"And all the dirty women love to hang around/I guess they heard about me last time I was in town…" - Broken Teeth - Guilty Pleasure
I ended up discovering Broken Teeth by accident a bit to be honest. I think it was in the early days of my discovering the near-legendary ChangesOne label around the early noughties where they were doing a "buy two EP's get a third free" offer or similar and I basically ended up picking up a split EP of theirs with the legendary Streetwalkin' Cheetahs who I think I'd heard good things about on Sleazegrinder around the time. Anyway, I remember hearing the EP which contained Devil Money, Hangin' By The Skin and Crashlanding Affair and being well and truly bowled over. There's been a lot of bands who've attempted to channel the spirit of AC/DC down the years but these guys were definitely up there as one of the best. They were ploughing a similar furrow to the one that Airbourne would mine more successfully a few years later but unlike the O'Keeffe siblings, there was no slightly suspicious hint of it being a bit too clean-cut and over-produced, this was the real beer sluggin' bar room brawlin' brass knuckle wielding deal.
Of course, the truth is a little more complicated than that. Broken Teeth were (and indeed still are) fronted by Texas native Jason McMaster, a man who'd already been in the rock 'n' roll game for well over a decade by this point starting out with prog-thrash types Watchtower (who I have to plead ignorance to I'm afraid) before moving on to his most commercially successful venture Dangerous Toys in the hair metal era. Dangerous Toys were basically a southern states Skid Row but not quite of the same quality - most of the songs were basically about booze, fighting or sex (they had a song called Sportin' A Woody which kind of tells you most of what you need to know) and McMaster had an Axl/Seb Bach style high end screech which at least marked them out a bit as did their Maiden style gimmick of having an inflatable zombie clown as their band mascot (if you've seen the classic horror B movie Killer Klowns From Outer Space, just think that basically) but compared to say the not entirely dissimilar Four Horsemen, they always seemed like a bit of a poor relation to be honest.
Dangerous Toys still managed a decent run in the early nineties with songs like Teasin' Pleasin' and Scared being minor hits and being a bit rougher and meaner than most of the competition they were lucky enough to avoid the worst effects of the grunge holocaust and were still putting out albums by the mid-'90s like Pissed which basically sounded exactly the same as the earlier stuff (to be fair, they deserve credit for not taking the easy way out of going grunge the way a lot of their contemporaries did) but as the decade wound to a close, the law of diminishing returns finally caught up with them and the band went on hiatus.
McMaster and latter day Toys guitarist Paul Lidel would move on to form Broken Teeth and I think it's fair to say that they must have been listening to a fair bit of Bon Scott era Accer-Daccer at this point as their self-titled debut was full of Angus style duck-walking riffs and bad attitude topped off with McMaster's trademark screech. But the sheer energy of the thing turns what could have been a shameless rip-off into a damn good album - the likes of She's Gonna Blow, Trippin' Over A Bone, El Diablo, Pull The Plug and their ode to the titular wrestler Undertaker practically melt your face off with their sheer riffed up ferocity and chantalong choruses. It's a great album for anyone who loves unapologetically straightforward zero-fucks-given rock 'n' roll and comes highly recommended.
The group's second album Guilty Pleasure is just as good with the likes of the title track ("But if I go down you're all comin' with me/'Cos I'll probably go to Hell just for the magazines I read!"), Devil Money and Hangin' By The Skin (with its memorable chorus of "Oh lordy what've I done?/I should've listened to me dear old Mum!") being prime headbanger material. It ain't big and it ain't clever but when it's this good, who really cares? I mean, fair to say that McMaster and Lidel really outdid themselves with these after the steady but unremarkable Dangerous Toys.
I was always hoping that Broken Teeth would make it across the Atlantic for a few UK gigs at some point but sadly it's yet to happen. I actually remember running into someone who knew McMaster while out at an Adam Ant gig at the Scala (yup, weird connection I know!) and he told me that the band had been wanting to come over to dear old Blighty for ages but had never been able to get the money together. Hopefully some day it'll happen.
Broken Teeth have continued to be a going concern for two decades now - over time, they've slowly broadened their horizons a bit and although there's definitely still an AC/DC influence to their work, you can also hear elements of Judas Priest and Paul Di'Anno era Maiden in their more recent albums like 2015's excellent Bulldozer and the Four To The Floor EP from a couple of years later. They've even paired up with Danko Jones on the title track for 2008's Viva La Rock Fantastico, another sound effort. I dunno, maybe Danko could bring 'em over next time he's on tour here? We live in hope.
Anyway, here's to Broken Teeth - proof that sometimes the best rock 'n' roll comes from being simple, dumb but with a knack with riffs, choruses and hooks that are absolutely impossible to resist chanting along to. Grab a pint of whatever your poison is, cue up those albums and prepare to bellow along as if your life depended on it if you haven't already. Good times.
Diablofurs have previously shared a split release with the very under-rated Deadcuts (RIP) and feature at least one ex-member of semi-legendary "we were the Manics before the Manics" Coventry indie-punks Birdland so the initial omens for this release were pretty promising. Put any thoughts of the scuzzier end of early '90s alternative music out of your mind though because on this evidence, Diablofurs appear to have set their controls for a good decade earlier with a full on power-pop/new wave sound. The opening duo of Chase The Beat and Everybody's Dreamin' come on like Parallel Lines era Blondie being fronted by Gary Numan and it's not an unpleasant sound at all. The album continues on the early '80s vein throughout with the title track coming on like Tubeway Army going pop while the epic Obsession/Meteors is probably the closest thing stylistically to Birdland on here but the bubbling synths certainly mark it as being a new evolved version of the s
"I saw a clip of Boris Johnson on the news the other day/Made me wanna punch the screen, the man's a fuckin' disgrace!" . Now there's an opening line for you. Dead Sheeran (aka Paul Catten) first came to our attention recently with his self-titled EP recorded in the first lockdown which was a sheer howl of frustration at lockdown society and the state of Britain in 2020 and as opening number Can Things Get Any Worse? demonstrates here, the intervening six months or very much haven't seen him mellow. In an era where we've had several bands who've tried the "electro rock 'n' roll with a social conscience" schtick (Sleaford Mods, Idles, Fontaines DC), most have come frustratingly close to putting out a good album but not quite pulled it off. However, the lack of pretentiousness and sheer vitriol here sees Dead Sheeran properly nailing the formula and A National Disgrace might just the most damning inditement of the sorry state this s
"Some self-proclaimed selfish hypocrites lay down their laws and rules to make ya think there's gonna be some great reward for all your suffering some day soon" - Michael Monroe - Right Here Right Now As you might have guessed from the title, this week's Garbage Days Revisited is a two-parter dealing with Michael Monroe and Hanoi Rocks. As well as being one of my favourite bands, they're also a bit of an oddity in that there were two albums released in 2002, one the group's first reunion album and the other Monroe's final solo album for almost a decade, that probably had an equal share in drawing me into being a fan. So today we'll deal with the latter of these and tomorrow the former. Got that? Okay, good, let's do this. Similar to the Clash, I think it was probably through the Manic Street Preachers that I first became aware of Hanoi Rocks as Nicky Wire would go on to anyone who'd listen about what a huge influence they were on the early
Comments
Post a Comment