22-02-2010Snail trail - Circus Of Power

Blasting back like an over eager engine, Circus Of Power - Still Alive

Still Alive & Well ep 1989

"Ladies and gentlemen, from New York City, welcome … CIRCUS OF POWER!!"
 
And with that no nonsense introduction, the five heavily tattooed leather adorned biker looking boys that made up Circus of Power launched into Rick Derringer/ Johnny Winter's 'Still Alive & Well' with enough grit to melt the ice caps of Alaska and a rock n roll thirst big enough to drink all the bourbon in Tennessee.
 
"Still Alive" is a rowdy and raunchy live 6 track EP recorded in Detroit in front of what sounds like a bar full of half drunken rock n roll petrol heads and you can literally taste the Bud and Jack as it mixes with the bike oil dripping form the ceiling.
 
Back in the day, COP fell somewhere between the punky attitude of early Sunset Strip bands a la G n R / Motley Crue / Faster Pussycat. Coupled with the blues based hard rock of the likes of 'Electric' era The Cult inseminated by a  'Toys in the Attic' era Aerosmith. Throw in their bad boy image and it's not hard to see why early publicity rumours stated that the band played several shows for the New York chapter of the Hell's Angels in their formative years. More a dirty biker rock n roll band than what could be termed a straight up metal act, these guys had something of an X factor with me as they were a lot heavier than the crop of the normal LA glam/hair bands that were on heavy rotation at the time, yet they still gave me a slight get out clause in the thrash metal contract my soul had signed with the devil in the 80's.
 
After kicking off with the 'Still Alive & Well' cover, the band continue rolling out of the garage and heading out to the highway by bursting into the first song of their self titled 1988 RCA label debut with 'Motor', as vocalist Alex said by way of introduction "Detroit, we got a song for ya, what is it ? Its 'Motor', for the fuckin' motor city, here's 'Motor' ". With lyrics that start with " She got a sweet funky power train/Rear-end drive make this boy insane/She's ripping up that sweet horse power/She took me up to ninety miles an hour/Come-on ride with me/She got a motor" you can see what was on Alex's mind when he was looking out into his no doubt female heavy crowd.
 
Next up, the up tempo bluesy 'Letters Home' with Alex saying he wrote letters home to mama and she never wrote 'em back, but he never expected her to anyway. Driven by a strong purposeful beat, its the heartfelt story of the wayward rock n roll soul that had been burnt by a lost love and wanted Mama to stroke his head and tell them everything would be OK, Letters Home is one of my (many) favourite sprightly COP tunes which always turns a frown upside down. Cheesy but true …
 
The seedy "White Trash Queen" slows things down a little with its purposeful, heavy drum intro and thick lurching rhythm and it definitely brings the down and dirty element to the sleazy biker rock peddled by COP before 'Heart Attack' picks things back up again to increase the heart rate and give the New York Dolls / The Cult / AC/DC on mass builder steroids tag a tick in the box. 
 
Winding up the live selection, 'Turn up the Jams' - the bonus/extra track on the cd version of the debut - comes bouncing, swiggin' and swinging from the stage with Alex's Ian Astbury-esque NY drawl singing "Get me downtown to a little place, where the jukebox jams your feet/Smokin' and a drinkin' and a little bullshittin', gonna get you somethin' sweet"…and after 4 mins, he introduces the band and himself and 'bang', its all over. As the old saying goes, treat them mean, keep them keen.
 
All in all, Circus of Power was a band that played to their strengths of no nonsense down and dirty heavy biker rock n roll. They released their quality debut in '88, the above live ep in '89, 2nd album 'Vices' in '90 after some personnel changes and finally the slickly produced and pretty damn impressive and heavy 'Magic and Madness' (check out the absolutely storming 'Mama Tequila') in '93 and then called it a day. I believe they've played a handful of shows between then and now however there is still a big gap to be filled that they left for anyone who thought they were the ones to fill it.
 
Now come on, who thinks they're hard enough?

SG Feb '10