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BANDS: Punk
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The Last: L.A.
Explosion
Holy shit, am I late in getting to this album or what? I
mean, its like more than a week or something since I was supposed to email this
in to Erstwhile Editor, and Im just now getting my ass off my hands. And
believe me, its no reflection on this album; I guess Im just lazy or
inefficient or bound by the chains of time. You know how it is, working 40
hours a week, going to band practice, trying to keep the love connection going,
and making your way in the world today takes everything youve got. And
sometimes, (here comes the transition) in this wonderful, wacky world (get
ready), you just need a big gigantic sparkling translucent POP album about girls
and cars. Thats the deal with this CD by The Last, which originally came out
in, oh, lets say 1979 or so, after punk rock revolutionized the youth, who
marched on Washington and overthrew the fascist government and everything was
green and verdant, an anarchist Utopia. The Last, three brothers and two of
their buddies, realized that new times called for new music, but maybe
occasionally, new times called for old music, so they cast their gaze backwards
to the 1960s, giving us
L.A. Explosion!
(Note the very important exclamation mark). So the first song on the album,
She Dont Know Why Im Here, starts with some arpeggiated 12-string guitar,
then the drums come marching in and the singer says (get this), Yeah, sounding
like old stoned Arthur Lee, and its great. The Last have got some fantastic
harmonies going on; very, very Byrdsian. Thats right, Byrdsian. This Kind of
Feeling is the Fab Four fabrication, sassy McCartney head bops and all. Every
Summer Day is the Beach Boys, and theyve actually got the harmonies right
there too (I recently read somewhere that the reason that most Beach Boys covers
fail is that people try to sing the songs reverently and quietly, whereas the
Boys themselves sang loud as shit, so maybe The Last succeed because they had
the punk rock BALLS to do it right, oh, and because they wrote their own damn
Beach Boys song). And of course they fuck it up sometimes, usually when they
actually sound like theyre a band from 1981. The punkier numbers (Slavedriver
and I Dont Wanna Be in Love) sound too wimpy, though the ever-present
harmonies at least make them interesting. And theres a shitty, shitty cover of
Gene Vincents Be-Bop-a-Lula, all New Wavey but not nervous enough (Gene
Vincent sounds like hes about to wet himself in the original). But overall,
this is pop with a capital P! And sometimes, you need it.
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