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| Thee Michelle Gun Elephant - Gear Blues |
| Thee
Michelle Gun Elephant are one of a handful of bands that made some
waves in the west, catching the eye of the right people at the right
time (their major label debut, "Cult Grass Stars," was produced by
Chris Brown, who was at the time fresh off Radiohead's "The Bends.")
Getting their name from misreading the cover art
of The Damned's "Machine Gun Etiquette" (good lord that's awesome,)
their sound was simultaneously obvious and difficult to truly describe.
Punk? Well, yeah, but with undertones of more straightforward hard
rock. I suppose you could call it a Sex Pistols / Motörhead / Stooges /
AC/DC hybrid, but even with AC/DC's Brian Johnson's hideously shredded
vocal chords, none of those comparisons deal with TMGE's most
distinctive asset: Yusuke Chiba's angry growl is almost comically
harsh, like a higher pitched Tom Waits imitating a tiger after drinking
a couple of shots of sulfuric acid. Seriously, it's insane. Even live
videos from the era don't match the vocal annihilation Chiba achieves
on "Gear Blues." Which is not to suggest the album is a mere showcase for his voice. TMGE run on plenty of snotty attitude (like the Sex Pistols,) visceral wallop (like Motörhead,) and nihilism (like The Stooges.) Music like this doesn't really need involved songwriting, and yes, some tracks achieve "Surfin' Bird" levels of simplicity. That's not a shortcoming: gussying up tracks like "Satanic Boom Boom Head" with such baroque accoutrements as "verses" or "structure" would be to, er, cheapen the sentiment. Seriously, if you find yourself writing a song with a title like "Satanic Boom Boom Head," and you feel the need elaborate your point, you've missed that point. Which leads us to what makes "Gear Blues" so special. Not every song is as ruthlessly simplistic as "Satanic," but even when things get more involved, simple crunch carries the day. Single "Smokin' Billy" takes a Stonsey riff and turns it up as loud as it can possibly go, and the whole things seems somewhat bothered by the fact it has to have a chorus. "G.W.D." is much the same, copping the riff from Nirvana's "Breed" and upping the intensity by several notches. "Free Devil Jam" is basic rockabilly turned up to eleven...you get the idea. As much mindless directionless energy as there is, understandably, the band doesn't waste time with extraneous experimentation, instead throwing everything they've got into moving forward as loudly as possible. While that allows them to hit their target, it can get a bit monochromatic, especially over the space of nearly an hour ("Gear Blues" is 55 minutes long.) Live shows are one thing, albums are another, and clipping a few tracks might have made the album a leaner, sharper shock overall. Then again, I'm coming from the school of thought that albums are made to be played, in sequence, all the way through, which isn't really necessary for energy merchants like TMGE. Whichever perspective one might choose, too much is better than not enough when it comes to loud rock 'n' roll, and with "Gear Blues," Thee Michelle Gun Elephant's cup runneth over. |