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It\'s been 21 years since I first heard of this band. Back then I had a friend named Martin who went to high school with singer/guitarist Cosgrove. He handed me two cassettes Gregg had given him--one titled simply \"13 Nightmares\" and one titled \"Mind Fuck Tour \'86\". Martin was heavily Christian and was swearing off rock and roll.
Both those cassettes were fucking classic. The live set died on me a long time ago, and I still mourn it. I still have the Nightmares cassette--the tape that represents the body of work that got this band signed in the first place.
I spent a long time hoping to see any sign that this group had gotten signed but the Pravda release came and went without me hearing a word about it.
Fast Forward to 2008. I googled the band, found this site and a copy of Shitride, and now I am posting this review. With the exception of \"Field Of Glass\" all these tracks are new to me. It\'s a solid album. I loved the sound of this band--I would put them alongside early Replacements, Husker Du, or Soul Asylum--and this record does a good job of highlighting what made this band cool. Cosgrove\'s vocals are perfectly suited to his--pretty consistently dark--material. It\'s a solid DIY rock effort, and anybody wishing that 80\'s alternative would come back would do well to listen to this band.
It\'s a damn shame that this is the only shot they got, because believe it or not, they didn\'t record their best material. I don\'t know if they had gotten tired of playing the earlier songs or were sitting on them in anticipation of recording a second lp, but this band had a classic in them that never saw the light of day.
No Shit: If \"Living In Moscow\", \"Dragging Elvis\", \"Billy\", and \"NME\"--all tracks I have in demo form that didn\'t make it onto Shitride had been used as the basis for a second lp that fucker would have been up there with \"Nevermind\". What the hell...they did a fantastic cover of \"Fortunate Son\", too, and we\'ll toss that out there as well...
But as it is Shitride is damned fine album, and the good news is you probably haven\'t heard it. Order a copy, crank it up and enjoy. The Nightmares should have been selling gold records from 1987 onward, in my opinion, and it\'s a shame that they have been such a lonely fetish for me for so long.
It\'s been 21 years. Give em\' a spin, willya?
Rating:  [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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