The Godfathers ‎"Dope, Rock'N'Roll & Fucking In The Streets" 1992****

I recently went to Eindhoven to see a couple of bands I used to follow in my youth, and at whose concerts I've always had fun: The Fuzztones and Godfathers both have always had great stage presence as well as many hits to which we used to endlessly dance in rock clubs during the late 80's/90's. I thought I'd go and see them one more time, hoping I wouldn't be disappointed - which I wasn't. I won't try to tell you they've aged like fine wine - after all it's 30 years since I first saw the angry young Godfathers at the Rodon Club, how could they measure up to my memory of that? But they've still got the chops and energy to do justice to their songs, which is more than enough. One thing's for sure, Peter Coyne finally looks like The Godfather. They had the mobster references, suits and all, in place from the beginning but it's only now that I can easily picture their frontman play a threatening, perennially pissed-off, violent London gangster right out of a Guy Ritchie movie. After the show I lingered around the merchandise stand, wondering if should buy their latest live CD (entitled This Is War) but settled on a T-shirt instead. I figured they couldn't possibly top this live album, which I already had.

Every concert, every live record even, has its weak spot, a song that sends everyone to the bar for another beer. It could be the latest single from the new unloved album, a long drum solo, or a Keith Richards-sung ballad. Not this one, though. This is the proverbial all-killer-no-filler. At this stage of their career, The Godfathers had a lot of great material to choose from: 4 LP's -not a dud among them- full of catchy, sing-along-y, anthems combining The Stooges' garage punk energy and Beatles' melodic instincts, loud dueling guitars, and vocals channeling the fury and sarcasm of the Sex Pistols. Not to mention the rhythm section's dark new wave sound, usually buried under the screaming  guitars. I had the chance to better appreciate the rhythm section during one of their Rodon concerts, when they were missing one of the guitarists and the bass was higher in the mix to compensate for that. I was like "I never realized there was some Joy Division in there!" For all the names mentioned, though, the closest relative may be Dr. Feelgood: no-nonsense rock'n'roll, tight song structures, and energetic, nervy, frontman. This live album finds the band in classic 5-man formation tearing through their hits. The sound is clean for a live recording - the songs may be a bit rawer, guitars a bit louder, but otherwise they don't stray far from their studio counterparts. Which is both a blessing and a curse: I buy live albums for two reasons: the first is the small -or big- variations, be it an elongated jam, improvised solo, ad-lib changes to the lyrics etc. Not much of it here. The second is atmosphere, which this album does have. It may also work well as a greatest hits collection: everything you want is here, it flows well and sports a nice live vibe and uniform production style - as opposed to compilations taken from different albums. The CD kicks off with the best songs from each album: "Birth, School, Work, Death", "She Gives Me Love" and "Unreal World", all loud guitars and singalong choruses. During the course of the album, garage punk dynamites ("Lonely Man", "Cause I Said So", "This Is War") are interspersed with mid-tempo indie rock ("Drag Me Down Again", "I Love What's Happening To Me", "Don't Let Me Down") which thankfully doesn't lead to any slacking of the pace, more like taking the foot off the gas pedal on a road curb before hitting the gas again. The CD closes with a cover of John Lennon's "Cold Turkey" and an extract from a speech by 60's anti-cultural icon John Sinclair, advocating his program of revolution through "Dope, Rock'N'Roll & Fucking In The Streets", a connection not lost to those who remember Lennon's campaign to get Sinclair out of prison.

***** for Birth School Work Death, She Gives Me Love

**** for Unreal World, I Don't Believe In You, When I'm Coming Down, Drag Me Down Again, I Love What's Happening To Me,  If I Only Had Time, Lonely Man, I Want Everything, 'Cause I Said So, This Is War

*** for Obsession, Don't Let Me Down, This Damn Nation, Cold Turkey