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  • Diabolical Boogie

    ALP79

    Artist: The Chrome Cranks

    Label: Atavistic

    The Chrome Cranks came at the tail end of the trash rock vibe that ran through the underground and overlapped through post-punk, noise rock and grunge. This frayed thread of bands took the Stooges notion of a "white" blues to heart. Ignoring punk's speed and wipe-the-slate attitude, theydwelled on it's simplicity and loathing. In retrospect, these bands looked and sounded remarkably cohesive. The look: strung-out frontman , aloof guitarists, garish shirts. The sound: bass up front, sometime as the only steady element, blues leads that tremble into pure texture, drum hits that literally incorporate trash, and a singer with a forced baritone surrendering to his id. The cohesiveness is remarkable because the founding bands arrived at similar sounds from such different sources of inspiration: the Cramps were rockabilly crate-diggers, the Birthday Party's earliest work borrowed arty decadence from Roxy Music, and the Gun Club sought to exorcise Jesus out of Country & Western longing. Whether the project started in Melbourne, Providence or Berlin, it seemed like sooner or later Kid Congo Powers or Bob Bert would get involved. Chrome Cranks had Bob Bert.

    It all waned quickly after the the Pulp Fictionphenomenon brought the aesthetic out in the open. Cave paintings weren't intended to have a flashlights shone upon them. The Cranks weren't the peak of the form (as the liner notes by singer Peter Aaron all too modestly admit), so this odds and ends collection comes from the very...