Matthew Sweet
Blue Sky On Mars/In
Reverse FLOATING WORLD
Power-pop master class from
overlooked Nebraskan.
When it comes
to power-pop,
Matthew Sweet
is a true
craftsman. He’s
clearly studied the genre with an
enthusiast’s eye, and being so
well-versed in its permutations
he can knock you up a broad
range of incarnations of guitar-
based pop perfection that- while so brilliantly observed as
to be almost pastiche – retain
a certain style and class that’s
characteristically Sweet. He
initially came to our attention
with his third album, the Billboard
Hot 100-scraping Girlfriend (’91,
the New York new wave one),
before his initial, and
inexplicable, commercial
disappointment came with
Altered Beast (’93, the magnum
opus CBGB grungy one).
After 1995’s 100% Fun
ploughed a similarly undervalued
furrow, we got the pair packaged
together here in an old school
dual-disc jewel case, 1997’s Blue
Sky On Mars (the keyboard-
embracing saccharine one) and
1999’s In Reverse (the Wall of
Spector/Pet Sounds one).
Produced alongside Brendan
O’Brien, ...Mars perkily
reanimates the lost three-minute
art of Hollywood sugar-pap.
Lightweight hooks abound, but
it lacks the heft of classic Beast-
era Sweet. In Reverse, the
stronger of the pair, recalls Dave
‘Flying Mallet’ Edmunds in its
classy evocation of Byrds
shimmer and Wilson baroque
pop brilliance.
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Ian Fortnam
Tear Gas
Tear Gas ESOTERIC
Blues-rock methane from pre-
SAHB gaggle.
It’s already
possible to
envision Zal
Cleminson’s
tongue lolling
out of his nightmare clown face,
as he rips seven shades of shit
out of his guitar on what would
otherwise be a spirited but
pedestrian 1971 progressive rock
tear-up from Alex Harvey’s
future backing band.
For decades, the two albums
released by the band after
forming in late 60s Glasgow have
been much-sought collectors
items. The Regal Zonophone-
released follow-up to 1970’s PiggyGo Getter debut has been
remastered, revealing the lineup
now solidified as Cleminson,
bassist Chris Glen, drummer Ted
McKenna and singer-keyboard
player Hugh McKenna already
harbouring a raw, dramatic
attack that sounds like it’s
bursting at the seams on
combustible items such as That’s
What’s Real and I’m Glad.
McKenna’s vocals can falter
against such rancid bombast,
most effective on early 70s
slowies like Where Is My Answer
and Woman For Sale, before the
next swinging rhino’s todger of
a riff crashes in. But it was all
there and leaves little doubt as to
why the Sensational Alex Harvey
Band would become such
a potent force when they hooked
up with the matelot-shirted
Vambo the following year.
An intriguingly valuable, if
not always pleasurable,
historical document.
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Kris NeedsPhenomena
Reissues
EXPLORE RIGHTS MANAGEMENT
Three fantastical, conceptual
discs from 80s super group.
The sprawling
Phenomena
concept, whose
actual concept
was sketchy at
best, was the brainchild of
producer Tom Galley and his
brother Whitesnake guitarist
Mel. It threatened a 360-degree
approach (music, artwork,
visuals) and the promise of an
arena-sized tour that would
make Kiss look deflated. The
reality was three rather good
rock and pomp albums that
might have confused those who
thought concept records were
the reserve of Yes in the 70s.
God only knows what band
rehearsals must have been like;
the platinum selling self-titled
debut (7/10) featured Glenn
Hughes, Cozy Powell, Don Airey
and Ted McKenna, among
others. The results sparkled
though, as they do on these
remasters, while Tom Galley’s
liner notes make it sound like
a breeze. Three years later, some
of the band reconvened for
Phenomena II – Dream Runner
(7/10), joined by Ray Gillen,
Scott Gorham and possibly
anyone who might have been
passing the studio. It elicited
a minor hit in Did It All For Love.
Time’s been kind to it too, as it
has Phenomena III – Innervision
(6/10), which appeared in 1993.
Brian May stopped by for thisThe Ruts
The Crack VIRGIN EMI/UMC
Often overlooked, late to the party, but
The Ruts’ debut stands with punk’s best.B
y the time The Ruts line-up
solidified at the turn of 1978, punk
was pretty much done. Guitarist
Paul Fox and vocalist Malcolm Owen’s
musical partnership pre-dated the
Pistols’ year zero, but it wasn’t until late
summer ’77 that the pair finally
experienced an apparent Damascene
conversion from willingly suffering
a flautist in their line-up to bellowing
I Ain’t Sophisticated at a restless post-Roxy
Covent Garden. So far, so bandwagon,
but what set The Ruts apart from
countless other Vortex hopefuls was
progressive forward momentum and an
incisive political conscience (closely
affiliated to Rock Against Racism, they
made a lot of friends playing early single
In A Rut on a flatbed truck at the Clash’s
Victoria Park RAR benefit just a week
after it was recorded). And, unusually,
they weren’t shit.
Counter-intuitively, being a reformed
hippie was only a bonus on the punk
scene, and The Ruts’ core had trod
a similar path to Joe Strummer (North
Wales communal living, agitprop
bolshiness, musical ability, a jackdaw’s eye
for cross-generic appropriation, especially
from reggae), but like Joe, hid their
counter-revolutionary flared
apprenticeships well and prospered as
a result. Eventually. It took In A Rut ninemonths to get released (and in 1978, nine
months in punk was roughly equivalent
to a decade). It wasn’t until summer ’79
that The Ruts signed to Virgin and
released The Crack’s phenomenal advance
single Babylon’s Burning. Subsequently
compiled to death, it’s a 7-inch so iconic it
almost effects to shrink The Ruts’ legacy
to that of peripheral one-hit wonders, but
taken in its entirety The Crack – now back
to its original Something That I Said, Dope
For Guns, Jah War-featuring track-list,
remastered onto vinyl and download-
carded – tells a different story.
With its striking Pepper-echo cover, The
Crack was the album the hardcore punks
in the Clash’s fan-base wanted London
Calling to be. The Ruts assimilated the
essence of dub into their modus
operandi; it was there, bringing interest,
sophistication and longevity to the
band’s spiky, thoughtful assaults and
Malcolm Owen’s stentorian politicised
blurting, but you barely registered its
presence. They were never just a punk
band who brayed the odd reggae tune.
The Ruts’ legacy, in spite rather than
because of Owen’s early, wasteful heroin-
hastened death, is vast, especially in the
U.S. (Rollins adores them) and The Crack
is their defining statement.
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Ian FortnamREISSUES
94 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM