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| Mojo December 2002, reviewed by Joe Cushley | Manificent album from MOJO scribe's long-lived combo. Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano helps out vox. Mick Farren could be a character in one of his own pulpy, poetic novels - a boffin rocker in an underground lair, perhaps? Beaming mind-altering freak-beat directly at governmental bastions. The deviants supported Floyd in '67, and they are still a powerfully relevant force, as When Dr Crow Turns On The Radio opens with cut-up samples. But deconstructed blues-rock (check the hilarious version of Adam Faith's What Do You Want?) and fucked-up jazz (A Long Dry Season captures the Lounge Lizards in leathers0 are the main media of this latest bunker-bulletin. Farren is hardly a singer, but to hell with the bourgeois concept of tune. He sounds like Vincent Price introducing Thriller one minute and a mid-Atlantic John Cooper-Clarke the next. Andy Colqhuon's eloquent guitar textures complement Farren's Dystopian verses perfectly. Long may they deviate. |
| Press Release by Planet Earth Publicity | Six Years have passed since THE DEVIANTS made a full blown and fully integrated studio CD, and even longer since one was released in the united kingdom. That the band who were once referred to as 'The Bash Street Kids on acid' should not only be still recording music, but still pushing the neo-weird envelope of the twenty first century is a story in itself.
DR CROW proves that those who don't remember Syd Barrett will have to invent the whole thing all over again. It also demonstrates that, over the thirty five-some years they have spent in some of the most dangerous trenches of rock & roll, The Deviants have become frighteningly good at what they do. The driving force behind DR. CROW is the age-long, classic guitar/singer partnership between MICK FARREN and ANDY COLQHOUN. Their song-writing is now at a level where Colqhoun provides the ultimate post-Hendrix power and context to Farren's wasteland visions of TV vacant lots where Shakespeare is trying to cop a dime bag, and urban wolves have made their lair. None of this would be possible, however, without the drums and percussion of the mighty RIC PARNELL, and the masterclass bass of DOUG LUNN, whose rhythm also dominates recent work by brother WAYNE KRAMER. Also in the mix are the additional drums of PHILTHY ANIMAL TAYLOR from the premium days of MOTORHEAD, the saxophones of JACK LANCASTER, and the amazing voice of JOHNETTE NAPOLITANO, late of CONCRETE BLONDE, who duets with Farren on the standout Beefheart/blues classic "You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond". This time round, The Deviants have also powerful synergy going for them. Farren's recently published memoir "Give The Anarchist A Cigarette", has been ultra-well received by both critics and readers. The response to recent re-issues of most of the 1960s/70s Deviants and PINK FAIRIES material also serves as apointer to the time being right for a re-examination of a band who were both godfathers and fountainhead of a particular genre of rock mayhem out of Ladbroke Grove and all points west. DR CROW has both the timing and quality to reap the benefits. Plans are afoot for the band to make some long awaited live appearances in the UK and Europe. For further information contact Dave Clarke at Planet Earth Publicity. Tel: 01799 501347 or e-mail info@planetearthpublicity.com |
| Availability |
Released 23 September 2002 by Track Records Find Dr Crow online at Amazon UK |
| Track list |
When Dr Crow Turns on the Radio You're Gonna Need Somebody on your Bond The Murdering Officer Sold to Babylon Taste the Blue Song of the Hired Guns Diabolo's Cadillac Bela Lugosi 2002 A Long Dry Season What do You Want? |
| Personnel list |
Mick
Farren |
| Other |