CHAINSAW KITTENS

The importance of this band in my rock 'n roll upbringing is no secret to even the occasional Escape visitor. And as I've said before, in early '90s Norman, Oklahoma, there were two bands: the KITTENS and THE LIPS. That was it. And you probably loved 'em both. We all knew that one of them was gonna be huge. We knew it...not just because they were ours and we loved them, but because they were fukkn great. THE LIPS signed with Warner and did Hit To Death..., and then they got huge (that EP is still probably my favorite release of theirs, and yes I still pay attention, and yes I know that Wayne left Planet Earth many years ago). But you see, before that EP came out, CHAINSAW KITTENS had already dropped Violent Religion, which is as close to a perfect power pop/punk/alt rock record as I have ever had in my collection, and their live shows were straight fire. It's not a contest, and I know that THE LIPS had a decade long legacy before the turning point that I'm speaking of...but the point is that this was most of The Mainstream's introduction to both bands...and we were all paying attention. CHAINSAW KITTENS got swept up in the major label post-NIRVANA subculture mining when Mammoth made some arrangement with Atlantic...and the result was their second full length getting way more exposure than Violent Religion, including a closing spot on 120 Minutes for the debut of the video for "Connie, I've Found The Door" (will always remember the crew of people in my house watching that video premier...my roommate was older and had way cooler friends than me, I was blown away that all those people were in my living room). I don't remember if The Masses cared about this record, but I know that I was disappointed at the time - there are some tracks, to be sure, but it felt like there was too much filler. Maybe we had just seen and heard the tracks from Violent Religion too many times? Maybe the Butch Vig production was too slick? Who knows...but even though "Connie..." might be my overall favorite KITTENS' track, it opened the record (wisely) and I felt like things went downhill from there. "High In High School" was cheesy, "Shannon's Favorite Fellini Movie" seemed like an attempt to recreate the great ballads on the first record, plus they had snagged the bass player from FOR LOVE NOT LISA (wasn't he in BLEMISH too....? I might be wrong on this) and I had the probably irrational feeling that the dude was a butthole - irrational or not, he helped give the band a bro-ish vibe - a departure from Tyson's flamboyance that was a legitimate revela(u)tion in 1990s Oklahoma. In retrosepect, and I've listened hundreds of times over the years, Flipped Out In Singapore has some of the band's best material - "Hold," the burner "My Friend Delirium," the proto-grunge "She Gets" are all certified creamers...but a few years after their shot, CHAINSAW KITTENS seemed little more than a footnote to those outside of Oklahoma. Those of us who paid attention though, and especially those of us who were there...we got it. We still do. Now will someone reissue this thing on wax?!

FLIPPED OUT IN SINGAPORE

CHAINSAW KITTENS

Hugely important band in my life, CHAINSAW KITTENS were one of the hundreds (thousands?) of almost famous bands that should have made it instead of hundreds (thousands?) of piece of shit schlock acts that crammed the airwaves and rock clubs in the '90s. Brilliant glam/pop delivered with a fiery and borderline psychedelic live energy. I saw the band countless times, and no doubt those live shows are part of the reason why this band (and this record, specifically) still blows me away. Violent Religion was released in 1990, and the band almost rocketed to superstardom (at least I like to think they were that close...) with their follow up. But they didn't, instead releasing three more quality full lengths on an assortment of indie labels before bowing out a decade after they started. Perhaps there are a few editorial critiques that could be made ("Feel Like A Drugstore" seems like filler or a JANE'S ADDICTION outtake, and it's followed by "Savior Boyfriend Collides," which is arguably the weakest song on the record), but I think this is one of the best collections of songs that I own , and few bands hold such a perfect time/place marker for me. And, while I know I've said it before in these pages, "I'm Waiting" is without a doubt my favorite punk love song ever. You're welcome.

VIOLENT RELIGION

I have also updated the link in the CHAINSAW KITTENS demo post from a few years back, in case you would like to hear slightly less awesome versions of some of these songs. 

