CLONE DEFECTS "Blood On Jupiter (Tom Perkins CD) According to Roman mythology Jupiter was the King of all Gods. He ruled the skies. One of his big tricks was that he could get all business to cease for the remainder of the day just by sending forth thunder. In Gustav Holst's "The Planets Suite" The Jupiter part is known as the "Bringer Of Jollity." The planet itself is twice as massive as all the other planets combined. It has red spots (the blood maybe???) which are attibuted to colder high pressure zones. All of these points must be taken into consideration when listening to the debut LP by these Detroit malcontents.

In the face of adversity the Clone Defects overcame obstacles like junior high schools where the most useful thing you learned how to get loaded in the restroom without getting busted while waiting for the young miss student teacher to walk by.

Pretty girls in heat come in from the other side of the freeway ready to open their claws. The whiskey stinkin' carvorting and grind that the Clone Defects do with a rare ease seems so exotic to 'em. Alcohol being problematic and sliding from job to job, apartment to apartment and bar to bar is just like how it was in the books to the young lasses. Homemade t-shirts, stolen jean jackets and deep jagged scars are something daddy would never approve of. They can get the effect of slumming it and have the rock-n-roll too. Eventually it get's to be too much. It's every night! The claws are as deep as they can get and the Defects rip themselves free. Then the Mr. Hyde comes out!!!

Starting off with a timpani drum courtesy of Ryan Paik they crash into the stereo with a Heartbreakers with a Rip-Off Records sting of the title track and follow it with "Whiskey and Women", a Mick Ronson stagger stumblin' across the Rolling Stones lawn looking for some acid that the Electric Eels thought they dropped. "Thought" is the word cuz you you think you can pin in down but no one knows where it's truly coming from. One might think they can name the exact point where the band's genetic experiment went awry but there's so many unknow indentified virus' in the make-up where nothing is uniform. Chuck Fogg, Tim Vulgar, Wild Mid Wes and Fast Eddie make their own then turn against it. It ain't pretty. Unemployed families upbringing in the rustbelt with the opprotunities dwindling at even a faster rate than when one was raised make em stronger if they don't perish.

I'm thinking back to a few years ago when Tim became a fixture at shows. He'd always be out front of the club waiting for someone from one of the bands to walk by so he could tell them how he was broke and just wants to check out the show. It was sincere. He never had any cash and would nurse a glass of soda all night. Later, he shared the fact with me that he always carries a flask. Telling us all about the Clone Defects...When they finally debuted everyone came out and they pulled it off. A couple of months later he's handing out their first 45. Some of them didn't have paper sleeves. "Cash is tight." I couldn't tell if it was serious or not. That record, "Cheetah Eyes/Bottled Woman", sounded like nothing else around but had action everyone could identfy with. Yeah!!! He's the one always standing in front of the stage at shows getting all wild and cutting a rug. Shit! He got awarded one evening down in Columbus, Ohio for his prowess with the dancesteps. To him, shit like that is important...AND IT SHOULD BE! So many bands currently working outta a '77 Midwest framework seem to be more concerned with the type of shoes they're wearing than how to move those feet. It don't mean a thing without that swing and all the studded leather wristbands in the world don't make any difference. The Clone Defects are bringers of jollity on dingy and dark streets. The Clone Defects are a real deal. (Superior Sounds/512 S. Washington/PMB 279/Royal Oak Mi/48067)