Aural Fixations

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Cock 'n' Roll
(Sleazegrinder)
New York City Rock N Roll
(Radical)
Snake Oil Supercharm: A Super Rock Tribute to Zodiac Mindwarp & the Love Reaction
(Sleazegrinder)
There's a new rock in town. It's the kind of loud, sleazy, dirty rock & roll made by hip young metalheads and aging punks for whom Motley Crue is as important as the MC5 and Kiss is as radical as the Sex Pistols. It's gotta have high volume, obvious hooks and a whole back alley bar's worth of bad attitude. (The Backyard Babies' Total 13 is the quintessential example, setting a standard even the Babies themselves haven't been able to match.) Sex, drugs and loud, loud music aren't just favorite pastimes for these folks—they're the stuff of life itself. At least to hear the songs tell it; with some of these folks, it's impossible to tell how far into the cheek the tongue is planted. But even if they're only kidding, they still remember when rocking out was supposed to be fun, and they're trying to bring back that feeling.

Boston music critic Sleazegrinder calls it "super rock." His website has championed the stuff for years, and continues to do so, even though others are starting to jump on the bandwagon. Inspired, no doubt, by the pioneering series A Fistful of Rock 'n' Roll, he's also slapped his money where his mouth is, putting together a pair of compilations—one a mix tape and the other a tribute to a godfather—that spotlight his favorites. He's also apparently inspiring others to take up the banner, with a regional bias.

Sex, drugs and
loud, loud music
aren't just favorite pastimes
for these folks—
they're the stuff
of life itself. Subtitled "the world's sleaziest rock bands," Cock 'n' Roll practically overwhelms the senses with 26 examples of the kind of rock you wouldn't want to bring home to Mommy. The subject matter alone would make Joe Lieberman rip out the rest of his hair: Dog Shit Boys brag about a "One Minute Fuck," Skum celebrate the virtues of a "Slut," Big Block Hitchcock parties at the "Strip Club," Queen Bee gets the juices flowing on "Hot Alot" and Porn Rock naturally celebrates being a "Porn Star." And that's not counting Sagger's sardonic anthem "The Closest I've Ever Come to Fucking Myself" and the naughty pictures in the CD booklet. But, really, it's less the words than the riffs that matter here, whether it's the 80s glam rock throwback of Joker Five Speed's "Jet Set City," the lowdown 70s arena rock of Bad Dog Boogie's "Highway of Your Soul," the dirty-ass punk of Sugabomb's "Speed Thrill" or the singalong glamgrunge of the Erotics' "Space Age Mafia." Rickshaw's "Temple of Your Choice" and Muscle Car's "Sandra Sully" also stand out, but, for me, the strongest tracks come at the beginning of the comp. The Lanterjack's sneering "Pretty Hex," Rock City Crimewave's raucous "Jersey Devil" and Bona Roba's Stones-on-crack "In the Cut" pretty much define the Cock 'n' Roll aesthetic in six minutes. I'm surprised that Cracktorch and Crystal Pistol, two bands Sleazegrinder has long stood behind (and up for), don't appear, but otherwise this functions as both a peek in Sleaze's fevered brain and a smart sampler of up-and-cummin' riff-rock bands that you can be the first on your block to imbibe.

As indicated by the title, New York City Rock N Roll has a much tighter regional focus, but otherwise the same thinking guided this project. (You'd swear Sleazegrinder had something to do with it, but he doesn't.) Some of these bands are even more sex-obsessed than the ones on Cock 'n' Roll—check out openers the Sex Slaves' tongue-in-cheek "2 A.M." ("I'm gonna tell my friends when we get done") and C 'n' R vet Skum's nothing-to-the-imagination "Big Black Cock." Another C 'n' R participant, Joker Five Speed, also appears here with the powerhouse "Destination: Meltdown." There's a more uniformity of sound here, which comes less from the bands' location than the fact that several members pull double and even triple duty in the featured acts, and some of the bands, like Supervillain, Firegods, Grounded and the Nolan Gate, cross over from "super rock" into out-and-out metal territory. There's some really stupid shit herein, like Banana Fish Zero's "Party Wrecker" and Dirty Mary's "Drinkin' & Drivin'," and not everybody involved is capable of putting together a decent hook, so the quality-to-crap ratio is more uneven than it is on Cock 'n' Roll. But New York City Rock N Roll does have its share of killer tracks, including Queen V's snarling "Good Girl Gone," the Compulsions' pissy "I Was Right, You Were Wrong," Pretty Suicide's poppy "Should've Said Goodbye" and the Slags' gleefully trashy "She Said." But it's not nearly as consistently entertaining as Cock 'n' Roll. [buy it]

It's impossible to tell
if the band was
the apex of trash metal
or a brilliant satire of same. England's Zodiac Mindwarp & the Love Reactions epitomized the "super rock" style, especially since even now, 15-odd years after their debut masterpiece Tattooed Beat Messiah came out, it's impossible to tell if the band was the apex of trash metal or a brilliant satire of same. Sleazegrinder pays tribute to the master with Snake Oil Supercharm, as some Cock 'n' Roll bands and other fellow travelers put faithful spins on items from the former Mark Manning's surprisingly large back catalog. (Surprising to an American, that is, since only one Mindwarp record ever made it to the colonies.) C 'n' R's Lanternjack, Queen Bee, Muscle Car and Rickshaw put in appearances, with the 'Jack being particularly suited to Mindwarping on "High Heel Heaven." Sleazegrinder faves Dirty Power (a snarling "Skull Spark Joker") and Cracktorch (the celebratory "Backseat Education") finally turn up on one of his comps. Zodiac's twin anthems "Prime Mover" and "Fucked By Rock" get fine readings from Isabelle's Gift and the Divine Brown, respectively, while the vocalist for the Snakecharmers gets the closest to Mindwarp's lascivious howl on "Kickstart Me For Love." Other highlights include Generous Maria's glam metal-by-way-of-Black Sabbath "Wild Child," Motosierra's feral "Let's Break the Law," the Dollyrots' perfectly pop-punk "There's a Barbarian in the Back of My Car," "Meanstreak" done as a Southern rock ballad by long-lost underground rocker Gideon Smith (come back, Gideon, we're still waiting for the follow-up to Gideon Smith & the Dixie Damned) and a slide-infused C&W romp through "Lager Woman From Hell" from Sweet Justice, the new band fronted by the Streetwalkin' Cheetahs' Frank Meyer. Personally, I could have done without the electro-metal version of "Elvis Died For You" by Punish Yourself, as I'm not into Ministry clones (or even the real thing, for that matter), but that's my own stylistic preferences talking. Overall, Snake Oil Supercharm is a stone gas, and probably the closest thing to a Zodiac Mindwarp best-of any of us Yanks will ever see. Michael Toland