DOWNSIDE SPECIAL - S/T CD REVIEWS

Cle Magazine #5
Craig Regala, founder of Datapanik Records

Downside Special Live action kickass in the time of Kultural Kaos, summa the best musical soul food you'll ever eat. If the rock had developed like this circa '75 why would've anyone cared about punk? Maybe the ELO, ELP, James Taylor, Queen fans would've considered this P-Rock anyways, like they often did w/AC/DC and Eddie and the Hot Rods. I have now heard seven recorded tracks and one live show by these guys and no band working the straight rock thing has bowled me over the same way. Much like the absolutely aces kick-ass Motorhead/Dead Boys/Kiss-based attack of Electric Frankenstein or the Oblivions' power-hog retooling of the garage/punk fuzz/rock continuum, Downside take a firm footing within a form and move it up. Downside Special is working a tough terrain, besides the water-proof 4 minute rockers they pull off long jamming ascents That-Never-Lose-That-Energy-The-Song-Has-Built and tight blues based crackling fuzz attacks. A perfect example of a crackling fuzz buster is "Canker", a full-on mix of Iggy "Kill City" and hardnut Brit-styled blues-rock like those early Groundhogs recs. The thing that makes it stick is its utterly contemporary editing and punch, all riding on roughly held potent slabs of rhythm bash that demands attention like the best Cleveland rock. The reason I mention that isn't just geography, although these guys are rollin' down the same streets Laughner started to pave 20 years ago. I hope they have it in' em to rework the music into the contemporary world and step up to their place in the Laughner, Easter Monkeys, Death Of Samantha line. The kicker is someone in the band (or the band synergy, or a couple of 'em, or whateverthefuck), can write songs, and if the tunes keep coming this'll be the bar rock of heaven. The Downside Special has a lot more to do with rock and roll than the more currently lauded who tart up their pop with "industrial" treatments or raid Mom's Beatles/Simon and Garfunkel/America records for inspiration to $pell $ucce$$. Look, the current crop of "bands" should be ashamed to rip off the Pixies as any kind of "inspiration". Jesus, bring back the stockades so we can throw worn-out Hawkwind, Frost and Motor Boys Motor eight trax at 'em, OK? And let's not even mention those who play the genre game: "We're a (fill in the blank) band", i.e. please buy into our marketing-scheme-as-music scam. These guys are truly progressive as Rock And Roll. It's and odd modernist thought anyway that "art" or "music" should or even can "progress". What it can do is rework the language to match contemporary reality, the fluid realistic personal feelings of today. Although completely familiar, The Downside Special are not retro in impulse or intent. I see no genre they are specifically trying to revive or herald. Evolution musically is a slow haul, it is not a conceptual retooling of the pop game of what is "relevant or not", It's all in a finite number of notes and chords from stringed instruments, the beat of the drums, and how they relate melodically/a-melodically within the set rhythmic structure, vocal line phrasing, and various tempos. It's a bonus that the words hew to the traditon of the common place and visceral realities of the day to day and the attempt to cope/transcend the mundane. You want some schoolin' cheap? Track down CLE #4, (I trust you're holding your own copy of the ample proof contained in No5), and hope their other tunes turn up somewhere. Better yet go see 'em rock the joint. The Downside Special have the energy, power, restraint, and chops to rejuvenate the basic bar rock stance (from Chuck and Bo) to those weaned on rock and roll's bastard children (punk, boogie, garage) and come home ready to stand and fight, reintegrating those common rock tangents into one big, solid suckerpunch. When they do a ballad it's a blues, like a we didn't give up, we did'nt give in update of "Eighteen". Fer instance, one of their newest tracks, "Mercury Millie": it's rolling mid-tempo build busts a knuckle with smooth even pressure, a perfect understated bass-loaded stroll with enough maraca-accented voodoo to bleed off your worst fears, the soundtrack of dealing with the murder in your heart after it goes cold. Yeah, this stuff's not for everyone. The density and bristling reality of it may be a "bit much". But, if you're not a sissy or post modern sniffler, give these guys a shot.