Cleopatra 2024
Finding satisfaction in giving true meaning to righteous scorn, veterans of denial brigade bring home the message from both sides of garage era.
Punk Me Up
With their middle-class background, THE ROLLING STONES never claimed to be original punks – only they were, even if the ensemble’s initial anti-establishment stance had been a clever mind-fart of Andrew Loog Oldham’s, and as a band whom parents used to hate they were respected by the genre’s proponents. There’s no surprise, then, in old punks’ readiness to read some of their perennials and collate it all on a single disc, and given the performers on offer are basically the same artists who created a similar tribute to PINK FLOYD, this endeavor turns out just as interesting – or maybe more interesting in its life-imitating-art rhetoric. Of course, for the most part it’s Jagger ‘n’ Richards’ ’60s material, full of cynical sneer and searing sarcasm, that erstwhile anarchists focus on here, but a few gems from the later years which the same generation lapped up on their way out allow a couple of ensembles fathom other reaches of the Glimmer Twins’ lore.
Yet though such early proponents of the “No future” movement as PINK FAIRIES perfectly capture nihilistic spirit in their reimagining of “Street Fighting Man” to form a fittingly aggressive, albeit funny, finale of this romp comp, FLAMIN’ GROOVIES’ take on “She Said Yeah” – an explosively energetic cover of a cover – seems like a cheap cop-out. Fortunately, the same can’t be said of THE MEMBERS’ ingenious, unbelievably successful turning of “Angie” from ballad into a bumpy-grumpy rock ‘n’ roll, or of U.K. SUBS conspiring with DEAD BOYS’ Cheetah Chrome to render “Paint It Black” comically sinister. Sadly, “Miss You” and “Wild Horses” lose familiar melodies when, respectively, ANGRY SAMOANS and SKIDS attempt to give these cuts a serrated edge, the former song acquiring a funny tune and the latter gravity anyway, and the spaced-out “Gimme Shelter” finds CHROME upgrading HAWKWIND’s treatment of this classic on the prophetically titled "It Is The Business Of The Future To Be Dangerous" album.
But, with Jah Wobble and Jon Klein redefining “Start Me Up” as a defiantly English, “mustn’t grumble” whine of backyard bully and adding in heavy metal riffs which bulge like veins, and with FEAR prefacing “Honky Tonk Women” by a highly emotional shout of “Shit!” before morphing the perennial’s shuffle into frivolous frenzy, complaints are hardly acceptable. There’s no running for the shelter in PETER AND THE TEST TUBE BABIES’s hefty handling of Mother’s Little Helper” – yet the listeners are invited to get “Rocks Off” with REAGAN YOUTH as their inspired, sweaty guides, and strive for “Satisfaction” that THE VIBRATORS infuse with almost orchestral harmonies. And if JFA and THE QUEERS don’t enhance “Midnight Rambler” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” way too much, they still obtain comic rage, whereas ANTI-NOWHERE LEAGUE shift “Sympathy For The Devil” towards cosmic drama.
The overall results are refreshingly hilarious – and relevant enough to create the sense of accomplishment here.
****4/5
