In Praise of....Electric by the Cult

Couldn't care less about The Cult, but of all the bands in the world to wag a finger at, Beastie Boys is not a good example of one being "stuck" in any "mode."

I worked my way back into love and dreamtime, but they had me at electric.

And don't even get me started on the drumming on that album. Fuckin unbelieveable. Guy works that highhat like a mother fucker.

Plus they all look cool as shit on the album cover.

I agree with you Alex in NYC. Thanks for posting this.

And for the record .. I like Sonic Temple and Ceremony has its moments. Shit, I even have the album after ceremony. That was pretty good too. Their last "reunion" album was shite, though.

You're right on wrt Love, which grabbed me by the ear in '85 just as you say. Astbury's hippy blahblah is no more annoying now than it was then, and is in any case nicely drowned out by the wild rumpus.

And but so here's the thing: Love holds up worlds better than Electric. Rubin's sin here wasn't turning Teh Cult into RAWK GODS - as you rightly note, they were pretty much already there anyway - it was the shitty sound. Where Love is big and echoey and booming, Electric is tinny, trebly, and assless. It's RAWK music all right, you can tell because the licks are hot and Astbury's all RobertPlanty and stuff, but while the AC/DC influence is clear and present, any Mutt Lange influence is sadly MIA.

"Love Removal Machine" is still a classic, but I have to EQ the hell out of it, which just isn't very rock'n'roll.

Yay-yuh!

OTM! And fwiw I will now have "Love Removal Machine," "Rain," and "Big Neon Glitter" stuck in my head all day.

I have to agree, it's pretty amazing. They pretty much did it as a Happy Mondays rip (no, seriously) and then turned it into something powerful through and through.

I blame this on them discovering (a) the USA (b) cocaine.

(x-post!)

And as far as I remember it sounded HUGE, but I prob'ly haven't listened to the album since 1986. Still, it had to be done. I'm grinning now thinking about it.

Shit, I think I'll listen to this today!

Sorry, didn't get that. When you wrote "Much like the Beastie Boys... The Cult were now stuck in dumb metal mode" and followed it with the details of their spiral into ignominy, it sounded like you were comparing the two's fates. Anal Detail Patrol will now leave the area...

Ah, "The Witch". Killing Joke sued them over that (as they sample the BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ from "Requiem" in the middle-eight. Later versions (as on High Octane Cult) find the KJ sample excised, renderin the Cool World soundtrack a bit of a collector's item (for those idiots like m'self who care about such things). Incidentally, the bas on "the Witch" was played by hirsute producer and Rick Rubin doppleganger, George Darkoulias .
Sorry, didn't get that. When you wrote "Much like the Beastie Boys... The Cult were now stuck in dumb metal mode" and followed it with the details of their spiral into ignominy, it sounded like you were comparing the two's fates. Anal Detail Patrol will now leave the area...

To be fair, i didn't really follow-through on my point in the original text, which renders your initial comment completely valid. If what the Beasties say is true, Rubin cast them as frathouse hooligans, but they managed to slip free of that mold. Similarly, the Black Crowes content that Rubin wanted to re-invent them as uber-Southern rock band called the Koocks Kounty Krowes (geddit?), which they understandbly weren't happy with. So, if you believe all that, blame Rubin for the metlification of das Cult.

fwiw, I remembered it that way too. Dusted it off earlier this year and... plink.

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0000018AH.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Bahahahaha. Sad but true.

Actually, "Star" on their penultimate album (the one with the goat on the cover) was pretty great, as I remember. The damage was, of course, done by then.

The last reunion album (Beyond Good and Evil? Was that it?) was absollutely unmemorable. And now Ian's become an ersatz Jim Morrison.

What's Billy Duffy doing now?

I remember reading something about how Mike Peters claimed to beat colon cancer by wearing exclusively the color green for an entire three-hundred-and-sixty-five days. He's clearly not a well man in the head.

IT’S OFFICIAL!

BILLY DUFFY BRINGS THE LOVE REMOVAL MACHINE TO SIN-JIN SMYTH!!!

