Urge Overkill: Classic or Dud

'Exit the Dragon' is absolutely 100% classic. 'The Mistake','Take Me', 'View of the Rain', 'Tin Foil' , 'Digital Black Epilogue' - fantastic all of 'em.

"Not long for this life, Not long for this world, whoa-oh-oh t-t-ake me goddamit, take me back again! "

Stuff the wretched Go-Betweens, this is what we want!

So, I'll shut up (for now), but I could talk for hours about 'Exit the Dragon'. And you all thought that I was a cynical old bastard...

Went to see The Breeders and Luscious Jackson in Manchester about 8 years ago - UO were third on the bill, and the only reason for the attendance for most of the Probe-affiliated Liverpool scenesters who surrounded me in the bar area. I managed about ten minutes of their flabby 70s rock swill - they reeked. DUD.

I have avoided the early stuff, and have not really liked the later albums. "Accelerator" was interesting, but I couldn't get into it. I probably should have tried harder with that one.

Urge Overkill: Couldnt really pull it off live either, but SuperSonic Storybook is an absolute no questions asked classic. That album is spot on all the way. The 70's swank image was a lot of fun. Didnt dig Saturation - too much like Bachman Turner Overdrive. Exit the Dragon was a step back in the right direction.

The biggest mistake they made was claiming their image was all in jest and good fun. I recall Nash saying "Its a joke, nobody is getting the joke". Well F' that. If anything, real rock stars would self proclaim they were the coolest cats with a mocking smile, swig down some martinis and give the world the middle finger.

Don't have the 'Mondostereo' thing. Didn't Killdozer do that great Bad Company cover for . . . what movie was that?

the best thing about UO was that they wrote a song about stalkers
who they thought were sincere fans, but it turned out they
were stalking them because they thought UO sucked! SUCH IRONY!
Isn't that the awesomest thing ever?

Oh, and Classic. I don't have a lot of love for Exit the Dragon, but based on some of the posts above I'll have to find my copy and give it a spin.

Also, "Stalker" the song came first, then "Stalker" the hate zine. The ladies who made the zine used to come into the Rainbo when they thought Nate would be there, one of them wearing a horse costume (because they thought Nate looked like a horse), and hang around being pains in the ass until they got kicked out. I vaguely remember a physical confrontation between Blackie and one of the women one night at the Rainbo, so I'm pretty sure the Urge guys weren't big fans of the zine.

I think Geffen had dropped so much money into UO to have a huge hit album, which didn't happen, they were screwed.

What I thought was funny about Urge is that they went from a cool indie rock band to the most uncool major label band in literally the time period of a summer. I'm sure Jawbox, Jesus Lizard and Jawbreaker and other bands of that time had many fans turn upon them for going to a major, but I don't think any band quite got the shit like UO.

It's one of the few vinyl tracks I would convert to MP3 if I wasn't so lazy and actually worked out how to do it

UO seemed to think they were far better than they actually were though

I never really got off on UO, I liked "Stull" when it came out, but every time I've listened to them since, one track is great, but it's kind of enough, because I start getting very distracted 1 verse into the second number. If I want that awesome american heavy pop-rock kind of sound, Red Kross' "Phaseshifter" is the one for me. My god, what a mighty album that is.

Destroy: everything else. Exit the Dragon is bullshit. The only track that sounds like they weren't phoning it in is "The Mistake," and that's only because Blackie was so fucked out on smack that he couldn't help but capture it on vinyl at some point. Nash and Roeser's songs are mostly crap -- "Somebody Else's Body"? You gotta be freakin' kidding me. After the great Cheap Trick pastiche that is "Saturation," this was much of a letdown as I've ever experienced from any american band, and I'll never forgive those jokers for it!

based soley on the amount of copies available for less than 5$.
last splash is ALWAYS 5$ or 6!

but, all that aside, UO=grand. i loved them so...they made me wish i could be them when i was like 15.
saw one of the reunion shows, not as great w/o Blackie O...still alright. King's a sweater, tho. no, not like a turtle neck, but the man's got some sweat flarin.
nash looks exactly the same. just not as nice as he should be...all things considered.

