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Crash Street Kids: Sweet Creatures

This album is a rock opera, and like all good rock operas (Phantom Of The Paradise! Maggots: The Record! Erm… that King Diamond thing!), it requires costume changes. Not just by the band, but the audience, as well. A grubby pair of blue jeans will do OK for the set-up: glammy, punky, hooker-rock jams like Bang! Bang! (You’re Beautiful) and Bad! Yeah, Bad! (this record also requires a lot of exclamation points), but by the time we’re deep into the right side of the gatefold (if this CD was a record, it’d be double-vinyl, believe it), and suddenly the Kids are the Ramones-trying-to-be-Meatloaf, then some kind of purple-coloured fur and pastel socks are definitely in order. I have no idea what any of this is about – whores, certainly, and maybe motorcycles and hard drugs? But it’s a sweet and greasy ride through delightfully overblown 70s punk and 80s glam-stravagance. Basically, Pinball Wizard but on a Pac-Man budget. (⁷⁄₁₀)

The Pussydogs: Ain’t Nothin’ But A Pussydog

Debut EP from a trio of snotty high-school zeros from Nowheresburg, USA. They sound like the developmentally disabled sons of the Stooges raised on a diet of Black Flag (before they sold out) and the Dwarves (after they sold out). The songs are all a minute long, because that’s all you could stand. My new favourite band. (⁶⁄₁₀)

Glitter Wizard: Solar Hits

From San Francisco by way of an acid-fried renaissance faire, GW take an unhealthy preoccupation with role-playing games and arts and crafts projects and mould it all into one of the most over-the-top 70s freak-rock homages since BOC almost killed their audience with lasers. I’m talkin’ Grand Funk level machismo and ’76 Sabbath-era excess, only with flutes and naked dancing girls. Minds = blown. (⁷⁄₁₀)

Wizard’s Beard: Pure Filth

On the other end of the Wizard-rock spectrum, we’ve got these doomy loons. They sound like St Vitus collectively vomiting Technicolor buckets of whisky, bile, plasters and blood. It’s an unholy and altogether anti-social ear-mangling of gloomy, sleazeball dope-sludge, and yet, you could pretty easily fuck to it. How is that possible? Sorcery, quite clearly. (⁶⁄₁₀)

Various Artists: Triple Threat Of Terror

This is a three-way split from a cabal of US horror-punk outfits. You’ve got Creepersin, who sound like the Supersuckers with maggots in their eyes; Others, who do the campy skull-metal routine; and the champs of this dark hour, Die Monster Die, who basically sound like Type O Negative jamming with the Bay City Rollers. Now that’s fuckin’ fiendish. (⁶⁄₁₀)

Came from the sky like a 747. Classic Rock’s least-reputable byline-grabber since 2003. Several decades deep into the music industry. Got fired from an early incarnation of Anal C**t after one show. 30 years later, got fired from the New York Times after one week. Likes rock and hates everything else. Still believes in Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, against all better judgment.