The Joneses
"Keeping Up With The Joneses", "Criminals" & "Tits and Champagne"
By Dimitri
(SugarBuzz USA)
SugarBuzz Magazine
Dimitri Sugarbuzz USA'S Semi-Annual Tribute To Jeff Drake-The Reluctant Fore-Father Of Flash-Metal, And Once And Future King Of The Sunset Strip!
When I was a bad teenager in the eighties, me and my delinquent motorcycle club was called "the Sex Gods". We all had "Sex God" painted on the back of our biker jackets, but only like, two of us ever actually owned motorcycles.
The guitar player in my greasy kid band, Murder Stars, who later went on to join the last line-up of Dimestore Haloes, was an anorexic Joe Perry-lookalike, known to some, as China White. He painted the cover of the Joneses "Criminals" on the back of his leather, right above the "Sex God" scroll. We covered the Joneses song, "She's So Filthy", as well as their definitive-version of Aerosmith's "Chip Away."
We lived in a shitty small-town that Lenny Bruce used to bitch about, called Lima, Ohio, where all the hicks, Miami Vice wanna-be suburbanites, and stone-washed metal dudes wanted to kill us, cos we were flamboyant weirdos from the bad part of town, but we flagrantly attracted all the hottest girls.
Me and my other shaggy-headed Murder Stars guit-sling, Nasty Bastard's, wicked, wicked ways kinda helped scare our gifted guitar-hero, China, straight. He wised-up, and decided to scram, attended med-school, and spent the past 15 years studying for the Scrubs-Lifestyle, while me and Nasty continued down this perilous highway of infamy and misfortune, surging ever deeper into the unholy rock'n'roll nitemare my early mentors tried to warn me away from. It ain't all tits and champagne.
Our role-models, the Joneses, were the wolfish, purse-lipped, cocksure, maverick manifestation of everything Johnny Thunders, and David Johansen celebrated in songs like, "Trash", or "Downtown". The other bands that the Joneses always reminded me of, were all bohemian institutions. The NY Dolls, the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Hanoi Rocks.
The groups the Joneses went on to influence were countless---pretty much every glammy trash, gutter-punk band of the past twenty years, from the Hangmen to the Humpers. Personally, I'm delighted that these notorious cult-figures are still getting rediscovered by a new generation of dapper young gutter-snipes, every six, or seven years.
They were one of my very favorite eighties bands, along with Hanoi Rocks, Dogs D'Amour, and the Replacements. I know several come-lately fanboys left Drake's message board community in a huff, because they'd expected to be fully embraced by the jaded ole gentleman-outlaw, as peers, having recently purchased their first pair of creepers, and a box of Elvis-black hair-dye. I always try and pull these poor saps aside, and gently explain that getting the obligatory emo, now- redundant, razor-shag haircut, and snortin' a hand fulla Mama's Little Helpers don't make you no Jeff Drake. ...Though it might make you Scott Weiland. Not only did the Joneses out-shoot, out-snort, out-guzzle, out-hump, and ultimately, out-cool all those copy-cat hair-bands, and the goofy, modern-day rich kid bands like that Whitestarr dork who bangs the TV chick, but the Joneses were probably more deserving of fortune and fame, than alot of their bastard progeny.
Drake really was the one who best personified the whole winking hustler-primitive 50's, pink chinos, and cockroach killer Cuban heels, Memphis pimp, greaser rock'n'roll thing, adding in the sequined, scuzzy, scarvey decadence of seventies glitter, and really perfecting the whole glam-trash genre, alongside some others such as Hanoi, the Crybabys, Soho Roses, and Lords Of The New Church.
Rooted in classic tradition, and jet-propelled by J.D.'s sinister, renegade personality, and tattered charm, Drake was regally portraying the last of the pirate kings, back when Johnny Depp was still rescuing kitties from trees on 21 Jump Street. Only difference? Drake wasn't acting.
The Joneses will probably never go out of style, cos they were never in-fashion, to begin with. Too punk for glam, too glam for punk. Too punk for punk? Too glam for glam? However you wanna say it, the Joneses almost always stood alone. Their only real peers mighta been like, Tex And The Horseheads, the Gun Club, X, or The Hangmen.
Hearing these snake-hipped, raunchy classics for the first time in awhile, has been a real joy. It's doubtful the Joneses ever meant to call that teased-haired, tattooed, sleaze-punk Leather Frankenstein into being, although it's a bit hard to deny that the Joneses were somewhat responsible for a lot of those "Guns" bands.
I realize that this is where I'm supposed to insert a miniature band-bio, Trouser-Press style, for the benefit of cultural tourists just visiting our night-time world, but my memory ain't what it shoulda-been, neither is whatever's left of my own starry-eyed rock dreams.
