L.A. Guns
in a city overflowing with false idols, pretty
faces and copy-cat hard rock bands, you can
still find the real thing. From the start, L.A.
Guns has kept an anti-commercial stance. It's
safe to say their gritty, stay hungry garage
band intentions will always remain intact.
"Bands that last and make the most impact do
so because they know how to do things their
own way." says Kelly Nickels, bassist extraordi
naire for LA. Guns. "To like to think were that
kind of band. I don't take what we do too seri
ously. I just want it to continue to be fun, ake
when you start playing in your garage and
your buddies come down after school, you
have some beers, hang out and play. You
know how good that vibe is when you first
start making music? That's the vibe that we
want to keep."
LA. Guns has always sold records. Their first
record went gold, the second sold 800.000
copies, and their newest release, Hollywood
Vampires, sold 300.000 copies the first week it
was released. The problem is, they don't get
played on the radio because they're too raw
"We just don't write songs for the radio, I
guess," says lead guitarist Track Guns. "When
we write songs, we keep our raw edge with-
out being so complex that people can't figure
out what we're trying to say "
Tracil claims LA. Cuns songs are true slices
of life, I like songs that are real. We've never
written a song that wasn't." Describing the
inspiration for "Some Lie For Love" on Holly
wood Vampires, he says, "Every girlfriend I've
had in the last ten years has been an actress/
model/waitress. She'll say, 'Oh, I'm a model/
actress/waitress,' and I'm like, No, you're a
waitress that wishes you were a model or an
actress. That really happens."
While many bands shift their sound. L.A.
Guns remains a consistent force. Says Tracil,
The music coming out of California today is
weird. People get older and change their
musical style. It's kind of depressing. I grew
up in California, I went to Fairfax High School
in Hollywood, I led that California lifestyle:
surfer, skater, punk... If I wasn't in a band id
be out skating with Christian Hosol. He lets
me ride his ramp in Hollywood, if it wasn't for
him, I wouldn't have any place to skate."
-Jon Stain
PHOTO BY BLAKE BOGDANOVICH
68 TMAV
G.G. ALLIN
His live performances make early Iggy Pop shows seem like a
visit to Mr. Roger's neighborhood. He beats himself with the
microphone until blood runs down his face and over his body. He
fights all comers and cuts himself with broken bottles and torn
metal beer cans people throw at him during his show. His music
has a distinctively monotonous drone to it, much like the repeti-
tious churning of a machine on a factory assembly line. It's this,
mixed with 70s style punk rock, that drives his words home. This
outer edge rocker pushes it to the limit.
G.G. is a rock and roll terrorist who has declared war on record
companies, radio stations and clubs around the country that
promote the so-called "scene." Says Allin, "We need to destroy
music the way it stands today and take it back from the corpo
rate phonies and conformists currently in control." Allin feels
that the big record companies, along with MTV, are forms of
mind control straight out of the book 1984. "The whole MTV and
corporate music business is all part of the society that brain-
washes kids into thinking shit ake Guns N' Roses is really cutra-
geous so you shouldn't listen to it, but it's just reverse psycholo
gy, because it really isn't outrageous at all. When it comes to me.
they don't even want to acknowledge my existence. They say.
This mother fucker is serious. He's crazy. Put him jail, we don't
even want to print him."
Born Jesus Christ Allin, G.G. says he fronts the only real show
on the road today. "My show is shocking reality. There are no
props, no fake blood and no costumes. A G.G. Allin show is like a
war. The pain I inflict or feel creates strength, endurance and
power. Just like in skating, when you wipe out, you bleed, but
you scab, heal and scar, becoming all that much stronger and
wiser for the spill."
A professed night person, Allin rarely comes out before the
sun goes down. "During the day," he says, "I see a bunch of
robots in suits who all look like they were created from the same
mold. At night. I see people I can relate to, like bums, drunks,
hookers and skaters." Allin says he sees the negative reality of
the world we live in, "Society wants to suck you into a hole. Get a
job, buy a car, then a house. Get in debt to the bank, then work
your ass off for the rest of your life. If you have bills to pay, then
they can keep tabs on you. I can carry everything I own in a bag.
all my belongings and my skateboard. I don't have to pack, I just
grab my coat and hit the road."
