In Praise of....Electric by the Cult

"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.)