In Praise of....Electric by the Cult

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.

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