Hello From the Radio Wasteland!

The Pacific Northwest has been producing the best rock and roll of the past decade. I'm not talking alternative or metal or indie/arty/fusion or anything at all you're hearing on the radio. I mean the sounds of pre-punk garage kicked up to the pulse of '77 — bands that remember the dirty-deadly roadhouse stomp of the Stooges, the V8 lovemaking of T.Rex, the anthemic power pop of Cheap Trick, the 60s pop fetish of Joey Ramone, and the rollicking just like a-ringin' a bell exuberance of Johnny Thunders. The healthy music scene in the Portland and Seattle areas is home to a family of such bands, and I'd like the rest of the country to turn off the Fall Out Boy and pay attention. Here are a few whose names have passed by word of mouth over the continental divide and all the way across the prairie to my ears.

The Riffs are staunchly retro street punks, with meat-and-potatoes Steve Jones-ey guitar work and fatigued gang vocals chronicling heroin life amidst urban blight. They put it simply:

Seventy-seven told the truth
So I don't care what's new with you

The Exploding Hearts released a stunning debut record of glue-sniffing power pop that should've earned them national attention...but no*. Members of these two groups joined up to form The Nice Boys, dropping the safety pin brattiness in favor of a dreamy tribute to the (mostly British) glam-power-pop rock of yesteryear.

And then there is the drunken dancehall apocalypse called Murder City Devils. Six kids started in the mosh pits worshiping Iggy and from there built, as if guided by dark providence, an epic and literary vision of gothic Americana. It is tempting to say that the Devils picked up where the Dead Boys left off, having tightened the menace and howl of Detroit garage rock with a punk's intensity of purpose — certainly the Dead Boys hinted at the doom-laden industrial sprawl of the rust belt that the Devils would incorporate into the mythic Murder City — but the similarities are probably superficial. The Devils are an original creation; Spencer's tortured cries and Leslie's funereal keyboard lines are tattooed on my heart.

Which brings me to The Whore Moans. The de facto successors to the Murder City Devils, the Moans are schizophrenic whereas the Devils were singleminded. Not to say the Moans lack identity — rather they embrace the schizophrenia to brilliant effect, using the dual vocals and violent instability in tone and pitch to build tension around their nervous/excited musical adventures. On their sophomore release, Hello From the Radio Wasteland!, the boys venture unpredictably away from Murder City, bouncing out the gates in Richard Hell mania, announcing their own teenage searching-for-a-melody anthem, dipping into vintage grunge (time for a revival? No?), diving full bore-hardcore into a roaring maelstrom sea shanty, and then melting a punk's leathery heart by quoting the Ronettes. Tune in.


* In 2003 the Exploding Hearts were headed to California to sign a recording contract and play their first major tour. Old Scratch met them halfway. On July 20 their van rolled on Interstate 5 and the singer and bassist and drummer were ejected and killed. The boys were 23, 20, 21. The surviving member was urged by friends to form The Nice Boys as a way to cope and carry on.