Published in Sounds, 24th April 1982
The Fleshtones | Gig Review | Venue 1982 | WHAT IS wrong with this world? I mean, a group like The Fleshtones comes along toting a red hot record in each holster and enough ammunition to blow away half the poor man’s rock’n’roll that plagues us and, minus the usual fanatical pockets, don’t raise enough popular support to dent a car door.
Yeah, you can lecture to me about the imminent end of rock’n’roll until the holy cows come home, but when confronting the weaponry and the willpower of The Fleshtones live those cows aren’t worth two pints of puss. It makes me puke, to think I witnessed one of the coolest, smoothest physical therapies available and the majority of eligible Londonders were at home playing Scrabble!
To digress, The Fleshtones were wonderful. I admit to harbouring some misgivings initially, complaining about the tame volume and professional sheen but the moment the utterly superfluous three hammy chords (you know the ones, if you put them in a hat and shake them around they still always spell ‘Louie, Louie’ somehow) of the forgotten epic Sonics’ garage anthem ‘Have Love Will Travel’ reached me I knew where my duty lay, and it wasn’t propping up the bar discussing The Falklands.
The Fleshtones | Gig Review | Venue 1982
Strictly speaking, The Fleshtones were conceivably too good for their own good, but the fact that they obviously have it down pat never was sufficient cause to put them down. No sooner had I accepted their seeming reticence than they shed their illusory showbusiness skin to reveal a much coarser and appealing snake-tone style.
Throwing one razor sharp dance mania onto the next, heaping them like demolition derby stock cars, The Fleshtones managed to emerge a towering menace to musical progress as we know.
Demonic retrogression, nailed to Keith Streng‘s style, which is more a case of picking on his guitar than playing it, coupled with singe Peter Zaremba‘s howling, swanning, diving and vaguely co-ordinated dancesteps, were a team rarely equalled where the flourishing terminal Sixties slave trade is conducted.
Indeed, Les ‘Tones have annexed a bevy of the cliches some would call ‘classic’ and many more call ‘chronic’ and, with the brash relish of the hopelessly devoted, renovated every one into a monument of hulking, brute rhythm.
Interchanging harmonica, tambourine, keyboards and saxophone, Zaremba and Gordon Spaeth step nimbly, eternal teenagers seeking to burst the big spot all over the front row.
The Fleshtones | Gig Review | Venue 1982
Titles are hardly the point, what matters is that The Fleshtones have mastered their craft and their crap to a frightening degree. Were it only that like-minded meddlers were located all in one forlorn burgh, perhaps a decent scene might emerge to prove that the voice of the Sixties, though hoarse from screaming, is still more than a croak. Ah, but that is the stuff of dreams and in the real, cruel world one must find the scene where it happens to land.
The Fleshtones were in town and, for a few hours of ecstatic true believing, I was sure I’d found it. I’m still sure and I hope it finds me again as soon as possible. I’m sorry, I think I’m going to cry. (Ralph Traitor)
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