Ashtones
"Hellfire and...Paradise Falls"
Nicotine Records
By Geordie Pleathur
(SugarBuzz Nation)
SugarBuzz Magazine
This album's a throwback to the nights of the long knives, and those agonizingly dark days, of being permanently ill, and coming-to, confused, lost, and painfully hung-over, in foul smelling rooms, with the candles burning all the way down-when punk'n'roll was still dangerous, a brutal calling, a cry for love, long before there was a Green Day, or a Hot Topic, or an internet, making "punk" into a "Target" commercial...Or just another mere, leisure option, for happy-go-lucky athletes, from upper-middleclass, two-parent homes...like skateboarding, or BMX stunts, or playing video games.
The lead-off track, "Youngblood Fuck Off" reminds me of the spoilt shit kids who panhandle outside the liquor store, with thousands of dollars in tattoos, and hundreds of dollars in high-end "punk" clothing. On a good day, they can be charming, even endearing, especially, 
the clever, polite, funny ones. Most of us can still remember that time our older, skinhead friend, who was always spinning those dizzying yarns about his affiliated gang of out-of-town "boot boys" whom he could call up on, at a moment's notice, to fight any sleight social battle on his behalf, but they never really ever appeared, kinda like his Canadian girlfriend, y'know, but he broke the lock off the dumpster behind the campus pizza place, that one time, and the whole gang first discovered the joys of eating leftover pizza, out of a dumpster, and the goth girl with the boss cleavage started calling-in orders that never got picked-up, resulting in some custom-designed free pies, at the end of the night, to go along with all that screw-top wine, and sexual tension.....but if you're tired, and old, hungry, or cold, and one of the little snots on the corner says something rude, or demands spare change, from a man who, clearly, has had no change to spare, for years, now, well, you have these varying impulses towards 'em, besides buying anybody a slice o' pizza, or a six-pack, 'cause eight out of ten still have nice homes to go to. They think they really discovered something mysterious, and exotic, and they're really pioneering something fresh and cutting-edge, when they recently sewed that Lower Class Brats patch onto their surplus army store camouflage vest, or bought that Andy McCoy t-shirt from Altamont Records, and used Mom's credit-card to surf E-Bay for wholesale pyramid spikes, and imported leather jackets from Full Breach records. When one of THOSE twenty year olds are lippy, you wanna throttle 'em, it's harder to remember being young, snotty, and enjoying a disposable income. When I was young, you couldn't look like that, and go to school, or get a job.
The Ashtones don't play much in the way of mall-friendly, greasy kid stuff. These are angry old vets, who never gave up the good fight, they still live it...Badass, old, motherfuckers
with an Appetite For Real Destruction, unashamed to milk three chords and a grudge, for all it's worth, all night long. Guitarists, Ashtone D. Stroy, and Ashtone Max, play coked-up Chuck Berry licks, like Billy Burke, and Johnny Thunders. Think of the Deadboys at their fastest, and sloppiest. Ashtones START there. Remember the way Poison Idea were so undeniably rock'n'roll, but they had that hardcore energy? Same, here.
This disc is from 2006, and rocks like a motherfucker-it's like drunk-driving with the Humpers. Lead singer, Ashtone Ge's voice is shot. He sounds like Cheetah Chrome with the whooping cough, or Steve Miller from Electric Frankenstein/Cherry 13, the day after an especially punishing show. It matters little, though, 'cause his energy-level is so impressive. Tyla hasn't rocked this hard in decades. He reminds me of what Knox from the Vibrators must have been like, in his twenties, or thirties, or forties. There's no denying Ashtone Ge's rock'n'roll heart, or absolute commitment to the wild, wild spirit of full-time, from the bottom of your bruised and battered soul, heartbreakingly true, motherfuckin' rock'n'roll. Remember Stiv Bator, and Lux Interior? Ge's "somehow", stayed model-skinny, for decades longer, than most punks his age. He's still got loads of passion, buckets of anger, he's a burning man, with a heart full of napalm. Even on a tiny, $6, Audiologic boombox from the Goodwill, the Ashtones music fills my little room with memories of hot, sweaty basement shows, and famous girls with raccoon mascara and Edie Sedgwick haircuts, who I can't call no more.
If you like sleazy, garagey, beat 'em 
up, gutter-punk, like the Veins, Electric Frankenstein, Spent Idols, or The Jukebox Zeroes. The Ashtones are plenty more authentic than ninety-nine percent of the groups I hear, who still, redundantly, cover the Deadboys, or Stooges. They remind me of Jeff Dahl, and the Action Swingers, but they've got this extra, something-special...It might be the drummer, or the engineer...it's the energy level-reminds me of some of the healthier European sleaze-metal bands. 'Must be the Cocaine. The dynamic energy on this album just slays me. Vicious, unrelenting street punk. The Ashtones write originals with titles like, "Dealing With A Coke Slut", "A She-Devil Is My Dope-Fiend", and "Pekinese Cheeks", which should give you some indication of their poetic sensibilities. I don't know why it took me so long to discover this lot.