Copyright The Toronto Star
Wednesday, May 13, 1987
ENTERTAINMENT
By Craig MacInnis, Toronto Star
The Godfathers, making their Canadian debut at El Mocambo tomorrow night, are rock's great generalists.
Imagine a group as handy with John Lennon's anti-drug screed, "Cold Turkey", as it is with Rolf (Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport) Harris' "Sun Arise".
Both tracks appear on the English band's fine independent album, Hit By Hit, a compilation of previously-released British singles.
"The only thing we want to be known for is making exciting music," lead singer Peter Coyne said.
"A lot of groups want to sing about just one thing, but we'll sing about love, death, heroin, money, whatever . . ."
Of course, there has to be some glue to bind this versatility. In the case of The Godfathers, it's a crunching dual-guitar attack that tends to boost everything to the same dynamic level.
This is good. For one thing, it proves that so-called "guitar rock" isn't the exclusive preserve of self-styled American galoots.
And with their own compositions ("I Want Everything", "This Damn Nation"), the band proves it isn't afraid to sound wilful.
In short, they blow the genre's pretenses of modesty to smithereens. And it seems to be working.
"We've been getting pretty good airplay in the States, and that's without any payola or coke dropoffs, which I hear is really common over here," joked Coyne.