The Manglers / The Angelic Slugs / The Instamatics / Harry & The Hot Flashes
Midway Cafe, Jamaica Plain, MA 4/15/18
A band is already playing when I bust through the swinging doors of the Midway Saloon. And the fresh, young band- Harry & The Hot Flashes have already a-commenced to playin’.
Well, actually they’re a fun, older folks type a band that mainly deals out covers of classic new wave/punk tunes.
They’re in the midst of playing Patti Smith’s “People Got The Power” when I walk in and are soon playing one of the first British electro-punk songs “Warm Leatherette”- “Join the car crash set.” And they finish with “Homosapien,” from a solo album from The Buzzcocks front man Pete Shelley.
The band describes themselves as “if they pissed at CBGB’s we probably liked them.” All the hardcore cats are out of luck with this band, but this is a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously but still dishes out a hearty, heaping dish of fun.
The Instamatics are next, a surf instrumental trio with some intriguing originals of their own and some covers of tunes played in the surf style.
I’m momentarily minding the door when Kris, the wife of Eric The Fruit Bat, the bassist in this band, arrives with her entourage consisting of her two young daughters.
I say to the daughters, “You look old enough to drink, right? Enjoy the whiskey,” as I hand them out free drink tickets.
The kids look at me like I’m crazy. What an insane thought!
I’m thinking, instead of being a punk scribbler that this club doorman gig might be a new career path for me!
The Instamatics lead off with my favorite original by them, “Monkey Beat” and soon they’re playing my favorite cover by them Kraftwerk’s “The Model.”
I’m informed that the first band also covered that song today, which makes sense since it’s rumored that The Manglers consist of the original members of Kraftwerk.
They claim to play a song that’s Oi/surf but it turns out to be a cruel hoax. They do a surf version of the Dead Kennedy’s “Too Drunk To Fuck” which the only lyrics they shout out is the chorus. This causes Kris to explain to the kids, they’re actually singing “Too dumb to truck.”
Topping off their set with “Surfing Bird” and “Rumble” by Link Wray makes me feel gratitude in hearing such a great set of surf music on a cold, blustery New England Spring day.
The Angelic Slugs are next and I’m told that they’re a local, legendary hippie band so I make note to not place any sharp objects near my veins during their set.
But they’re not that bad. To me they sound like what a typical rock band from ’69 sounded like then with surf, fifties rock’n’roll and garage rock in their song structures and containing psychedelic guitar solos. And like most hippie rock bands, they have good musicianship with just adequate vocals.
The last song gets a bit self-indulgent, but really this band’s style is so different than what I normally write about, that I have no way of judging how good they are, but I’m guessing they did a pretty good job.
The Manglers are up to take it out. On the surface they would appear to be a cover band that specializes in early classic punk. But in fact, all the songs they play, they actually wrote and were stolen by many of the early American and British punk bands.
Once these bands knew what a big hit punk was going to be in America in the late seventies, they stole their songs to cash in on them!
I’m not positive I’m correct with that, but I’m sure in stating that, even with lead singer Brian now sober, this is the heaviest, drinking band we cover. (Note to self: never drink with a bartender.)
Which I suppose, suits the bands and material they cover.
They lead off with a great version of “Sonic Reducer” by the Dead Boys and are soon off into songs by The Dictators, The Damned and Iggy & The Stooges.
And whether it’s Iggy, Stiv or Alice Cooper- Brian not only gets the vocals down, but a bit of their stage movements, too!
My favorite tunes today are their version of “I Got A Right” by Iggy & The Stooges and their medley of T.Rex’s “Twentieth Century Boy” into “Better Off Dead” by local, punk legends La Peste. ( I do get a chuckle, over the fact, that the band changes a line to be more “politically correct” in our fretful time!)
The spirit of ’77, the punk revolution, is long in the past now.
But the reverberation, the influence is still around, with many new bands just starting out today.
And though it seems like the “soft rock” of the early seventies, that was the most popular music at the time, has seem to evaporated and faded away. (Does anyone hear of “soft rock shows” going on, anymore?)
The punk rock is still underground music, unpopular with the mainstream, but still, at least to my ears, vital and strong.
And I not only hope, but I’ve got a feeling- it’s gonna stay that way.
(Slimedog)
