Rhino Bucket
And Then It Got Ugly
By Dimitri
(SugarBuzz USA)
SugarBuzz Magazine
Dimitri Sugarbuzz USA babbles on and on.....
BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL......
One of my sultriest ex-girlfriends, the Plate Hurling Songstress Who Can't Be Named, is actually in the old KIX home video, shakin' what her Mama gave her, in front-row homage to Brian "Damage" Forsythe. With his Betty Page haircut, and Johnny Thunders regalia-Edwardian ruffles, and oversized gypsy hoop earrings, he looked like the Throbs before the Throbs...and he could really play. Him and Peter Perrett and Billy Idol were her favorite rockers, 'til she met me, ahem.
I'm forever in the market for that aggressive type of bluesy guitarist for my own bands, but they're invariably, busy looking for vocalists, with that commercial, high-pitched blues yowl like Axl, Janis, Tom Keifer, and Jason McMaster. Me, I'm more ragged and mid-rangey, like Billy Idol, Alice Cooper, Nick Marsh, and Stiv Bators.
All my rocker pals and I all dug Brian Damage, cos he had this regal style, and purplish glitter-rock grace. He helped elevate KIX, heads and shoulders above, all that formulaic, day-glow pussy rock, which was so popular in the Hard 'N' Heavy/Rip Magazine/Headbanger's Ball era. We all got sick of "Don't Close Your Eyes", but we could always identify with Kix. Especially Damage, who reminded us of Andy McCoy, Brian James, Dave Kusworth, and Jeff Drake. A primo rock guitarist in a major heavy metal band.
Onstage, the five fireballs of Kix were an absolute tempest of hirling-dervish rooster-posturing, elegant Glimmer Twins shape-throwing, frenzied Rod Stewart mic stand marshalling, and stomping, blue collar machismo. A boisterous, blistering ballet of low-rent AC/DC acrobatics. Perhaps that's why much-published hair-band enthusiast, Chuck Klosterman, recently worked a reference to Forsythe's current group, Rhino Bucket, into an Esquire Magazine (!) article about the McLaughlin Group (!!?) -sortof in the context of Rhino Bucket being lite-weights, compared to Bon Scott's old band. 'Thing is-aren't even like the Beasts of Bourbon, and Rose Tattoo, sometimes light-weight when compared to vintage AC/DC? Obviously, all those groups easily out-rock that dopey corporate wank, cheese in a can fluff-metal that Chuck earns his posh living, writing all those sentimental books about. All that tepid King's X, Kingdom Come, Whitesnake, Great White product-rock. Maybe he just wants people to know that he's HEARD of Rhino Bucket. How deep and edgy are you, if you're writing for Esquire, anyway? C'mon!
KIX weren't never my favorite band, cos they just kinda lacked a certain poetic x factor, but their Budweiser-guzzling bar band boogie was always, at least, in league with Junkyard, Guns N Roses, and Cinderella-as opposed to the syrupy, mollified, chick'n'roll for boofy haired cosmetology students from broken homes in the fly-over states, that rolled offa the corporate assembly-lines back then, like Disney tween-stars and boy-band puppets turned gangsta rap producers do, today.
Because I have long hair, people always mistake me for a hair-band dude. I always had a special disdain for Winger and Slaughter and that whole lot, and I never even liked thrash at all. Besides maybe a couple Misfits albums. I went to a Metallica concert once, but left right after the Cult were finished warming up for 'em. I love rock'n'roll.
I saw Kix live a couple times in the old days, and while Steve Whiteman was no Joycean wordsmith, (and neither was Donnie Purnell-the chief songwriter, since purged, from the group), I always had an abiding respect for Steve Whiteman as an energetic, charismatic frontman, in the Steven Tyler/David Lee Roth/Bobby Durango tradition. That band was comprised of hard working entertainers with a real blue collar work ethic. Shit. I even heard that Brian Damage painted houses at some point--just like me.
Some Southie mook bouncers memorably roughed me up while confiscating my camera at a Kix concert at the Channel in Boston once, when I was there, taking pictures of 'em for my no-budget flash-punk fanzine, "Ready To Snap!", in the early 90's. I never got along with hard-on bully bouncers, anywhere. What's wrong with those fuckers?
I was just reading about how these foul and despicable lifestyle-police just disrupted this year's Rainbow Gathering hippie festival in the woods—violently stomping into the children's art park area, blazing rubber bullets and tasers, cos they understood that was the best way to provoke a defensive response, justifying more violence, under the guise of a "war on drugs". These sadist weasels disrupted a buncha people partying peacefully in the woods, and beat up, and arrested people-- in the name of freedom and the blessings of liberty? What about the Constitution they all swore oaths to protect? The whole Rock'n'roll lifestyle has essentially been outlawed, unless it's being used to sell a product. Meathead brutes and thugs and finks, with their Bush/Blackwater-entitled super-spy fantasies, using rubber bullets and tear gas, and Gestapo-tactics on people who weren't even bothering anyone. Sieg Heil, yankee roses, Sieg Heil.
Makes me wonder how many poor shmuck Dog The Bounty Hunter-Wanna-be's signed-up to join the military while blacked-out drunk at those Rocklahoma recruiting-tables, 'shitfaced on Jagermeister and utterly open to the suggestions of the eager-beaver war-machine tools. Who are there, TARGETING them, to enlist as fodder in their endless profit-wars. Alot of these saps have no other opportunity, so they succumb in the hopes of money for college, and their chicks for free. Just like "Top Gun". Everybody's in drunken obedience to some dickless, Aryan Ken Doll football-god. Happy Fourth of July.