BILLY DUFFY of THE CULT agreed to terms with SNAP KICK PRODUCTIONS INC.
and saddles up with the rebel alliance behind the production of SIN-JIN SMYTH
(www.sin-jinsmyth.com)!

The film (Written and Directed by Ethan Dettenmaier)---which follows two federal marshals who man an isolated Federal Outpost in the American Midwest as they receive an emergency message one night (over Halloween weekend) to blitz across the border into the Kansas Badlands (moments after a tornado warning) for the midnight prisoner transfer of man with no identity (and set against a Kansas legend about a Midnight appearance of the Devil every Halloween in a quiet, local cemetery)---is currently in production and set to hit theatres towards the end of next summer…

In a very inventive move, Duffy will contribute original guitar work to the Score, (Collaborating with the orchestral work of MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE), serve as Music Supervisor and lock and load for a part in the film as a rogue government agent who specializes in interrogation and torture!

And from a Music Supervisor stand point he will be backed up by the library of the SANCTUARY RECORDS GROUP which in addition to THE CULT includes MOTORHEAD, IRON MAIDEN, ROBERT PLANT, FLEETWOOD MAC, THE WU-TANG CLAN, ANTHRAX, NEIL YOUNG, BILLY IDOL and MORRISSEY just to name a few). So get ready because they plan to get loud!

err....

I was at that show!

This entire paragraph is completely wrong. I wish it was true. I wish they were joking. They weren't.

Hey john, try reading my original post.

For a start, you're young, so what the hell do you know? Secondly, THAT'S JUST IT -- ELECTRIC ISN'T "real metal," and that's where it succeeds. It's parody metal. And it's brilliant. And it wasn't meant to be taken seriously (Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams of the Mission -- big pals of the Cult's -- will back me up on that, btw).

Mind you, I find the quality went mostly pear shaped after Electric, a time when they started to take themselves so extremely seriously as a ROCK/METAL band, some sort of serious prospect, Astbury renaming himself Wolfchild etc:
It just didn't work, too many influences, too much GNR not enough AC/DC, trying to do the big proto Zep stuff like Jane's Addiction and failing, doing looped dance metal, I mean The Witch was a fluke but yikes!

Nazareth sucks, though, whoever reminded me that exists the other day. Love Hurts? Fucking kidding me?

That's really all i'm saying.

Mind you, I find the quality went mostly pear shaped after Electric, a time when they started to take themselves so extremely seriously as a ROCK/METAL band

Again, likewise.

For some reason it reminds me of the Stooges first album (1969?) and I have no idea why.

Astbury would kiss you, mow your lawn and wash your car for that complement. I don't hear it m'self, but hey....

Nazareth sucks, though, whoever reminded me that exists the other day. Love Hurts? Fucking kidding me?

Well, Chuck brought'em up, but I invoked "Love Hurts," but I did so to explain why everyone seems to think they suck. Mawkish power ballad "Love Hurts" drew attention away from the fact that they actually fuckin' rocked.

Hey Alex how about a Metal Gurus appreciation thread?

Their cover of "Gudbye t'Jane" (with Noddy on vox) was alright, but the whole shebang was largely botched otherwise. I'm sure they'd have been fun live, though.

Great cover of Mr Pleasant, oh wait, that was just the Mish wasn't it?

Amen to that. I still think of them fondly every time I see a bottle of Blue Nun.

"He was for a little bit -- as the Hanged Men or the Dead Men Walking or something self-defeating like that."

I'm not sure he was ever a "permanent" member of Dead Men Walking (insofar as any of them are actually "permanent" by definition) although he was involved with Mike Peters in a project called Coloursound a few years back and apparently he (and Lemmy!) did recently join Dead Men Walking on stage on one in the US on one of the dates on their current tour.

The current line up of Dead Men Walking is Mike Peters, Slim Jim Phantom (ex Stray Cats), Kirk Brandon and Captain Sensible. Previously they had Glen Matlock instead of The Captain.

http://www.deadmenwalking.co.uk/
http://www.officialdamned.com/docs/dates/dmw.html

I've never actually seen them but I certainly would if they were playing near me, has anyone here seen them live?