Some people believe it's all an act, that G.G.'s just a spectacle,
but he doesn't care. He says they just don't understand his mis-
sion. "Anybody who doesn't think I'm real hasn't seen my show.
People want to hang out with me until they continued on page 80
PHOTO BY JON STAIN
NAPALM DEATH
Waaaagggggghnnnnh-UUUUUUUUrrrr.
GGGGGGGhnnnn-B8Billeeeaaarrrrgggghh-
hhh! The pain has arrived. British grind
core death berserkers Napalm Death are
here. "In the beginning, we fired off fourteen
songs in five-and-a-half minutes," explains
bassist Shane Embury "Just minute, minute-
and-a-half blasts. We didn't need any fancy
guitar solos. The songs explained themselves
as bursts of energy. It got to be a pain play-
ing them live, though. We had to stop every
minute
That was the terrifying Napalm Death that
jump-started the U.K. hardcore scene of the
late 80s. Early albums Scum and From
Enslavement To Obliteration were as anti-
music as one could get: speed freak noise.
blitzes with a vocal presence that roughly
approximated the sound of gorillas chasing
one another, the sound of life in a mix-mas-
ter. That was then: seminal guitarist Bil Steer
vocalist Lee Doman and drummer Mick Harris
have all broken from the fold to pursue
careers with Carcass, Cathedral and Godflesh.
respectively. This is now. The songs are
longer, albeit no less excruciating and cer-
tainly a lot more fun to play a lot easier to
get into, notes the sullen, heavyset bassist
Shane, vocalist Barney Greenway, Ameri-
can-born drummer Danny Herrera, guitarists
Mitch Harris and Jesse Pintado push on
"continuing in the same direction that we've
always been going in," Pintado says. "Contin-
uing with a real underground feel while last
year's Harmony Comuption album slinked off
in the direction of death metal, their latest
Earache Records four-tracker Mass Appeal
Madness (included on an American compila
tion of Napalm Eps, Death By Manipulation
sets Napalm Death back on track, continuing
in their tradition of crusty, purulent extrem.
ism and absurdist tempos
"We're just doing the same sort of things
Discharge did in '81, but we're taking it a bit
farther in terms of the issues we're discus-
sing." says Shane, 'personal issues, why I
walk around the city center angry at other
people, mad at myself."
"I still can't think of anything happy to
write about, Pintado adds. -Mike Citter
PHOTO BY MARK MADEO
COWS
Singing songs about dirt, poo and
beer, the Cows make music no one else
will. It's intuitive, visceral, whatever
sounds good at the time," explains
bassist Kevin Rutmanis. "We're basically
playing by ear." Vocal wrangler Shannon
Selberge explains further, "I write about
whatever the music reminds me of,
falling in love, drinking beer, and more
cosmic things, too." Like their Minne-
apolis muddle of unheat-pasteurized
rock punk, the Cows' name came as nat
urally as files to steaming steer drop-
pings. "It seemed to really bug the shit
out of people, Rutmanis says, 'so we
kept it. This punk attitude is part and
parcel to the Cows' charm, not to men-
tion their frantic stage show charisma.
Thick and overdriven waves of sound
bubble behind screams of suburban
anguish as the Cows rivet songs like
"Hitting The Wall," "Can't Die" and
"Three-Way Lisa."
You know how in some songs you
have to wait for the good part?" asks
singer/trumpet blower Selberge. 'Our
songs are all good parts."
