The 1980 Listening Post - rainbow Red Oxidizer - Recorded Lies

 Reviewed by Tom Mott / LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

Released: 1980 Rainbow Red Oxidizer Recorded Lies Genre: Garage Rock'N'Roll Rating: 4.05 out of 5 Highlights: Recorded Lies Wild Beast Planet Ruler Limo To The Gig Play With Fire ---------------------------------------------- Gary "Magic" Marker - Bass Guitar Ed Cassidy - Drums Leon Rubinhold - Lead Guitar Mars Bonfire - Lead Guitar Rainbow Red Oxidizer - Lead Vocals ----------------------------------------------- These dudes put the "dig" in "pedigree." Marker was in Captain Beefheart's Magic Band orbit. Cassidy was the drummer (and prime mover with stepson Randy California) in Spirit. Mars Bonfire wrote Born To Be Wild. Leon Rubinhold was in The Outlaw Blues Band, whose song “Deep Gully” was sampled by Cypress Hill (“When the Shit Goes Down”). Deep Gully needs to be listened to by everyone all the way through at least once in their life. Rainbow Red Oxidizer was a KBLA boss radio DJ and pals with Sky Saxon and was in a couple of post-Seeds bands with him. This sounds like a bunch of guys who grew up on L.A. doo-wop and garage rock; cut their teeth in top-shelf psychedelic rock bands; listened to a couple of punk/new-wave albums; nodded "oh yeah, we got this" and had a couple cases of beer delivered to the studio where they recorded it live. Rough, raw, new wave garage rock, Jim Carrolling its way into the space Iggy should've been in in 1980. Riffs that would do Roky "Two-Headed Dog" Erickson proud. The good parts of solo Lou Reed mixed with Spizz "Where's Captain Kirk" Energi. Half originals, half covers [1] of 60s garage and beat classics. Do You Love Me is a loving doo-wop send-up. The shout out to "Elliot" in Wooly Bully would be Elliot Ingber. I wish the covers were mixed better -- the shredding guitar tends to be the highlight on those. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED in all its rowdy, beer-soaked glory. ********** 1. Except they're not all covers! "Rawhide" and "Hard Day's Night" are both wolves-in-sheeps-clothing originals. And "Play With Fire" and "Hard Day's Night" land somewhere between covers and hijackings (détournements) as if they're faking their way into creating new songs.