Electric [Sire, 1987]
Rick Rubin meets the doom fops of the former Southern Death Cult and concocts the metal dreams are made of--Zep for our time, supposedly. One reason it's a great joke is that in 2087 almost nobody will be able to tell it from the real thing. The other reason it's a great joke is that right now almost anybody can. Direct comparison reveals that Jimmy Page's thunderclap riffs, Robert Plant's banshee yowls, and John Bonham's ka-boom ka-boom are just as hard to replicate as you thought they were. I hear Steppenwolf (an unconvincing "Born to Be Wild"), Cream ("Tales of Brave Ulysses" as "Aphrodisiac Jacket"), and Aerosmith--fop but no fool, Ian Astbury apes Steve Tyler rather than the unapproachable Plant. I also hear lots of Zep simplified--no sagas, no tempo shifts, no blues. Inspirational Verse: "Zany antics of a beat generation/In their wild search for kicks." B+

Except he neglects to mention AC/DC, though he also gives "Back in Black" a B-.

There's something missing from Electric that separates it from metal. It's kind of nebulous what this is, but I would call it "wank". There is no wank on Electric.

That said, if the Cult meant it as a spoof to get more famouser, then the joke was on them, because by the time they made the complete metal conversion, Nirvana released "Nevermind" and the Cult looked like wanking losers.

Yeah, `cos Nirvana were such winners, weren't they.

(BTW: I wasn't saying I thought the Cult looked like losers. Just saying in the "everything's changed man" era, they were way too much into the Doors, guitar solos, and Native Americans to have much appeal.)

I've never heard the slightest trace of the Doors in the Cult (for a start, Billy Duffy's guitar -- even before the metal makeover -- was far too fat and beefy to be compared to Robbie Krieger's. And Astbury may have black hair, but the similarities to ol' dead Jimbo end there. Astbury's voice is of a much higher register than Morrison's basso profundo. But, I suppose that hasn't stopped Manzarek from cashing in (I guess John Doe and Val Kilmer weren't interested). Yeah, Astbury's pretty much become a whore, as far as I'm concerned.

I do remember reading how Astbury said he felt like a complete incongruous flop in the 90's when "Madchester" and then "BritPop" were blossoming, and he was still wearing long leathers cowboy hats with skulls on them (witness the band's hasty-albeit-tardy makeover circa the eponymous album with the goat on the sleeve).

Actually I think you'll find Billy and Morrissey were in a late and extremely short-lived (precisely 2 gigs, if legend is to be believed) incarnation of The Nosebleeds, replacing Ed "Banger" Garrity and Vini Reilly (yes, really, that Vini Reilly, went off to be The Durutti Column!).

The connections with Slaughter & The Dogs are:

1. Billy left The Nosebleeds after a short while to join the Studio Sweethearts with Howard Bates and Mick Rossi ex Slaughter and The Dogs and Phil Rowland of Eater.

2. After recording one single as Studio Sweethearts, Billy left / was kicked out and Wayne Barrett (re-)joined the band which became Slaughter & The Dogs (again).

3. Wayne left Slaughter & The Dogs (again) shortly afterwards and was replaced by none other than Ed Garrity.

Confused? Be grateful you ain't the one whose brain insists on still retaining and recalling all this shit after all these years!

As for The Cult's Electric, I couldn't even begin to defend it, as it's the kind of thing I likely wouldn't be able to sit through all of without wanting to turn it off. It was certainly a mystifying change for them at the time, a change I wish they hadn't made. It reminds me of a really good friend I had in high school, though, who was pretty crazy about the Cult when it came out (I believe they were his fave band) and even he was rather incredulous. I remember him telling me about some of the lyrics, the use of the word "mama" and such. We laughed about it. I think it's quite possible he stuck by the band anyway and just didn't tell folks about it, though.

I'm afraid the only non-Slaughter & The Dogs stuff I've heard of his is the Nosebleeds' "I Ain't Bin To No Music School" which is amusing but pretty neanderthal (definitely worth hearing, if only to wonder what the fuck it must have sounded like with Morrissey singing it!) and "'Kin' ell Tommy".

