(REVIEW BY RUTLEDGE)

Ready for a pop quiz?

1. True or false: Motley Crue's Too Fast For Love is one of the greatest rock LPs of all-time.
2. True or false: Pamela Des Barres, who fucked a lot of rock stars, showed fine taste by marrying the dude from Silverhead.
3. True or false: KISS's Destroyer was a far more important record than anything Radiohead has ever done.
4. True or false: Faster Pussycat belongs in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame.
5. True or false: There's not nearly enough drug abuse in teenage society today.

If you answered "true" to all five of the above questions, move to the head of the class. Today I'm gonna tell you about the new Erotics album.

The rest of you are free to go home and wait for the new Small Brown Bike CD to come out.

***
The Erotics are the ultimate rock n' roll band: they'll drink all your beer & steal your women---but you'll still wanna buy their album. Rest assured that anyone who uses words like "stupid", "sophomoric", "cheesy", or "juvenile" to describe their music simply doesn't get it. Has everyone forgotten what rock n' roll is REALLY about?! Have people lost interest in cheap thrills, wild times, illicit sex, drunken debauchery, and loud, hedonistic rock anthems? If funless vanilla shit like Linkin Park is what passes for the rock n' roll party these days, you can count me out. I guess the kids dig that crap.

Fuck the kids! What the world really needs now is a trashy, politically incorrect, unapologetically decadent rock n' roll tour de force on a par with Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction and the aforementioned Crue debut. And here it is, my friends!!! Albany's finest have unleashed a monster! All That Glitters Is Dead is an invigorating collection of unrepentantly sleazy, insanely catchy sing-along tunes that'll inspire wayward degenerates, wanton miscreants, burnt-out Hessians, and sex-crazed scumbags everywhere to pump their fists in the air and crank the volume to max. Led by singer/guitarist Mike Trash (who sounds like a cross between Alice Cooper & the great D Generation frontman Jesse Malin), the Erotics inject their hellacious hard rock/punk onslaught with big, juicy hooks and to-die-for knockout choruses that would have wowed the rock-hungry masses back when songs like "Talk Dirty To Me" & "I Wanna Rock" were burning up the charts. What can I say? If you find the band's loud, seedy, brilliantly tasteless tunes to be offensive and/or hard on the ears, you're obviously too old (or maybe not old enough).

Any old band can smear on some eyeliner, lay on the "bad-ass" shtick, and sing about fast cars & porno stars....but how many of today's trash-happy glam/punk/rock n' roll wannabe badboy bands really have THE TUNES? Well, the Erotics DO. I mean, they REALLY do!!! An impressive criminal record is nothing to sneeze at---but what matters most is that a band knows how to write a good song. And that's why the Erotics are the shit! Kick-ass numbers like "Space Age Mafia", "Gas Chamber Barbie Doll", "Rocket To Nowhere", and "Only Girl For Me" aren't just fun, demonic blasts of slash-and-burn trousersnake rock n' roll. They're also GREAT SONGS (The latter might be the best song ever!). Each complements the high voltage riff power & thundering backstreet rhythm with a delicious melody that you just won't be able to get out of your head. This is what it's all about, kids: pure musical aggression laced with a tuneful appeal that's impossible to resist. Fun music. Naughty music. Dangerous music. Celebratory, turn-it-up-loud music. Unwholesome music. Music that will annoy pretentious hipsters who don't know the difference between Hanoi Rocks and Warrant. Music to listen to while you're driving too fast, getting fucked up, or deflowering the teenage hottie next door.

If you regularly pay good money to see aging Sunset Strip has-beens but haven't bought a new album since the Reagan era, it's time for you to get with the program, pal! The Erotics are here and happening and at the top of their game. Perhaps they'll come to your town soon, and then you're gonna party like it's 1989.

---Josh Rutledge, professional bastard
newwavebaby@yahoo.com

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