DMCAT1371
1989
Well I gave you what Steve Jones was doing a year after the Sex Pistols' demise.
But fast forward ten years through his forgettable band The Professionals and heroin habit, and where do we find him?
He's a permatanned LA rocker, baby.
Having already done an album in 87 featuring a song called Drugs Suck, he was back with a new album called - ye gods - Fire And Gasoline. Co-produced by that master of faux-rock (The Doors 'reunion' tour, anyone?), Ian Astbury.
From the flagship single Freedom Fighter and bonus track on the CD issue of the album, I give you his cover of Suffragette City.
You've got to give him marks for trying. The guitar work is gritty and he's managed to get some distance out along the road to sounding like an Iggy Pop record. (He was in Iggy's band around this time and plays the killer guitar on Cold Metal).
But it's the late 80s, so it was recorded one instrument at a time to a click track with no fire and no balls, and with the drums horribly far forward in the mix. Why did everyone in recording studios back then think the snare drum had to be louder than the vocals, and the bass drum not far behind it?
Despite all this sterility I'd have still just about let him off if it wasn't for the 'aaaaaaaaaah wham bam thankyou baby'.
Erk?
He compounds the error by going for another chorus, this time with the even more inexplicable 'aaaaaaaaah wham bam thankyou Sam'.
[MP3 deleted to make way for new ones, sorry!]
These days Jones - still resident in LA - does Jonesy's Jukebox, a really eclectic and entertaining radio show for Indie 1031. Thanks to the magic of the interweb you can hear it right where you are now, if you click here when he's on air.
Sadly, his contract with the station means he's not allowed to swear. The man who called Bill Grundy a dirty bastard and a dirty fucker, some of the best swearing ever!
To make up for that, why not download this seven minute epic built on a loop of Jones saying those immortal swearwords, 'dirty bastard dirty fucker'.
2 comments:
Ian Astbury IS a bit of a goofball, but Electric has to be one of the best rock n roll records ever recorded, even if it's 'authenticity' is somewhat dubious..and Steve is the King, no two ways about it.
Chas, I totally agree that Astbury has made some great records despite being a pretender.
Julian cope observed that rock n roll is a peculiar artform for many reasons, but prime among them is the paradoxical fact that a facsimile of it is usually the real thing.
Its simplicity and omnipresence means that anyone can have a stab at it, and one of the main reasons for it existing is to make people rise above their mundane origins.
So even a dimwit faker like Liam Gallagher is undoubtedly real rock n roll.
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