#234
September 1 1984
Fee Waybill
Read My Lips
1.75 out of 5
Highlights:
Thrill of the Kill
Fee Waybill was the roadie. That’s how I understood it. He was The Tubes’ roadie and somehow he got incorporated into the band as Quay Lude and then “White Punks on Dope” happened and they just made him the lead singer. And he was sort of the perfect person for the job. Is he a great singer ? No. But his voice is fine for rock and roll.
He really came into his own with his sardonic knowingness on Completion Backward Principle and then, even more serviceably, on Outside Inside.
And then…he had a solo album.
You know, right around this time Freddie Mercury was working on his solo record. Steve Perry just put one out. Lindsey Buckingham. Peter Wolf. Robin Gibb. Roger Taylor. Glenn Frey. It was a fucking epidemic that, in retrospect, screams “Look. The rest of the band is all fine and whatever but if you dump them and just hire a backup band that’s more money for YOU!. Fuck those guys, right? I mean, you are the voice. You’re the reason people are coming to the shows. You are QUAY Fucking Lude, man! What? You think people are coming to see Bill Fucking Spooner???
And that’s the beginning of the coke fueled journey of 80s solo rocker shit.
This isn’t awful. I mean, Fee opens his mouth, sounds come out. But, it’s devoid of charisma. Lacking in song craft. It’s a lot of yelping about stuff.
The Afrauxcan rhythms that were on “Wild Women of Wongo” or “Monkey Time” are back on “Who Loves You Baby?” but it isn’t until the ballideering of “I Don’t Even Know Your Name” that you realize “I never live from my past mistakes” is a weirdly prescient lyric and the fee to entry of this album is more than money. It’s your time, which you will never get back.
Side two is a bit more of a rocker but anonymous rock, nonetheless.
But, you know? I miss Bill Spooner.
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