Pentagram: Bobby Liebling's Last Daze Here
My fave listening of late hasn't been anything technically new, but the music of a band that is new to me. I've previously mentioned Julian Cope's excellent website; I don't take all of my musical cues from ol' Jules, but in his "Album of the Month" section, along with releases by obscure new bands, he also regularly excavates some very worthwhile (and often ignored) gems from yesteryear. This month's featured band is Pentagram, the second time Cope has reviewed one of their albums. I hadn't paid that much attention the first time, but since Jules is so sold on 'em, I decided to check out one of his previously recommended releases of theirs, First Daze Here. Songs like the churning "Livin' In A Ram's Head" recall the pedal-to-the-metal Motor City fury of Ted Nugent and The Amboy Dukes (as big of a hugely embarrassing moron as Nugent turned out to be, I still think some of the stuff he did with the Dukes, like Call of the Wild and Tooth, Fang and Claw, contains some great, adventurous hard rock, which says as much about some of his talented collaborators back then as it does about him), while the bluesy reflection "Last Days Here" is an emotional and sonic counterpart to one of my favorite periods of Iggy & The Stooges, the "I'm Sick of You" / Kill City era (so many musicians I've met over the years have told me that Kill City is their favorite Iggy Pop release ever, and I wouldn't disagree. Something about that kind of flat, shaky, trebly sound and Pop's barbituate-hazed, edge-of-oblivion state of mind on that disc makes for a very intense listening experience). "Last Days Here" is one of those songs that you can't play just once: so powerful is Pentagram leader Bobby Liebling's emotionally charged rumination on his possibly imminent demise, you have to play that sucker again and again.
Bobby Liebling didn't die however, and thanks in part to the success of First Daze Here, the band reformed and is still turning out fine music, these days drawing more on a metallic Black Sabbath vibe than on the Detroit rock legends I mentioned previously. Liebling, a long-time heroin addict, has now become something of a cult figure in "stoner-rock" circles, and he added to his legend during a bizarre 2005 appearance at the Black Cat club in Washington DC. The story of Liebling's live "comeback" show contains elements of both tragedy and black comedy, just like the the more outrageous antics of rock legends like Iggy Pop, and, however disappointing for the fans who came to see him that night, has the overall effect of adding to the underground mythology of Liebling and Pentagram. Who needs Pete Doherty when you've got Bobby Liebling? Somehow I think I'll be trancing out to "Last Days Here" long after I've forgotten Babyshambles.
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