The Fleshtones - Roman Gods
January 7 1982
The Fleshtones
Roman Gods
Genre: Garage
3.75 out of 5
Highlights:
Let’s See the Sun
Shadow-Line
Requisite 80s cover: A sludgy and party ending version of “Ride the Pony”.
It all really begins to make sense.
I have never been a Fleshtones devotee. Until this project I don’t think I knew them. But I knew OF them because X name checked them in “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts”.
And, as I have heard more and more of those listed bands I have found that I don’t think the Venn diagram of what John Doe and Excene loved and what I love(d) has much in common. Because more often than not I find that I am not interested in that music. Not to say it’s bad. In fact, it isn’t. But it doesn’t cut or bite the way I want it to. They way Wild Gift did.
The Fleshtones have more in common with late 60s garage than what I expect from “punk”. Danceable riffs that echo the catacombs of whatever club is in en vogue, with cage dancers and cat eye makeup.
Add a tinge of Elvis to it and that’s what I get here. Actually…it’s more Mojo Nixon than Jello Biafra. Case in point: “R-I-G-H-T-S”.
There’s nothing wrong with, say, Link Wray. It’s just that, like all that rockabilly from 1980/81, I’m ready to move on.
However. That don’t make it not good, as Kirk Lazarus might say.
Hard for me to reconcile that 1982 is just 14 years after 1968. As I write this 2007 is…well…14 years ago and that’s like yesterday. And I still think music from 2006 sounds fresh. I gotta check in with my 14 year old.
Or my 10 year old. He likes Ed Sheehan. How did that happen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfCxW5dCO8w&list=PLZ4JbF9rN12gDAAe2ZKLuUaE69fyAvvjl&index=4