The Cows recently finished a tour sup-
porting Peacetika, their "peace through
war nazi hippy album," and were sur
prised they didn't get lynched by any
redneck-types. They warn people not to
be alarmed by the album's title or its
grunge-ridden heart and soul garage
punk. "Everything you've been thinking
about the record is backwards," says Sel-
berge. 'It's all wrong." When asked
about the Cows' final solution, Selberge
replies, "Our world goal is to put out
another record, and after that to put
out another one." -Brian Brannon
PHOTO BY RICK ROTSAERT
GODFLESH
Godflesh play the soundtrack for
the end of the world; the Ice Age-
given sound. A crushing wall of
rhythm. Pure power. A scream. "A lot of the pain
within the music is self-directed." says vocalist and
guitarist Justin Broadrick. "It's got a lot to do with
being frightened of one's own aggression and being
in awe of that aggression."
Hailing from the grimy industrial town of Birming
ham, England, Broadrick (original drummer for
Napalm Death, later with Head of David), and bassist
Christian "Benny" Green-most recently joined by
ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris and guitarist
Robert, ex-Loop-have spent the past three years.
creating a sound born of total anxiety; a parancid,
drum machine-driven, slow-motion crush that takes
its cues from the repetition of low bass-end bands
like the Swans, and fellow British Midlanders Black
Sabbath and Joy Division. Godflesh's techno-physical
pummel on songs like "Christbait Rising move to
the pulse of total resignation, total negativity. "I
hate to think it's that pessimistic," admits Broadrick,
who peppers his conversation with sudden, inexpli
cable bursts of laughter. "Then again, like Woody
Allen says, "Death is our bread and butter."
It's in this taste of death where their first two
records, Godflesh and Streetcleaner, dig in and exca-
vate. "I see Godflesh as being close to what Joy Divi
sion should have been," says Broadrick. "There's lit
tle bits in our music that manage to make my spine
tingle, that scare the hell out of me. I hate most
heavy metal bands. They're too interested in being
the assailant, the rapist, the death-dealer. I see that
as very, very stupid. We see ourselves as very weak,
fragile people, and Godflesh allows us to be more
comfortable with that."
The title track to Slavestate, the band's latest mini-
album, takes that feeling to heart. When Justin
nowis "Jeeessssuuuusss!" amidst the canyons of
guitar and rhythmic noise, 'it's a plea," he says. "For
everyone. For anyone who feels trapped by others.
by their own ideologies. It's a plea to absent gods, a
cry for help. I don't think that's a surprising admis
sion in this day and age." -Mike Gitter
PHOTO BY MARK MADED
URGE OVERKILL
Talk about being on a roll, these guys are like an
eighteen wheeler coming off Devirs Mountain with
no brakes. Chicago's Urge Overkill, three suave fel-
lows who took their name from a Parlament song a
few years back, are now dealing with something
entirely new: Success. "When we wore band T-shirts
and were nice to everyone, no one paid attention
to us, says guitarist Nate Kato, "so we started
wearing smoking jackets copped an attitude, didn't
play our hometown for years, and now look." Yes.
look indeed. Kato, along with bassist "King" Ed
Roeser and drummer Blackie Onassis, are sort of an
"all" band; visual as well as musical, conceptual,
even. This witty and wild trio has now completed an
extensive tour supporting the brilliant Supersonic
Storybook Lp, their third on Touch and Go. Story-
book runs the gambit from a rockin' rhapsody to a
soulful Hot Chocolate cover. Each song is distinc-
tively different and in a class of its own. Few bands
pay this much attention to songwriting these days.
Drawing as easily from punk to time-tested rock
riffs to anything else they can come up with, the
results can be amazing. The video for "The Kids Are
Insane is a great example of their sense of humor
and sense of timing rolled into one. Two previous
videos, 'Faroutski' and 'Ticket to LA from the
Americruiser Lo, have also gotten many to stand up
and take notice. "We were talking to Dino the other
day says Nate, referring to Dinosaur Jr. and they
told us they decided to start a band after hearing
our 'Lineman' single." The new single on Subpop.
entitled 'Now That's The Barchords" is also pure
killer, no filler, Urge Overkill, more than a band, a
way of life. Jump on board or run for your life.
-Mike Lavella
PHOTO BY KEN SALERNO
69