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| Speed, Glue and Shinki - Eve |
| "Eve"
is one of the albums that have recently been held up as a must have for
explorers of Japanese rock. Julian Cope's Japrocksampler has it sharing
the number one slot with the Flower Travelin' Band's "Satori," and
those who know the head Drude's tastes shouldn't be surprised: long a
proponent of all things lunkheaded and chemically crazed, Speed Glue
And Shinki's "Eve" must have smacked him upside the head
instantaneously. "Eve" is the earthy, slackjawed yin to "Satori"'s elevated, breathless yang. Everything about "Eve" is rooted in the basic, the oversimplified, the unsophisticated. "Eve" is one of those records, like Sir Lord Baltimore's debut, or every Motörhead record, that is best complimented with adjectives that would normally be derogatory: leaden, brutish, addled, primitive. In other words, it's an utterly spectacular rock 'n' roll album, a bad record by, if you'll pardon the cliché, the kind of people your mother warned you about. Shoot, two thirds of the band named themselves after their recreational chemical of choice. Tracing the history leading up to the formation of Speed, Glue and Shinki would take more time than we're gonna spend here, but suffice to say, they were a supergroup of sorts: bassist Masayoshi "Louis Louis" Kabe (aka Glue) was from GS group The Golden Cups, guitarist Shinki Chen had released a solo album as well as two albums with Flied Egg, and both were in Foodbrain. Drummer/vocalist Joey Smith (aka Speed) was the newcomer, but his name comes first in the lineup. There's a reason for that: not just because he's the vocalist, but because his stories of bad women and good drugs bring the gloriously thick plod of the group's sound into...well, it's difficult to justify using the words "sharp focus" with this album. But Smith's slobbering tales are the final push over the cliff, the element that takes "Eve" from being merely great 70s blues rock to being an icon of dim, fuzzy debauchery, like the MC5 without the rage, or Grand Funk without the social consciousness. His delivery is that of the pissed off teenager who's barely articulate enough to get the words out, ranting about the stuff that most people...the nice people...would never even think about discussing. In other words, pure, undiluted rock 'n' roll, the kind most pretend to but few ever have the balls to actually make. It's all done in a juvenile, excited tone that's like AC/DC's Bon Scott if he were too stoned to be witty. Even when they try to be all sensitive and aware, it comes off as a beautiful mess: "Someday We'll All Fall Down" is dedicated to "all the people out there...that are good" (as opposed to the bad people, who are dealt with on, you guessed it, "Ode To The Bad People.") After a brief spoken intro, there's a bit of acoustic meandering that sounds more like tuning than playing, followed by what in lesser hands would be maudlin and sticky: Someday we'll all be gone Like man being shot with a gun Like an explosion from a bomb And someday we'll all realize...that we're gone Someday we'll all realize that we're Gods. ...sung in a style that implies the lyrics are being made up on the spot. The song eventually sputters and wanders to a halt, as if everyone ran out of steam and decided that this was as good a place as any to stop. As mentioned above, the things that make this album so damned good are things that sound, on paper, absolutely horrible: the playing barely holds together, there's nary an IQ point in sight, and the whole thing sounds like it was conceived by zit encrusted adolescents. But such is the singularly demented genius of Speed, Glue and Shinki. All joking aside, not just anyone can tackle this kind of thing and make it listenable, let alone whip it into a beacon of deliriously sloppy rock 'n' roll that's still being discussed the better part of four decades later. And to be sure, closer listening, although unnecessary, does indeed reveal a subtle inner logic, one only possible by musicians who know what they're doing. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you think bands like Mountain and Status Quo were a little too cerebral, you need "Eve." |