JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #652.312!

The Never – Never (Mo-Risen) :: Arrangements straight outta Queen via Sha Na Na? Chipmunk vocals á la Russell Mael? A music publishing company called “Watch Out For Cancer”? Pretentious band names like Ari-Vox, Noah-Vox, Jonny-Vox, and Joah-Vox? Liner notes containing a heartfelt Earth Day plea to respect the environment by recycling? Alright, if you insist: hello garbage can!

Communiqué – Poison Arrows (Lookout) :: These breathless boys want to be the new effete darlings of glam so badly that they’ll do anything to make it—and that includes starting off one of ‘their’ songs with a note for note copy of Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes.” Where I come from, we don’t call that a quote. We call that a theft.

The Thermals – F#!%ing A (Sub Pop) :: They aspire to be thermonuclear but only manage to deliver a lukewarm thermos payload. Despite worshipping at the shrine of St. Johnny, singer-lyricist Hutch Harris doesn’t realize that Rotten actually sang his lyrics instead of merely reciting them in a flat monotonic monologue. Influence is one thing, kid. Inflection is another thing entirely.

Demolition Doll Rods – On (Swami) :: I was gonna give this one a marginally passing grade for cheap sleazy enthusiasm until I found out that this slapdash hash, which sounds as if it had been recorded in a concrete bunker during a keg party, was actually their third album instead of the debut disc I initially deemed it to be—and as The Stooges and New York Dolls will tell you, that’s one outing too many because two kicks at the can are all you really need to make the grade.

The Je Ne Sais Quoi – Secret Language (Coalition) :: New York, London, Paris, Munich. Here at jeffreymorgan.info world headquarters we receive all manner of media from all over the world, like this lump of rump. Now with a name like “The Je Ne Sais Quoi” you’d never expect these guys to hail from Sweden, the land best known for Ingmar Bergman movies and an old Stranglers song, but they do. And although it only lasts but a mere sixteen minutes, this extended player is proof positive that Swedish rock bands can be just as excruciatingly dull as the bands in your home town are. Everybody talkin’ ’bout schlock musik.

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Mixel Pixel – Contact Kid (Kanine) :: Just as Eno was sonically scalded by the Velvet Underground, Mixel Pixel has been equally Enossified, right down to starting off “Mantis Rock” with the same cricket menace that Eno ended Tiger Mountain’s “The Great Pretender” with—but they’re not just out to up the Eno ante exponentially. “Out Of My Mind” is the Beatles at their most LSD chromosome damaged; “The Drag City Starlet” is Bowie’s “Lady Grinning Soul” turned inside out and eviscerated; “Gas House Gables” is a Satanic Majesties overdose; and “I Am The Contact Kid” is Alice Cooper doing “Blue Jay Way.” Contact High School is more like it.

Be seeing you!