CHAINSAW KITTENS

I've posted Oklahoma bands for the last few Sundays, and I'm keeping the run going today with the first two CHAINSAW KITTENS demos, released on one tape back in 1990. In the wake of grunge, there was a flurry of mostly fictional major label buzz infesting the music scenes of most college towns, and I was certainly not the only person in Norman who thought that CHAINSAW KITTENS might be "the one" that would break out.  They toured all the time, had a charismatic and flamboyant frontman (Tyson Meade, who previously fronted DEFENESTRATION), they wrote killer pop songs and they delivered them live with an energy that was equal parts NEW YORK DOLLS, MARC BOLAN and MC5 (or at least that's how it seemed to me at the time).  They signed to an indie label and released an album that I still pull out regularly, Violent Religion, and then it happened.  They got a new rhythm section, and then CHAINSAW KITTENS signed to fucking Atlantic...I knew they were gonna be huge.  Flipped Out In Singapore was heavier, perhaps the influence of a post NIRVANA Butch Vig at the control board had an impact on the band's saccharine sweet songs.  I watched the first video (for "Connie, I've Found The Door," a stellar pop song more than worthy of heavy rotation on "alternative" radio) on MTV and then, just like that...they flopped.  Maybe they got too normal and strayed away from their more glamorous roots, but I guess the recipe was just not quite right.  Don't bother downloading this if you're after raging hardcore (just scroll down for the Stockholm Hardcore tape), and come back tomorrow if you want anarchist minded glue sniffing UK rockers. But if you are a fan of well crafted power pop mixed with 70s glam, and don't mind the occasional love song thrown in the mix (seriously, "I'm Waiting" is one of the best punk love songs I've ever heard, and it made its way onto more than a few fruitless mix tapes created by yours truly during young adulthood), then click below, and then start scouring the dollar bins for copies of their first two records. And when you come across a vinyl copy of Flipped Out In Singapore, please drop me a line, I have wanted one for so long that I'm starting to think they only bothered making CD and cassette versions of the fucking thing.

CHAINSAW KITTENS

The first four tracks are from the 1989 demo, including a way ill-advised, overproduced and too heavily stringed version of "She's Gone Mad" which appears on Violent Religion in much better form, and was given the treatment a few years back by THE FLAMING LIPS.  The 1990 tracks are rawer, and far slower than the versions that were on Violent Religion. There are a handful of live tracks as well, but they are just messier and perhaps drunker incarnations of the songs that are already on the two demos, so I exercised a little editorial control and left them on the cassette, where they belong. 

SEX

I did not return from Japan with overflowing bags of cassettes as I had hoped I would, but this one song, one sided demo from Tokyo's SEX pretty well makes up for whatever I might be lacking in the numbers department.  Totally over the top punk/metal done like no one outside of Japan could even dream of.  Screaming guitar riffs, drums that gallop along like...well, like Japanese hardcore drums (which are, it must be said, pretty metal), and those vocals!! This singer is what makes this song totally indispensable, he sounds exactly fucking like Baki from GASTUNK, and that is some seriously high praise.  Just one look at these kids should tell you that SEX is a total winner, even though (or perhaps because) the title of their demo is Vagina Fucker (When the bcaking vocals start chanting the chorus in unison, one can't help but smile).  They look like X JAPAN crossed with Shout At The Devil era CRUE, and they sound like any number of 80s Japanese bands (think GASTUNK, MOBS and other hardcore bands that took a wrong turn around 1988) through a filter of glam and American metal...brilliant.  If nothing else, this track will mystify you, but with any luck you'll love it as much as I do.

VAGINA FUCKER

a live shot from 2007, in case you still need any convincing: 

DEADLY INTENTIONS

Wow. I wasn't sure if I should even bother with this one, but it made me laugh (a lot), so it seemed logical to try to achieve the same end with someone in the internet. DEADLY INTENTIONS seemed to have been going for a late 80s glam thing, and they would have been in good company in England at the time, but man do they ever fail. "Ugly" is among the lamest songs ever.

ENJOY