as to '70s punk, bubblegum hooks the size of skyscrapers, brutal guitar tones mixed into a hypergloss
production sheen. It could be The Wildhearts with Monroe's trademark
vocals on top, in fact. So it'll be interesting to hear how the
follow-up will sound with Dregen now filling Ginger's shoes.
Ginger
or not, be damned, though. The fact is, it's not like this is exactly
a watershed year for great rock 'n' roll records. Sensory
Overdrive is an exception. It's
been in steady rotation at Napalm HQ since its European release
earlier this year (it only got the US nod in August, if I'm not
mistaken), so the review is overdue. But I like it. You should, too.
SUZI
QUATRO - “Strict Machine” (track
from new LP, In The Spotlight)
Haven't
had a chance to hear the complete LP from Detroit's favorite
daughter Suzi Quatro, who taught Joan Jett everything she knows the same as
Johnny Thunders taught me. But judging by this Goldfrapp
cover given the video treatment by ex-Runaway Vicki Blue, Suzi may be
onto something. Sexy and slinky as hell, with a burbling, distorted
electro-bass groove, this is a highly effective update of the classic
Quatro sound heard on '70s UK hits like “Can The Can” (actually
quoted here). I seem to recall ZZ Top giving their own sound a
similar sharp electro update in the '80s to great success. This is
certainly the best usage of such production on a rock 'n' roll record
since those ZZ Top records. Perhaps this can similarly propel Ms.
Quatro into full comeback mode. All I know is, this rocks....
