Deviants - Dr. Crow
(Track)
Recent Deviants albums have served as dirtyass rocknroll backings for head Deviant Mick Farren's intoxicated pronouncements from on high (pun intended), and Dr. Crow is no different. This drunken, tequila-fueled, lost weekend of debauchery drags Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano out of retirement to lend her bluesy wailing to "What Do You Want?" and the old chestnut, "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond," complete with updated lyrics from Farren:
So give me a beer and then give me a shot
Then give me everything, all I ain't got
Because the ice is melting and there's nothing on TV
Who you gonna call? What doctor can you see?
You're gonna need somebody on your bond.
Imagine Captain Beefheart replacing Joe Cocker on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour and you'll have a front seat view of the messianic, bluesy ramblings going on here. The gauntlet is thrown, the stage is set, the drinks are poured, and it's all downhill from here on in as Farren parades us through a cast of characters that give the scum of the earth a bad name. We get "Murdering Officer" to introduce a boatload of drunken pirates of the Caribbean shouting "Yo ho ho" and raising more than a few bottles of rum; Andy Colquhoun weaves his magic spell around Farren's demented poetry on this and the marvelous "Taste the Blue," another ballsy tale of pain and destruction.
Farren introduces us to the lowdown dirtiest bunch of lagerlauts wallowing in their own piss and vomit, crawling around the gutters and sewers of no man's land in the "Song of the Hired Guns," with its catchy refrain, "What the fuck are we supposed to do now?" "Diabolo's Cadillac" is named after a drink Farren's bartender concocted at one of his favorite haunts in El Lay. The plot sounds like something out of one of his sci-fi novels about an alcoholic who prefers Hitler programs (on The History Channel) over 12-step programs.
Finally, an alcoholic's nightmare is conjured up via "A Long Dry Season," which plays out like one of those "books on tape" read by its author. Part Hammet, part Heinlein, Farren's "sci-fi noir" is better suited to the printed page than the spoken word piece presented here over a cacophonous avant skronk from Colquhoun and guests Jack Lancaster (sax) and original Motorhead drummer, "Philthy Animal" Taylor.
Ultimately, a difficult album to absorb (what Deviants release isn't?), but one that will appeal to fans of Beefheart, Farren's sci-fi novels and non-fiction
exposés, and, perhaps, Jello Biafra's spoken word albums.
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