Their live at Maxwells album is really pretty good. I'm surprised that anyone would like Exit The Dragon over Saturation, but it's a big world. As time goes by, their trio of Storybook, Stull, Saturation (hmmm, maybe they fucked up by not calling it "So Long Dragon") are holding up really well. Wish more current indie-ish dudes could sing like that.

theres a brighter sun out of frame

if the UO is supposed to be the sun there's even more things wrong with those shadows

yeah "Positive Bleeding" is hook after hook after hooker, such a jam

I always thought it was the moon

"ridiculous ambition and complete ineptitude" describes my favorite indie rock over the years (e.g. JAMC)

part of why i've never been able to get into BOC is how relatively glib they sound, aside from the occasional Buck Dharma love ballad or hard rock hit

― da croupier, Tuesday, July 17, 2012 10:24 AM (13 minutes ago)

the glibness never bothered me, but then i love stuff like sparks and devo, too. also, i find BOC's commitment to geeky cult/fantasy/sci-fi stuff entirely convincing, if no less tongue in cheek than anything else they do. i think there's a sense in which music can "mean it" while being completely cartoonish and silly at the same time. "ballroom blitz", for instance. the whole thing's a punchline, but i never doubt the band's commitment to their material (or "the concept" or w/e). same goes for the best BOC and urge overkill. it doesn't matter to me that "positive bleeding" might be a goof or pastiche, because the sound and feel of it win me over so entirely.

dug out saturation a few weeks back, and found that inside the cd sleeve is an unused UO logo sticker, which i had forgotten all about.

may have to finally use it now ..

even on exit the dragon, where clearly little fun is being had, they're just trapped in this self-aware wanna-be superstar crying over cliches mode.

i think that's why i love it.

i was slagging exit the dragon pretty hard a couple weeks back, but [full disclosure] it'd been a while since i last listened to it. really shouldn't do that, as my recall is at least as hazy as my opinions are changeable.

anyway, as part of my recent nostalgia lap around the totems of wasted youth, i spent a good portion of the day listening to urge overkill and realized that it's not so complete a failure as i suggested. it's not a great album, but it's got two brilliant songs ("need some air" is every bit as good as "the mistake") and a few good ones to wash them down (notably "the break" and "somebody else's body").

the problem is that about half of its songs are underwritten, lifelessly performed and pointedly dismal. the chorus of "this is no place" practically dares you to nod and hit skip: "this is no place, this is no place that i want to be / this is nowhere, this is nowhere to be." "take me" seems always to be building towards a climactic harmony that it never finds. "monopoly" is a great idea poorly delivered. it should have been this album's "emmaline", but it just winds up a unfinished sketch.

gonna take a stab at rock & roll submarine tomorrow...

I have to think looking back in hindsight that outside the obvious (the drugs) one reason they never really got over is that they really were not quite as good live as they were on record. They really were never a complete 4 piece band, which their sound really needed to be (even though later Nash moved to guitar and they had a bassist live). I saw them once earlier as a trio and they were fun, but kind of sparse compared to the 90s Cheap Trick sound they nailed on Saturation.

I saw them twice and dug 'em ok (although the time as a trio was much more stripped down), but really the records worked in some ways better than they actually were as a live playing group.

the chorus of "this is no place" practically dares you to nod and hit skip

but that's why i love it! its so wasted and miserable...

I saw Urge Overkill live several times during the Saturation/Exit The Dragon era and they were always good.

I think one reason why they've struggled is that Saturation was an anomally for them. Nash Kato was really on a hot streak with songs like "Sister Havana" and "Positive Bleeding" and became the focal point for the band. On pretty much all of their other albums, his tunes are much goofier and take a backseat to King Roeser's more gruff and downcast songs. I'm ok with this because I really love songs like "Jaywalkin'", "The Break", "This Is No Place", "Last Night/Tomorrow", but I can see why this doesn't appeal to a lot of the folks that were drawn in by the Saturation singles.

I've always felt like Nirvana's success was some sort of cosmic mistake, and it's no surprise that bands caught up in the wake would fail to thrive. UO was a band that by all logic should have remained just-under-the-radar, and rising above that level, even for a minute, really (nearly) killed them.

I kind of like the idea of Exit The Dragon vs. Full Blown Posession (Grifters). Solid indie bands, caught up in the moment, fail to thrive with final totally-decent album. (Ok, Rock & Roll Submarine fucks up the "final" bit, but this remains essentially true).

Also, the passing of both of those bands kind of marked the end of...how you say...guys doing guy rock and roll. Hello space-age bachelor music, etc...

I can see why this doesn't appeal to a lot of the folks that were drawn in by the Saturation singles.

― Moodles, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 7:12 AM (4 hours ago)

sure, but i was drawn in by jesus urge superstar. i'd been a fan for five or six years when exit the dragon came out. though i'd had to work hard to understand jesus urge superstar, and though americruiser was disappointingly slight, they at least gave me cause to stick with them. exit the dragon marked the first (and last) time i'd really disliked an urge overkill album. part of my distaste was undoubtedly the dashing of overinflated expectations, but it's still the weakest album they ever made, imo. it'll probably never be a favorite, though i'm inclined to be more forgiving of its faults these days.

