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Fuzz tones - what can I say - the dogs bollocks.
Those of you previously unaware or puzzled as to the fuss - see that’s what happens when you live under a rock for the best part of a quarter of a century then retune for a brief potted history via their website at http://www.fuzztones.net/bio.htm or else consider this. By and large ignored wholesale by the press swiftly dispatched by many as 60’s copyists (which pretty much rules out the whole Detroit and Scandinavian scenes does it not?) the Fuzztones have doggedly pursued their trade. They are for many the key note link to the whole of rock ‘n’ roll’s Pebbles / Nuggets heritage in fact you’d be forgiven for swearing that they’d flipped headlong through some kind of rip in time straight from the mid 60’s such is their authenticity and grasp of the primitive rudimentary, they coined the term grunge long before Seattle saw fit to announce it’s birthright on the music map via Sub Pop et al with the genre (though arguably their sound has been anything but - though the influence on Mudhoney’s cleaner 60’s vibe is indisputable). Never one dimensional the Fuzztones mix and switch between classic fuzzed up garage punk, lysergically enhanced west coast psychedelic, vintage mid 60’s beat pop and candy coated 50’s bubblegum with the Stones, Seeds, 13th Floor Elevators and the Wailers pretty much high in the influential stakes. You could say they’ve single handedly redefined a whole genre.
The Fuzztones aren’t dead - far from it as their recent ‘Lord have Mercy on my Soul’ single for Twist records (home of Thee Jenerators) in fact it’d be better say that they are more than equipped these days to shoot the shit and deal a crushing put down to many of the bright young guitar slingers getting kudos from the clueless press than they were when they called it a day as Tina Peel and emerged, much to the annoyance of their management, into their fiercely dependent Fuzztones guise. Asides that there’s the latest ’LSD’ CD / DVD retrospective on Get Back (which sadly we haven’t heard) which features 25 spanking toons from the Fuzztones vaults.
‘Illegitimate Spawn’ is so simple and obvious an idea you can’t help wondering why nobody thought of it before. A Fuzztones tribute album or more rightly a Fuzztones double tribute album. Featuring forty two bands / tracks culled from all four corners of the globe and rightly paying homage to one of THE great unsung heroes of the whole garage scene. The origins of the idea prompted by Italy’s Lysergic Love who feature here getting to grips in fine style with ‘Hurt on Hold’. Word has it the Fuzzy dudes where so enamoured with the concept that they put out a message on their website requesting potential covers and received enough material to fill a further two sets.
Twenty six years on and the Fuzztones are now the proud parents of a brood of fuzz riffing kooky keyboard loving bastard offspring they never knew they had all banging on their door to pay their dues. Amid this two hour plus set there are a handful of household legends in their own right - the late Swell Map-er Nikki Sudden makes an appearance with the drop dead gorgeous ’Just once’ elsewhere Jayne County - currently the subject of a superb vault trawling release by Munster records with ’Wayne County at the Trucks’ - provides a pretty tasteful reply to ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’ with the harmonica laced ‘You Tarzan, me Jane’ while Bad Afro stars the Defectors admirably take apart ‘It came in the mail’ and put it back together not before souping it up and giving it a much needed re-spray. In addition there’s four specially recorded homage toons from the likes of Vibravoid, Batlord, the Weirdtones and Manganzoides the whole release superbly packaged replete with an extensive 28 page booklet featuring rare photos, information and artwork by head Fuzztone Rudi Protrudi.
As to the actual release well with 42 bands on show it’s a shame to have to miss out the majority, hell apart from a small select few I wasn’t even aware, much to my horror and embarrassment, of half of these bands. Safe to say none disappoint but then if I had to select favourites then pick the bones out of the following. Staggers do a neat line Munsters meet Love with their audacious refit of ’Cellar Dweller’ while the sublime sounds of Marshmallow Overcoat give you that feeling of being under dressed unless you have on your sunglasses in the company of ’Skeleton Farm’. The She Wolves prove its not a wholly masculine thang by stomping in with the fraught and tight as a gnat’s arse ’Heathen Set’ and as not to be outdone Finland‘s Deletones kick in with the brisk but shimmering ‘Third time‘s the Charm‘. Then there’s the razor sharp Lloyd Cole-esque hip shaking Intercontinental Playboys interpretation of ’Brand new man’, getting sleazy by the shedload are Holland’s Sonic Litter who do deliciously bad things to ’Highway 69’ while the Paranoiacs from Belgium up the ante considerably with the Nomads in a head on collision with Motorhead carnage of ’Cheyenne Rider’. Over on disc 2 you get treated to the acid flashbacked ’Lovely Lady Deb O’ Nair’ by Vibravoid which sounds not a million miles from prime time kaleidoscopic Traffic while in the hands of the Deadbillys ’All the kings horses’ is given a suitably subtle psyche enhanced countrified demeanour with just the merest traces of the Stones’ ’Paint it Black’ in the mix. The ghost of Muddy Waters is apparent on ’Shame on you’ by the Ravens - dam - we could go on and we haven’t even mentioned the excellently named Cosmic Goblins or Aliens and Strangers.
That said pushed to pick the four tracks that stand out way ahead of the chasing pack then you could do much worse for having the frankly weirdly creepy Hank Ray oozing from the hi-fi as he exhumes ’Ghost Clinic’ while Mad Juana deserve investigation for their superbly psychedelicised Beatles-esque middle eastern mantra as evidenced on ’Idol Chatter’. Argentina’s Gondolieri endow a casualness rarely heard these days and decorate ’Charlotte Remains’ with the kind of shimmering soft psyche sheen that would suggest they’d give the Green Pyjamas a serious run for their money. Yet all said and done nothing quite compares to the uber cool Plasticland who amid a coalescence of acid flashbacks and the hallucinatory backdrop of drip dried wah wah effects court with a meanly disorientating psychotic haze for the wickedly sinister ’Ward 81’.
Essential stuff and of course every good boy deserves the Fuzztones. You know it makes sense.
MARK BARTON
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