I was at the first gig he did with Slaughter & The Dogs (supporting UK Suns at The Lyceum in December '79 iirc) 'though, which was an extremely creditable performance, especially given the absolute last-minute zero rehearsal-time nature of his recruitment, after Wayne Barrett failed to show following a row - he was actually in the dressing room with Mick Rossi desperately learning the set right up until the moment they had to go on!

I saw Billy Duffy a few months ago, playing with Jerry Cantrell in their awfully-named cover band Cardboard Vampyres. Terrible name aside, they were good fun -- opened for Judas Preist at Shoreline, and did a bunch of Cult & AIC covers, with AC/DC, Motorhead, Sabbath, etc thrown in for good measure.

TS: Billy Duffy vs. Geordie?

NO ONE is as cool as Geordie. Not even his Duffness.

Theatre Of Hate and The Cult were both far more image-conscious bands than Killing Joke, the only one of whom actually seemed to make an effort to look cool was Big Paul.

`Cept Geordie doesn't play a Gretsch.

It probably isn't a Gretsch that Duffy plays either.

http://www.anirrationaldomain.net/images/memo/memo07.jpg

"She Sells Sanctuary" by the Cult....in actuality the BEST SONG EVER.

When did he start playing that? I'm no great afficianado of the guitar but I'm sure pretty he was playing something with a solid body (live, even if not in the studio) all the time Youth was still in the band.

http://www.gibson.com/Files/img/anguscover.jpg

http://www.legendsofpunk.com/images/gallery/previews/KGJ005.jpg

I'm afraid I'm already familiar with and deeply in love with this track, if only because the clumsy guitar riff from Vini Reilly shows he could do a punk riff that still sounded like no one else in the known universe could have sounded. Amateurishly brilliant.

Billy Duffy could play for a Kajagoogoo tribute band and still be the coolest motherfucker in the zip code.

True then, true now.

They're reissuing this with the shelved Peace album as a bonus and, though I've heard all the recordings and bought them in various editions, I have to say I'm going to do it again. Love this stuff.

I rejected the false metal of Electric in the 80s (though none of my friends did, so I've heard it many many times) but I learned there's a pre-Rick Rubin version available now, so I picked up Electric Peace and I love the unruined Peace as much as I thought I would!

lol the "false metal" of Electric is one of its prime attributes! It plays both as tribute and parody.

I like Sonic Temple better

Me too! I think I bumped a Cult thread a couple of weeks back to praise "Sonic Temple," which has hooks galore, excellent arrangements, huge drums from Mickey Curry, the return of some psychedelia and about 60% less silliness than its predecessor.

I was like 16 when this came out, and I have really fond memories of it at the time? I *loved* the cover, and had good associations through loving the singles from the previous album. But at age 16, I completely lacked any context for what "false" or "true" metal even was (and didn't really care) - it was just another vaguely psychedelic goth/post-punk record to me, until Sonic Temple really pushed The Cult over the edge into "music for the kinds of dudes who try to beat me up on the bus". (My girlfriend liked that one, but... she was far more metal-friendly than I.)

I just tried to listen to it today - and I just couldn't do it. I was laughing too hard. All of the sonic references and musical quotes that I completely missed when I was 16, I am far too aware of now, to take it in any way seriously.

The "baby, baby, baby, baby" bit was brilliant for helltapes, though.

I tried Peace earlier this week and couldn't disagree more with f. hazel's take. That thing would have absolutely sunk their career. It wasn't hard rock enough to have made any commercial impact, and it wasn't goth enough to hold onto their old fans. Plus, every song from it that showed up on Electric was longer and slower.

It kind of reminded me of White Zombie's Make Them Die Slowly, not in that the two albums were in any way sonically similar, but in the sense that it was a record by a band that hadn't found its identity yet and was still fumbling around.

I just tried to listen to it today - and I just couldn't do it. I was laughing too hard. All of the sonic references and musical quotes that I completely missed when I was 16, I am far too aware of now, to take it in any way seriously.

