Sounds From The Junkshop #104 - Supersuckers

 

"I got my nose against the grain and yeah, you know that it's a bitch, playin' through the pain and watchin' shit bands get rich" - Supersuckers - Rock 'n' Roll Records (Ain't Sellin' This Year)

It seems weird to think that it's now 30 years since the Supersuckers' debut album came out. Mainly because I think I always associate them with the early noughties when I first properly discovered them thanks to ChangesOne records - I remember ordering some CD's from them around this time  and they were doing a deal where you could take a free CD from a list of a dozen or so. One of which was the Supersuckers' Motherfuckers Be Trippin'

Actually, that wasn't quite the first time I encountered Eddie Spaghetti and co - THAT would be a good six or seven years earlier when I'd seen the video for Born With A Tail on the ITV Chart Show (as part of the indie chart bizarrely - the band were signed to Sub Pop at the time) which is where I remembered the name from. I remember enjoying the song but never quite bothered to follow it up. I think this is why it seems weird thinking the 'Suckers have been around for as long as they have - trying to reconcile them with being in the same era as Green Day and the Offspring breaking through across in the States and Britpop being in the ascendancy over here doesn't feel quite right somehow. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I remember their Creepy Jackalope Eye song cropping up on an Infernal records compilation (alongside fellow SFTJ alumni like the Backyard Babies, the Yo-Yo's, Ginger, the Black Halos and the Hellacopters) as well.

Well anyway. I remember putting Motherfuckers Be Trippin' on my CD player and the opening track, Rock 'n' Roll Records (Ain't Sellin' This Year) absolutely blowing me away. A frenetic two minute tirade that anyone who's been in a band that's swimming against the tide of popular culture (as my old skool punk band, desperately trying to stay afloat in a city of Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs soundalikes at the time, most definitely were) can instantly relate to (see the above lyrics), it definitely spoke to me in a way that not many others were doing at the time. In fact, that whole album's pretty much all killer no filler with the likes of Pretty Fucked Up, Bubblegum and Beer, Rock Your Ass, Some Day I Will Kill You and Sleepy Vampire being proper high octane no-nonsense rock 'n' roll for a noughties audience.

The irony is that I arguably caught the group just as the law of diminishing returns was starting to kick in - it would be another five years before the group followed up Motherfuckers Be Trippin' with 2008's Get It Together which, contrary to its title, sounded more like the work of a band on autopilot. I think the fact that by this point I'd been out to investigate the Supersuckers' back catalogue after loving ...Trippin' so much probably didn't help matters. The aftermath of that album saw long-time members Dancing Eagle and Ron Heathman leaving the band and it would be another six years before the follow-up.

To be honest, I'm still a bit gutted I didn't discover the Supersuckers a bit sooner than I did - obviously my first instinct was to look up the album with Born With A Tail on it, The Sacrilicious Sounds Of The Supersuckers and this is another great effort with the scuzzy likes of Doublewide, Ozzy and Hittin' The Gravel being fine stuff indeed. It still seems weird to think that the 'Suckers were on an ubergrunge label like Sub Pop (they'd already had two albums, 1992's The Smoke Of Hell and 1994's La Mano Cornuda, out on there by this point) given that, other than maybe a back-to-basics stripped down approach to rock 'n' roll they really couldn't have had less in common with that genre but hey, there ya go.

Even bearing that in mind though, 1997's Must've Been High was a real departure from its three predecessors seeing the band going into downbeat country mode albeit with the sly Hank Williams III style sense of humour underpinning tracks like Hungover Together and Non-Addictive Marijuana while their diatribes against "too big for their boots" rockstars on Barricade and Captain Sensible (who the band had initially roped in to produce the record - as the song details, it wasn't exactly the meeting of minds that everyone had hoped for) on The Captain were well aimed.

I seem to remember talking to an American Supersuckers fan one night in the 12 Bar during my London days and mentioning to him that my introduction to the Supersuckers had been with Motherfuckers Be Trippin' to which he responded that while he'd liked that album he'd felt it was a bit too close to its predecessor The Evil Powers Of Rock 'n' Roll. Which, having listened to both of 'em I totally get, but I think the fact that I heard ...Trippin' before Evil Powers maybe means that I can see enough differences between 'em to appreciate them both. Either Way, Evil Powers was the sound of the 'Suckers plugging in again and coming up with another absolute barnstormer with the likes of Cool Manchu, Santa Rita High and Goin' Back To Tucson being particular highlights.

Which kind of brings us full circle with this story but suffice to say that reports of the Supersuckers' demise following Get It Together were overexaggerated - following a six year break afterwards, they would return in style with 2014's storming Get The Hell which was much more what you'd expect from a 'Suckers album - the storming title track and Gluttonous (originally designed to be a duet between Spaghetti and Danko Jones until the latter's touring commitments meant he missed the recording sessions but the friendship again just kind of demonstrates the Supersuckers' impeccable rock 'n' roll credentials) being particular highlights. 2016's Holdin' The Bag was another countrified album and a worthy delayed sequel to Must've Been High (the tour for that album remains the only time I've seen the Supersuckers live, in Maidstone of all places, which I really need to sort out - suffice to say they well and truly kicked arse) while 2018's Suck It saw them back on form and ramping things up again even surviving both the departure of founder guitarist Dan Bolton (leaving Eddie as the only original) and a cancer scare for Eddie which he thankfully saw off. Even though 2020's Play That Rock 'n' Roll (Nite Songs review here) was more of a good album than a great one, the Supersuckers are a band with a good enough back catalogue that you can forgive 'em the odd moment of not firing on all cylinders.

It takes some cojones for a band to refer to themselves as "The Best Rock 'n' Roll Band In The World" but the fact that the Supersuckers have been putting out consistently good albums for three decades now with only the very occasional hiccup suggests that it ain't just an empty boast. Certainly I'd recommend all of their albums from La Mano Cornuda up to Motherfuckers Be Trippin' as a start point and then adding Get The Hell, Holdin' The Bag and Suck It once you've taken in those. A genuinely great band who I think I can safely say I'll continue to roll with till the end.