Monday, September 28, 2009

Mandatory Repost: Speed, Glue & Shinki-Eve (1971)



"Blues·based funereal dirges about scoring amphetamines ('Mr Walking Drugstore Man'), paranoid sludge-trudge proto-metal anthems about taking drugs to avoid straight people ('Stoned out of My Mind'), cuckolded dead marches to cheating women with invitations to them to commit suicide ('Big Headed Woman'): welcome to the world of Speed, Glue & Shinki. Even before Atlantic had unleashed this astonishingly raw debut LP on to an unsuspecting public in 1971, guitarist Shinki Chen was already touted as Japan's answer to Jimi Hendrix (he wasn't) and the gorgeous Franco-Japanese heart·throb Masayoshi Kabe was adored by thousands of GS fans as Louis Louis of the Golden Cups. Bandleader, songwriter and singing drummer
Joey 'Pepe' Smith was something else again, however, for this six·foot·two Filipino had an out of control amphetamine habit and a need to tell everybody about it. Imagine the Move's ultraslow pre-glam single 'Brontosaurus' as a blueprint for an entire career, and you have this bunch of ne'er-do-wells in your sights. Add ominous atonal sub-sub-Tony Vtsconti basslines and sub-sub-Bill Ward bibles·thrown-at·the-sofa drumfills, and you've hit their pleasure centre headon. Songs came courtesy of the singing drummer, and if his lyrics are killer, then his asides are even more masterfully snotty ('Do yourself in', 'she smokes all of my dope', 'You can get
love if you want it, baby, but you can never get it from me'). Let's conclude this review with bass player Masayoshi 'Glue' Kabe's current thoughts on his old band: 'We were loose ...Joey would break the drums and stuff ... Even when I listen to it now, I think, 'What a great
band: Crude, too.'"

This is such an amazing goddamn record and NO ONE has tried it from the original post! Aside from being an enormous blow to my ever expanding ego, I was aghast at the fact that no one who visits has heard this. This is some prime fucking Japanese rock and roll. So heavy. So good. So get it this time. Awesome.

Take it or Eve it

4 comments:

Seb said...

I've got the album myself, so while I've no need to download it, I'll testify to its greatness. One of the finest hard rock records from Japan ever. To hell with Les Rallizes Denudes.

Zoltar said...

Whoooooaaaaaaa. I dunno about that haha

Zoltar said...

About Les Rallizes I mean. Thanks for backing me up on this one though and thanks for visiting.

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