New Bomb Turks - Switchblade Tongues, Butterknife Brains

 A quick surf of the web might lead one to believe that nothing much ever happens in Ohio, much like the Detroit suburb I live in, and because of the ridiculous, long-standing college football rivalry between Ohio State and the University of Michigan it's supposedly my duty as a Michigander to toe the company line and quickly dismiss our neighbor to the south as a place where men are men and the livestock are afraid. Feh...
Dead Boys, Rubber City Rebels, Pagans, Rachel Sweet, Devo, Pere Ubu, Tin Huey, The Bizarros, and, as much as I loathe bringing up her name, Chrissie Hynde (admittedly great until about the third Pretenders album, her politics now bore me to tears - to me, PETA stands for "People Eating Tasty Animals") are all reasons why Ohio deserves to step out of the long shadow cast by Michigan and, in particular, Detroit. For the life of me, I still can't figure out what the hell those guys in Guided By Voices are on about, though.
Taking their name from a character in 1980's forgettable "B" flick "The Hollywood Knights," the New Bomb Turks could probably give a toss what anyone thinks of Ohio or anything else for that matter. They came together in the college town of Columbus when the four members, all English majors, grew weary of sitting around with their thumbs up their asses and decided to form a band, a tale seemingly as old as civilization itself. From the beginning, the Turks seemed hellbent on administering a thorough amplified ass stomping or, at the very least, a deafening thrash about the head and shoulders. Ten years, eight albums, and four or five labels later, they show no sign of slowing down, turning down, or dumbing down.
After an amicable split from Epitaph, Gearhead threw them a lifeline and released "The Night Before The Day The Earth Stood Still" in 2002, recorded at a time when the band was without a label. Ballsy, eh? Gearhead, quickly garnering a reputation as a prime purveyor of joyful exercises in sheer volume, also had the good taste and temerity to release this compilation of mostly unreleased material (nine of the songs are covers) dating back to 1999 and three tracks recorded with Jim Diamond at Ghetto Recorders in Detroit. "Ad Nauseum" and "Action" (no, not the old Sweet chestnut) are ultra-crude and disheveled examples of sonic dementia, humming along at breakneck speed and bursting from the speakers like a spray of sweat. Eric Davidson's pyromaniac yowl at the end of "Action" nearly resulted in this scribe soiling his nappy.
Punters laboring under the impression that Steven Tyler and Joe Perry have (or had, prior to getting off dope) the market cornered on back-alley sleaze are advised to lend an ear to the Turks' cover of "Chip Away At The Stone." The stuttering, stop-and-start twitch of their cover of Warsaw's (the band which later morphed into beaten-by-life experts Joy Division) "The Drawback" is, quite simply, full grinding perfection, buttressed by Jim Weber's sawing, squalling, overly caffeinated guitar and Sam Brown's revved-up, Moon-like drumming. Unfortunately, at 1:31, it goes whizzing by much too quickly.
No slam on the Turks, but it's hard to imagine someone screwing up a song as great as the Devil Dogs' "Radiobeat." Quite predictably, they do themselves proud, belching flame and farting napalm, tearing through it like they've just slammed several pints and need to introduce Mr. Thick Dick to Mr. Urinal Cake. And it's probably safe to say that their breathless take on "Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young" has poor old Faron Young twitching awake from his dirt nap somewhere. The seven originals included here, such as "Buckeye Donuts," "Bad For Me," "Law Of The Long Arm," and "Sammer'd" (an instrumental with farfisa and organ) - all outtakes from "The Night Before The Day The Earth Stood Still" sessions - are testimony to the New Bomb Turks' take-no-prisoners aesthetic, the band preferring to pound their chests like primates, crank the amps and let fly.
Try as I might (well, actually I don't try that hard), even as I near the age of 50, I still find it near impossible to find fault with endless yet honest reworkings of the E, D, and G chords (or whatever the hell they are - it's all alphabet soup to me). Let's face it - nothing can be truly new in rock and roll ever again, but with topdrawer outfits like the New Bomb Turks around, does it even matter?

New Bomb Turks - Switchblade Tongues, Butterknife Brains, 2003.

1	Buckeye Donuts
2	Something's Gotta Give
3	Bad For Me
4	Law Of The Long Arm
5	Radiobeat
6	Death Of Mighty Joe
7	Ad Nauseum
8	Sammer'd
9	Weekend
10	Action
11	The Drawback
12	And She Said Yes
13	Statue Of Liberty
14	Chip Away At The Stone
15	Good On Ya Baby
16	Live Fast, Die Young

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