My man, Jeff Drake, however, is back in action, and I'm always pleased to see him pumping his inimitable, white lightning flash back into the stale, and often unimaginative, L.A. rock-scene. Recently, he's been joined by some veteran gun-fighters, like his long-time enabler, Greg
Kuehn, as well as Eden, from Hollywood's favorite swank rogues, and fellow travellers, Motorcycle Boy. There's even been talk around the juke-joint dart-board about arena-pop revolutionary, Anthony Castillo, from Slow Motorcade, joining their outlaw bunch.
If you dig sixties and seventies Rolling Stones, the Heartbreakers, Blackjacks, or Jacobites, you need to own these essential, whiskey-sticky Joneses reissues, on hipster boutique label, Full Breach. This is the band that paved the way for rakish anti-heroes, sleazeball card-sharps, and back alley Cassanovas, like you, me, and Izzy Stradlin.
In spite of having been one of the top club-draws in the pre- Guns'N'Roses era, and having a drunken, "Dionysian" Danny "Wonderland Avenue" Sugarman as their manager, the Joneses never "went metal", or agreed to a major-label make-over, so they missed-out on all that eighties power-ballad moolah, by refusing to don the medieval-drag queen, whips and chains, of early Crue, or water-down their sneering, unapologetic, ghetto-rock for suburban consumption. It was unlikely from the start that this was a band that could be tamed and remodeled as obedient unit-shifters-their reputation for exorbitant chemical intake, and various bank robberies, could not have been encouraging to potential investors, so the major-label A & R weasels went with all those suck-shit, eager careerists, instead: Warrant, for instance, always reminded me of the Osmonds ("Heaven Isn't Too Far Away...") with their snappy choreography, white jump-suits, and unadorned desire to sell many cheeseburgers.
Drake's old band-mate, Paul "Mars" Black, just got kicked out of L.A. Guns--again--and replaced not by an Ex-Girl (HEH!), but with a really embarrasing reality-tv show contestant, because years ago, Nikki Sixx, The Sage Of Corporate Metal, once told Traci Guns that the reason he never shifted as many units as Poison and Skid Row, was because you're supposed to have a BLONDE HAIRED SINGER. I hope Paul Black goes on to make another brilliant record with the heroic Dogs D'Amour guitarist, Jo Dog.
In the meantime, it's all phony hair-band reunions, and American Idols. There ain't nothin' happenin' at all. I got loads of theories about why only the turds seem to rise to the top of the pops nowadays, but I'm trying to quit worrying about the Globalist Surveillance State, long enough to enjoy some authentic old rock'n'roll this weekend, because summer's here, and the time is right for the Joneses...and if you're like me, also, the Records, the Babys, Cheap Trick, Silverhead, and Thin Lizzy!
I really thoroughly dug the liner-notes in the "Keeping Up..." re-issue, penned by record expert, and retired rock-ranter, Josh Rutledge. It's been Triple Christmas, having all this primo vintage-trash to listen to again, after losing all my old vinyl amidst all the dreary bottoming-out, and diminished expectations of the past ten years. These old songs are as comforting, and familiar as your favorite porkpie hat, or beat-up, old cowboy boots...I remember being about 25, when Jeff Drake corrected me on the telephone, cos I'd been singing, "She's just another girl...", instead of, "She's just another gash...", and I was really red-faced, and shocked to learn I'd been mis-quoting the maestro, on the punk-rock basement show circuit!
Nobody this side of Steven Tyler could come close to all the double, and triple sex/drugs/rock'n'roll entendre's the old Bard, Drake, still tosses off with complete nonchalance. The guy's got a wicked wit, and a good heart, beneath it all. Twenty years on, and it's oftentimes, the children of the metal years vixens, who are flocking in droves to see the Joneses, live.
I was hoping to see somebody finance a brand-new studio full-length by the Joneses. If I was Duff, or Izzy, I'd help finance Drake's studio comeback, and college tuition. I loved his other bands, too. The Vice Principals on Sympathy, and Amanda Jones on Bomp! Somebody needs to throw up an Amanda Jones Myspace page. They were fabulous.
The Joneses might not be big stars, or winners, by big-media/Entertainment Weekly standards, but Jeff Drake has consistently stayed true to his own visions, and "outside of society", he remains a pillar of inspiration, righteous individuality, and eternal cool. His current label, Full Breach Records, is having a sale on certain Shane MacGowan t-shirts, last time I browsed, like I have a dollar to my name, and includes a free label-sampler with every purchase of these absolutely boss Joneses, and Soho Roses re-issues! So what are you waiting for?
Go visit the original gangster, Doc Holiday of junkie-chic, Chuck Berry-style gutter glam at Full Breach, or their Myspace page.
fullbreach77.com/kicks/news.html