It's a Bird, it's a Plane, it's...Super Rock Time4 Out of 5 Stars
It's been a long long wait for Fleshtones Fans. I had the sole CD release of IRS Living Legends series of The Fleshtones, but it got stolen. I was dumbfounded to see it selling for hundreds of dollars on ebay and the like, and had to settle for a well worn tape of "Roman Gods." Finally, relief has come...from Australia of all places.
Appropriating their own banner of "Super Rock," this 25 song collection of the incredible Fleshtones was well worth the wait. They were among the best bands IRS had to offer, and yet they always seemed one step behind the curve. They mixed raw, unbridled garage rock with sixties frat bands and an almost defiant lo-fidelity and no-tech recording style. Vocalist/keyboardist Peter Zaremba was the ultimate in non-singer lead singers, guitarist Keith Streng had that buzzing surf-rock guitar thing down like The B-52's did, and the rest of the band (especially the late Gordon Spaeth on sax) followed in perfect sync.
Until A&M/IRS gets it together for a proper reissue of the 5 star worthy "Roman Gods," the bulk of the album is here. That includes their semi-hit cover of Lee Dorsey's "Ride Your Pony" and the best dance instrumental the 80's produced in the horn drenched chant-along title track. (I have the vinyl 12 inch remix and loved it so much I used it as the theme to a radio show in the late 80's.) "HexBreaker" is represented by six of its best, and the unheralded live album is here, too.
Add a couple previously unreleased live cuts and the "American Beat" single from Tom Hanks' "Bachelor Party," and you've got over an hour of some of America's best garage rock. Granted, not every garage band gets to be The Kinks or even The Kingsmen (although the song "Roman Gods" darn sure tried), but there's more than enough big sounding noise rock here to satisfy...at least until we finally see those Fleshtones reissues.
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