BARBARIAN PRINCES - The Deviants (Captain Trips)

This was a dream gig of sorts - Bro. Wayne Kramer's cohort in crime and ace scribe Mick Farren onstage in Japan, together with his current guitar accomplice Andy Colquhon and the riddim boyzzz from Bro. Wayne's "LLMF," Doug Lunn on bass and actual Spinal Tap vet Ric Parnell on drums (who were at loose ends due to Wayne's illness following an illness in the Big Apple which stalled a Kramer U.S. tour in its infancy). Farren's tour diary (pubbed in Ptolemaic Terrascope #28) stoked my appetite to hear these jams, and they don't disappoint, either. These guys rip it up.

While the Lunn/Parnell engine room spurred Wayne to heights of improvisational exploration rarely (if ever) encountered in the punk dumps of America, they bring to Farren's spoken-word-with-Rawk thang an aggressive drive not heard since the admitted jewel in the crown of his recorded work, 1996's "Eating Jello with a Heated Fork" (on Total Energy, of course). Name another rock riddim section that kicks with the righteous power and prowess of these mothafuckas. I double-damn DARE you. (Well, maybe the Stu Manx/Danny Young tandem in Gluecifer, but that's a whole 'nother flavor of Rock Action, Big Arena variety.)

A few words about axe murderer Andy Colquhon, for those Barflys who have yet to check out the Farren oeuvre. Quite simply, quite pimply, no one outside of Bro. Wayne Himself or maybe Dr. Tek post-Kent Steedman pushes the envelope of rock guitar possibility as far as the former Warsaw Pakt axeman/Pink Fairies bassist. His tortuous, whammy-bar laden rides are among the purest rock'n'roll pleasures this writer has experienced in many moons. He even does a credible job of singing his own "Lennon Song," an ode/homage to the murdered Fab (previously memorialized by Bro. Wayne and his mentor Sinclair in "Friday the 13th").Farren's definitely the Bangs/Bukowski/Burroughs of the evening stage, and he declaims like a twisted Speaker's Corner orator throughout these ten tracks.

One wonders what the mostly-male misfit/outcast Japanese audience musta made of these guys. (If they were Yanks, I bet they woulda voted Nader to a man.) "Any questions?" Brother Farren asks, helpfully. The material draws mainly from Farren's recent Captain Trips/Total Energy releases, with one toon ("Leader Hotel") from the regrettably unavailable Tijuana Bible.

"Put a twenty on the bar my friend/And don't be overly concerned yourself/About receiving any change/Because I will tell you stories of bafflement and disbelief/I will weave you webs to amaze and astonish/I will tell you tales of sound and fury/Signifiying...signifying any good goddamn thing/You want it to signify."

("Dogpoet, (c) 1996 by Mick Farren)

Oh, yeah, poetry CAN rock. Dig it. Write to Farren at BYRON4D@aol.com to cop.