Let's face it, the liners credit “NO ELECTRIC KEYBOARDS USED
ON THIS ALBUM,” but that’s definitely undermined by Carl Wurtz’s acoustic piano on two
tracks. The album itself was recorded
in Los Angeles, and as the lyrics to “Fast as You Can” purportedly proves, the members
of Red Zone were graduates of Hollywood High.
They might look old for their age, or maybe the immaturity displayed on
such songs as “Simply 'Cuz” and “Throwing in the Towel” tells us they’re basically
kooky kids, or maybe Jason’s receding hairline is like those guys that go hairy
at thirteen, but I’m guessing the median age of the band is thirty-eight. Another tell, for example, is that I honestly
can’t think of any song – powerpop to glam to bubblegum to punk – that has the
word tetched in it. Somehow, even with an
obviously broad command of the English language, the band managed to pull off
some of the dumbest lyrics known to humankind.
Proof in the pudding, there’s a heck of a moment on the “Love Is
Strange” monologue break between Astrid and Jason where they freestyle to ask us
to step into the “Red Zone” and turn the echo chamber to C-R-A-Z-Y. Speaking of which, Jason, if you could see
the back of this LP jacket, is a just a flat-out freaky fucking dude. And that is the real undoing of the rest of
the LP. Whacky J’s 6 minute and 40
second workout on “Alfredo (You Excite Me)” will be time in my life that I will
never, never get back. I know a lot of people use this expression in
a funny way for a wide range of things, but
I swear I mean it. Okay, deep breath here, I have to give the
J-man, Rita and Astrid props however for allowing Frenchy to join them on drums
and glockenspiel. And between “Fast as
You Can” and “Love Is Strange” this would have made a fantastic single ( ... as opposed to the actual "Living on Lust" b/w "Fast as You Can"). An album?
Well, again, not so much. Their
cover of Mrs. Diddley’s classic hints that maybe Astrid stumbled down the
Hollywood High stairs straight outta Algebra after the bell rang back in ’73 as
Johnny Thunders and an arm casted Arthur Kane were being shot trolling for
dates to the English Disco by Bob Gruen.
“Astrid, how do you call your lover boy?”
That or Astrid and JJ snuck into Deepthroat
on the Strip and were inspired by
the soundtrack enough to vow that in the year 1982 they would put out an LP
under the name Red Zone covering “Love Is Strange” before the song was ruined
by Dirty Dancing. How that song made it from a Fugs’ inspired
Coca-Cola douche to a botched abortion in the Catskills is beyond me. But that’s amore. It was 1982, the Red Zone talked someone into
putting their record out, they had access to a static electricity ball for a
group shot (that made what’s left of Jason’s hair stand on end) for the liners,
they understood the power of mirrors perhaps better than The Saints (but not as
well as Brian Jones and Iggy), they had a Rodney on the ROQ-friendly hit ready to be
pressed … and a five year window before a semi-obscure classic was ruined
forever by Patrick Swayze and what’s her butt. All in all, even with just two good-to-great songs in all, Living on Lust basically spells out as: good enough for me!!
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