Also, the passing of both of those bands kind of marked the end of...how you say...guys doing guy rock and roll. Hello space-age bachelor music, etc...

goodbye to guyville

just starting to explore rock & roll submarine. it's a lot better than effigy led me to believe (not that it's a bad song, necessarily, but it didn't impress me on the first pass).

I have a nice buzz and Saturation is hitting the spot. What a fun rock record.

Saturation is so so excellent. Come on, "Bottle of Fur."
Nash Kato's solo album is also really good.

For whatever reason, I'd never actually googled "Artane." I also never paid close attention to the lyrics of "What is Artane..." I think I carried over the goofball cover art and some of the goofball songs on Supersonic Storybook, but that's a seriously dark song. Also maybe my favorite thing they did, though there are a lot of contenders. What's weird is that I'd read the NY Times article on (supposed) Artane abuse in Iraq, but somehow the connection didn't click. Anyway, still leaning towards Supersonic as their best, but I was wrong upthread about Exit.

I had heard a bit about the whole 'stalker' routine, but this kinda seems like something out of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia".

https://thechicagoambassador.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/20-years-later-urge-overkill-stalker-discusses-her-antics-still-wants-to-drive-the-band-crazy/

Man the new one is surprisingly fun, I love these goofballs.

I gotta check it out

Sad news:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-06-14/blackie-onassis-urge-overkill-john-rowan-drummer-dies

Oh man, that is sad. RIP

I always liked these guys, even well after the rest of the world stopped paying attention. Oui was a pretty good record.

That sucks. I saw them in '93 and wound up sitting next to Nash and Blackie at a bar afterwards. They were total dudes.

oh no.
fuck.
loved these guys.
r.i.p.

(realize probably in poor taste to single out Oui given that he's long been away from the group, but just appreciate any chance to give these guys some love)

What a sad synchronicity--I pulled out Supersonic Storybook earlier this month for the first time in years, and have had "(Today Is) Blackie's Birthday" in my head ever since.

I really loved Urge Overkill a band that occupied a very odd space in rock music. Really nothing like them. Especially their odd, transitional records. and of course, Saturation is a full blown masterpiece, the great Cheap Trick album of the grunge era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww-f4glTOdw

relistening to 'saturation' for the first time in years and grinning like a cheshire cat all over again.
at the time i was bored with grunge, but this crew cut through all that, and hit the spot for me.

still got the sticker that came with the cd edition of Saturation.
no idea if linking to a picture on twitter works anymore,
here goes.

https://twitter.com/marke23/status/1669075241526517760/photo/1

ah, as expected.
hey ho.

Exit The Dragon is such a great, sad, complex album. Like the inevitable comedown to follow the artificial high of Saturation and all that Erica Kane. Saturation has such strong songs, but Exit The Dragon was their great work.

the rest of the songs are unfortunately overshadowed by "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" but the Still EP is probably my favorite overall

Stull, even

I love Exit The Dragon, it really got a bad rap. Many years back I spotted King Roeser at SXSW. I went up to him and introduced myself and said I loved that record, especially his songs. I think he was a little shocked like no one had ever said anything good about it to him before.

Moodles and stevie otm, Exit the Dragon is a killer album and the band’s best. Love to see it appreciated.

RIP Blackie. Re-listening tonight. What incredible guitar sounds and gorgeous, dry recordings. Love the hard panning. Emmaline and Stull title track hitting hard.

Supersonic Storybook is sounding great, very odd mid ground between Saturation and the more knotty Touch & Go Chicago rock style

you got to ro-oh-ah-oh
sister hawana

Woman 2 Woman my fave track of alltime of theirs, total banger with the most insupportable lyrics & the worst line
ever

Girl what's your sign, Vagittarius?

oh no

:D

A serious rock band. Saw them (without Blackie) in 2004, and they totally blew me away. Still one of my favorite gigs ever.

Storybook, Saturation, Stull and Exit all excellent. Gonna play Goodbye to Guyville this morning. RIP Blackie.

Girl what's your sign, Vagittarius?

was listening to Saturation a few months back on a sentimental journey to where I grew up and was obsessed with it as a teenager, and that lyric jumped out. Is it about loving a woman who loves women?

yeah but more gross - it’s about wanting to bone a lesbian & turn her straight
i don’t know that love is involved lol

ha oh god that is gross as fuck. oh, the 90s.