It's absolutely a tribute album, halfway to being a covers album (except that the one actual cover - "Born To Be Wild" - is one of the worst things on it), but that's not a bad thing. I remember decades ago reading a review claiming that a novelist "steals freely from poor sources"; I always loved that phrase. The Cult steal from the best, and when you point it out, Astbury will happily engage you in conversation about how much the band/album he stole a riff or a piano sound or a chorus from rules. (I interviewed him in 2010 or so and had a blast talking to him - he's right on that line between "smarter than you think" and "dumb as a bag of hair". It was like talking to a puppy, in a way.)

I just feel like Sonic Temple is so much more assured and the ironic air quotes have been removed and they actually became a band that could rock Midwestern rubes, better songs

I don't think of the Cult as being ironic at all. They're like Primal Scream - too dumb to be a put-on. Astbury's always trying on hats, and when he finds one that fits he runs around in it for a couple of years.

I dunno, I think people can be dumb and also winkingly knowing at the same time? Or maybe with Primal Scream, it was the people around them who were clever enough to be knowing? I did think of comparing between the two bands and their attitudes to their source material - but I think the Scream's influences were much wider ranging, and because the records they were pillaging were more interesting (to me at least) the records were marginally more interesting? Or more Zeitgeisty? I agree they're doing the same thing, but the results are quite different.

(That said, I noped out on the Scream a long time ago due to, erm, unacceptable behaviour.)

Y'all it was a joke, I was sixteen and I didn't like any metal* at all. But now I am projecting back and rewarding my teenage judgement: I indeed would have liked Electric more if it had sounded more like Love. Maybe being a goth was protection against false metal, it made you suspicious of earnest sentiment. Not that Love isn't earnest as hell. But nobody can really resist She Sells Sanctuary. I remember being sent Sonic Temple by Columbia House and it felt like a personal insult; Fire Woman struck me as the alchemical opposite of Rain, ugly everywhere Rain was beautiful. But since I only had about a dozen CDs at that point I listened to it all the time anyway. I think of it somewhat fondly now. But I am actively enjoying this Peace album.

*I wanted to, the metal kids at my school were the salt of the earth

Astbury's always trying on hats,

I think Electric rules, but that's entirely down to Billy Duffy. A fantastic guitar sound and some very tasty riffs. Astbury bellows along and sometimes it works well, sometimes not so much. But Duffy delivers every time.

Electric rules! Don't hate fun.

Peace is more fun though

Guys I heard Peace for the first time and I am upset

WHERE ARE THE RIFFS ;_;

ie thanks i hate it

Electric def rules bayby bayby bayby

Love is the better album, imho.

Love is the best, Electric is the most fun, Sonic Temple might be an okay middle ground between those two vibes. I know I've heard other albums by them but nothing has ever clicked.

Dreamtime is A-OK

nobody can really resist She Sells Sanctuary.

Truest statement on this board.

Are there any clunkers on Love? "Revolution," maybe. That's about it.

Choice of Weapon is really good, maybe my favorite of their records. I don't like Love but Electric and Sonic Temple are both more or less equally good. I vaguely remember their most recent record, Under the Midnight Sun, being OK. I'll just quote myself from above re Electric:

It's absolutely a tribute album, halfway to being a covers album (except that the one actual cover - "Born To Be Wild" - is one of the worst things on it), but that's not a bad thing. I remember decades ago reading a review claiming that a novelist "steals freely from poor sources"; I always loved that phrase. The Cult steal from the best, and when you point it out, Astbury will happily engage you in conversation about how much the band/album he stole a riff or a piano sound or a chorus from rules. (I interviewed him in 2010 or so and had a blast talking to him - he's right on that line between "smarter than you think" and "dumb as a bag of hair". It was like talking to a puppy, in a way.)

I don't think of the Cult as being ironic at all. They're like Primal Scream - too dumb to be a put-on. Astbury's always trying on hats, and when he finds one that fits he runs around in it for a couple of years.

I don't like Love

There's a surprise.

i like Love a lot too! It fully kicks ass no question! but Wild Flower & Peace Dog & Little Devil are like my alltime favorite Cult songs

Some days Love is my favorite drum album ever.

some say Love, it is a banger

lol