ZODIAC MINDWARP & THE LOVE REACTION
Has there ever been a more deranged and dysfunctional group to crawl out the sweaty ass cleft of rock? Sure you have the filthy excesses of Motley Crue and WASP over in the States but king of sleaze in the UK has always been Mark Manning aka Zodiac Mindwarp and his rag tag band of debauched hedonists the Love Reaction. I was somewhat shocked asking one person on the way upstairs to the gig if they were going in to watch Zodiac, to be answered, “who” with a look of puzzlement, youth of today; this is after all one of the most important bands in the history of rock!
It’s not every day you get a DJ following up Korpiklaani with Gaye Bykers On Acid and we were entertained by this and a young lady who seemed to have modelled herself on Linnea Quigley’s roles in Return Of The Living Dead & Night Of The Demons, damn all we needed was a gravestone for her to strip on. Expectations run high and the venue filled for a very up close and personal audience with the self-proclaimed ‘High Priest Of Love,’ which as chance would have it was exactly first number from the sleazemeisters of filth.
The band looked invigorated and were certainly happy to have an audience screaming (and there really were screams after each and every number) for them. Zod looked great considering his dice with death a few years ago following a ruptured blood vessel on the brain and ever cheeky Cobalt Stargazer was at his side firing hot licks of guitar love-juice out at every opportunity. Romping into ‘Backstreet Education’ they had a delirious audience well in the grasp of their sweaty palms and my mind wandering off imagining the all so risqué Catholic schoolgirls behaving very badly video that scandalised the white conservative Top Of The Pops audience when it was beamed into their unsuspecting homesteads.
If ever there was a group who were summed up by one of their song-titles it is this one. ‘Fucked By Rock’ is not only a great anthem about the excesses of life on the road but it is also a great book which is well worth getting hold of. There were some new numbers as well, which I was rather surprised about (and you can find them on the group’s myspace). ‘Lucille’ was a womanly anthem that reminded of a similarly named Grebo number by The Batfish Boys called Justine. It was a straight up rocker and I could have easily seen Lemmy singing it but here Cobalt provided the backing vocals. It gave Jack Shitt the opportunity to show off his suede trousers and posture away with some thick bass licks. Stagerlee was as sassy bluesy sort of affair as the name suggests and showed promise for a new album sometime in the near future. As for ‘Don’t Touch My Guitar’ it was most amusing and I doubt anyone would have dared mess with Cobalt’s Sleazegrinder.
The short set fired us up with ‘White Trash’ which had bigger cajones than a pitbull in a trailer park and we knew there was an encore as no set would be complete without the sing-along anthem that is ‘Prime Mover.’ Finishing it off in excessive style with ‘I Am Rock’ we had Cobalt playing guitar behind his head whilst walking through the crowd (show-off), a bass solo from Jack and a drum one from The Apocalypse who was not going to be left out of proceedings. Zod let the rest of them get on with it and as they walked off the stage to excessive cheering we had indeed been fucked by rock. They are back on this very stage in November apparently, be there or be a kipper.
www.myspace.com/zodiacmindwarp1
Pete Woods
LONDON INTREPID FOX 10/8/7