lunedì 1 luglio 2013

Another wild ride with the leather kings!

There are some bands who never give up. Who after almost thirty years and thousands of bar gigs still do not know anything better than to cut another record or make another gig in front of 60/70 desperate/fortunate people. The legendary Fleshtones formed in Queens one million years ago (was it 1976 or...) and since then they started touring and never end. Maybe this is the reason why they became  the greatest garage rockers of all time. In all these years, they drew from the best parts of The Yardbirds, The Kingsmen, The Sonics, The Seeds, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Rolling Stones, The Cramps etc. They borrowed from the old and created a monster of American rock music that lived up to the haughty "Super Rock" title they gave to their sound. They intensified everything but the sound: cool, anxiety, joy, and energy. Over the years they've become a tradition unto themselves, incorporating also '50s R&B, '60s frat-rock, and '70s disco into a heady mix that can only be recognized as "their unique sound". I've seen them live no less than half a dozen times and it has always been F.U.N.! And that song too, the one I consider the "SONG" of american garage revival... yes, i'm talking about  “The Dreg”, with the incredible cool fuzz bassline (Jan-Marek Pakulski), a guitar that builds to a fever pitch, soaked in reverb  by Keith Streng, with tones of percussions rattling off in all directions and a cool understated vocals by Peter, singing of a person searching for the meaning behind their intuition, moving forward in life with whatever they have. What a song, what a band! As someone else recently wrote, "The Fleshtones were all garage rock without any qualms of being original; they were just better than what they started with". Not a lot more to say, in my opinion they really symbolize what still matters in rock & roll... dance again to their american beat and sing "Sha la la la" forever!!!

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