Real rock'n'roll, brothers and sisters, is about real freedom. Doing your own thing, freakin' freely, and being cool. It ain't about lock-step conformity, "Got Mine" consumerism, Big Media brainwashing, blaming the victims, and suckin' up to the man. We got to start having some real conversations in this nation, and bring it all back to love, people. That's what rock'n'roll is for. Lou Reed said, "They say things are done for the majority-Don't believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear..."
....RHINO BUCKET'S unpretentious, sweaty brand of anguished, young, hard rock has long been championed by my Arizona colleague and compadre, Rikki X, but I'm not as cool as Klosterman, so I've only recently had the opportunity to actually hear Rhino Bucket courtesy of one of my favorite ink-slingers, J.G., and the fine folks over at Acetate Records.
It's the holiday weekend, as I write this, the lonely, drunk neighbors are firing-off bottle rockets galore, and the bar downstairs in blaring old Jane's Addiction. Me, I'm clean and sober-still a struggle on holidays, and doing a lot of thinking about freedom, independence, the pursuit of happiness, and all that seemingly moot poetry of the Constitution. The unfortunate workin' man of the baffled red states would totally embrace the music of Rhino Bucket, if they heard 'em on an even semi-regular basis, which is highly unlikely, thanks to all those big media mergers and monopolies, and ass-tight radio play-lists.
Rhino Bucket play real music for real people. People who won't ever have money for health insurance or college-let alone satellite radio, plastic surgeries, or California cocaine. For people who make their living by the sweat of their brow, who grew up believing in KISS, and classic Van Halen, and letting their hair down on the back porch, on a Saturday night. All us lost soul, true believers, who really thought we lived in an actual democracy...we're still out here, flailing helplessly, like doomed characters in a depressing Bruce Springsteen lyric about nowhere to go. We're plain starving for some meat and potatoes real hard rock that even remotely rings true. Music that understands the pain we're in after punching the clock, at the end of another long and exhausting Joe Sixpack workday, when we have to brave rush hour in search of a drive-through, before collapsing in an easy chair, in front of the Nightly Lies.
Rhino Bucket vocalist, Georg Dolivo's sore-throat vocals are definitely influenced by Bon Scott-probably Brian Johnson, too, he's got that same brick-layer, bruised, chip on his shoulder kinda quality that made Aussies Favorite Sons so popular-you could easily imagine him stuck in the rust-belt, howling for some small-time AC/DC covers band, but fate has smiled upon him, and he proudly fronts this no-frills, shit-hot, sleaze-metal band, on Acetate Records, no less-one of the Last Great American Underground Rock Labels.
Rhino Bucket oughta go tour the medium sized places with Cinderella and Junkyard, and call it the "Last of the Real American Motherfuckers Tour", or something. I like this band alot-it's a perfect vehicle for versatile Brian Forsythe's nasty blues-punk guitar style. Alot of these songs actually remind me, also, of the 90's "punk'n'roll" movement: bands like Electric Frankenstein, Cherry 13, and the Super Suckers. 'Love the harmonica. This is what the Original Suffering Bastards woulda sounded like, had we let our Angus-worshipping guitar-fiend, Nasty Bastard, have his way. Raw Power sure to come runnin' to you....
My friends, one of the most disheartening and dehumanizing, worst jobs I ever had, was working for Wal-Mart, and while we're thinking about freedom, and the right to rock'n'roll, I kinda gotta take a look at AC/DC for signing exclusively to Wal-Mart, a corporation owned by four of the ten richest people in the world-that killed Main Street America, ruthlessly exploits their workers, crushes people's spirits everywhere-callously exploiting the poor both here, and abroad.
If you still believe in rooting FOR the under-dog, in worker's rights to organize, in a living wage, in human rights, or small businesses, maybe you should consider joining me in my boycott of Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and sadly, those "Money Talks" millionaires, kinda lettin' their fan-base down. In this contentious election year, where the only vote we have, that seems to count, is with our pennies, I'm endorsing Rhino Bucket. You can still hear AC/DC's old classics on constant rotation for free, on F.M., but to my way of lookin' at it, "And Then It Got Ugly" is a lot worthier a purchase, for those of you who dig your rock'n'roll on the down and dirty, sleazy side of street-rock. Support American Made Blood and Guts Rock, on One of the Very Last Of the True Independents. Cast A Vote That Can Make A Difference In The Lives Of A Little Rockgroup On A Little Label.
Alot of the lyrics here are kinda bitchy and pessimistic:" You know that God Ain't Even Listening...", but that makes perfect sense, cos it's down-home, emotional blooze for the common folk, in dark times like these. If you loved the Four Horsemen, Buck Cherry's first album, Kix, or you’re tired of waiting for Axl and Izzy to figure things out, chances are, you got hipped to Rhino Bucket way before I did. I'm pretty outta the loop. Broke and estranged. Their last track, "I Was Told", just breaks my heart. One hundred proof soul-power. The guitars and vocals are suitable throughout this record, but really poignant, and beautiful on this song. I feel ya, brothers. You jes can't believe everything you are told....I dig this, thoroughly.
Rhino Bucket, We Salute You!
DIMITRI SUGARBUZZ USA
BELIEVES IN FREEDOM, AND SUPPORTING THE INDEPENDENTS!