That’s supposed to be Cities AFLAME With Rock and Roll, me thinks. Do YOU believe in Rock and Roll? Your editor said he was sending me a Finnish Punk Rock tape to review but this title doesn’t sound very Punk to me. Surely with a line like that it’s not a release from THIS century either? Let me say it again just to make absolutely certain I’m not hallucinating in a lager sodden drunken stupor laying face down Soho guttersville some time around 1982…”Cities On Flame With Rock and Roll”. Nope, I’m definitely in August 2003 and I last put-my-hands-together to see if I could raise-the-roof at the Hammersmith Odeon, with a couple of thousand creepy and bellbottomed Saxon fans, well over 21 years ago. Mate.
The label is called SHITSUCK which only adds to the confusion… you’d think you were in for some GG Allin/Bulge/Antiseen sleaze ‘n’ scum fest with a name such as this but it’s nothing of the sort. There’s a very nice full colour insert (well done the art department) and the www dot contact addresses for the quartet of featured bands proves that we are indeed in the next millenium but not, unfortunately, in the next world. Damn it.
I like Finnish people. I seem to have met lots without once moving from London! The girls at least were nice to me when English bitches proved just what spiteful pieces of trash they actually were. “English Rose” my ass! That’s the stupid JAM for you, pathetic patriotic ballads for sad blinkered fucks! So, while I’m at it, and this won’t come up again, thanks must go to: Hanna, Paivi, Heli (from Shitsuck hometown Tampere!), Sirpa, the other Paivi, Kati, Kaisa and Pirjo. Yeah, I was amazed too… they actually seemed genuinely interested to meet you. After all, isn’t that why young people travel to other countries? To meet the people who live there and to visit the sort of places they’d be interested in – rock clubs being the example here.
What is my experience of Finnish music then? Well, not very much. I saw Peer Gunt a few times back in the late 80’s. Naturally we called them “Queer Cunt”, of course. A highly proficient HM trio but not much else. It was OK as a background to girl-chasing though. I’ve also got an LP by a band called STONE… excellent thrash ‘n’ speed metal of the time and they did a terrific piss-take cover of same period big-venue-band Europe’s song “The Final Countdown”. A small classic and well recommended for, god, I don’t know… your answerphone outgoing message or somesuch. As for Hanoi Rocks, despite being given their “Back To Mystery City” LP as a gift (from one of the Paivi’s actually) long after the hoo-haa was over, I never got into them at all. Have I missed any other Finnish bands I’ve had some kind of contact with? Think, think… no, don’t reckon I have, so, onto the four Shitsuck bands who are, erm, setting cities on flame then…
First on the runway is Shame ‘n’ Scandal. Five songs, well mid-to-late 80’s HM/glam. If I was back at the old Marquee in wardour street and just draining my third pint of watered down piss I’d most probably be a’headbangin’ by now! I still feel nostalgic for those days. I wonder then if that ‘scene’ is still going on at Helsinki’s Tavastia club? More than likely. This is very Excalibur, Dogs D’amour, probably Hanoi Rocks, Quire Boys etc, etc. I can’t see Sniper Glue readers going for it much though. Definitely not “Punk Rock” as Mark seems to think but then Mark thinks that any band with more than two members is punk! The Brotherhood of Maaan, for example.
Cliff Barnes is next. Also five songs. The name, I’ve been given a clue, is something to do with “Dallas”. What, the 80’s TV shit, er, show? I never watched one fucking episode. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick here completely? There’s a Nick Drake cover, “Place To Be”, but I’m not familiar with Nick Drake so you’ll have to make do with me reviewing outta my ass. It’s again pretty 80’s, more laid back and easy going this time with wa-wa and fuzzbox and I’m going to admit that I’ve got quite hooked on the song “Keith” which must be a girls name in Finland coz there’s no girl Keiths here. Is there? Funny old voice this guy’s got, like a synthetic yanky with a blocked-up nose. The insert says it’s “Loud Psychedelic Punk Folk”. Well, that saves me some time. Yeah, I think that this could really grow on me. Still don’t know how the word “Punk” got in there though.
Side two and the name The Furious Flamers sounds like the kind of band you’d expect to have a residency contract at the 100 Club. Also sounds like an irate Burger King employee. Heh. Heh. You’d imagine Jazzy-wazz and Rockabilly, no? Well, no. I’d say these songs were yet more doses of 80’s HM, a conglomerate of a hundred same-sounding groups from that time, none of which I can be bothered to recall the names of just now. Just ever! You have to hand it to these Fins… to cut yourself off from the rest of the music world, surely you must be on a kind of inverted quest? It’s admirable in a way. To say that they’re stuck in a “Time Warp” would once have been an insult to those perceived as unprogressional but, knowing the state of music today, the stagnancy, the “Death of Music” as Timo refers to it, and the complete and utter dross that keeps, somehow, the masses believing that they’re witnessing something unprecedented… The Darkness, System of a fuckin’ Down and all that crap packaged Rock Festival shite that’s so A-level-student-gone-to-rock-weekend safe and cosy and stifled and gutless and which, as if by magic, suddenly appears on the shelves at fuckin’ Sainsburys and Tescos betwixt the pre-teen girls mags and the fruit ‘n’ veg stands, yeah, with THAT in mind I really don’t see what’s wrong with the “time warp” jibe, unless you’re of a particularly sensitive disposition. Thing is, I just don’t “dig” The Furious Flamers, that’s all. Shame actually.
Last band, the absolutely dreadfully named Fancy Dress. God. That’s the trouble with using English names for your group when English is not your mother tongue and, worse, almost every combination of words has already been used as a band name at some point in time and, quite often, more than once… it sometimes sounds just fucking daft! Unless you’re lucky. The Japanese are lucky with regard to this. Ah, and at last, it’s punk! It’s punk as in a bad Cortinas, a mediocre Stiff Little Fingers, a tedious Suburban Studs and you wouldn’t be missing much at all if you were to stick to THOSE three original 70’s punk bands in my opinion… jesus fuckin’ christ, mary-had-him-when-she-was-twelve-years-old-so-what-does-that-make-joseph-eh?-I’ll-fuckin’-tell-you… it-makes-him-a-HERO!!!-That’s-what!! I’ll even fucking TAPE them for you! How’s THAT?!?! But, in all fairness, at least Fancy (snigger snigger) Dress had a bash at it. “Let’s go!” begins one song. Yep, GO down the Manowar pub rather than sit here listening to all eight of these, albeit short, stars-in-their-eyes stuffed alligator and therefore harmless foot-tapping “punk” blasts that just seem to go on and on for ever and ever and ever. “We can’t help the truth” sings vocalist Jamo. Sorry boys, but neither can I.
All-in-all though, a very high quality tape both in terms of presentation, sound quality and musicianship (that’s one more than “both” I’ve just noticed but, ya know, fuck it). I’d be keen to hear other bands on the label, maybe there’s something EXTRA ordinary out there in Finland rather than this here technically accomplished but mostly cliched material.
www.shitsuck.cjb.net
(Review by Gary Simmons)