My Drug Hell
This Is My Drug Hell (Countdown)
by Chris Adams
What a killer name. My Drug Hell. Ya just know they copped it from a National Enquirer headline about some celeb allegedly going all blubbery and Betty Ford about their “secret other life.” Another good reason to wanna like these guys is the album cover. The singer (and ya just know he’s the singer) looks like he’s trynna pull off the “I am cool incarnate” thing, and what’s better, he actually gets away with it. Eyes that yawn “I’ve seen a million people just like you and I didn’t like them, either;” cheekbones that could house a small nation; the skin a truly corpse-like, wax-candle pallor, all topped off by the classic Keef Richard circa ’66 rooster-do, the best head of hair in rock history. (I know all this concentration on appearance sounds superficial, but remember, it’s only shallow in the real world. In the infinitely better and more important world – that of rawk – looking good is often more important than sounding good. I’m sure if Jim Morrison had looked like Edgar Winter they’d have no problem keeping his grave clean, y’know?) But you look at that album cover, and that band name, and song titles like “Teen Psycho Nightmare No. 99” and ya just know that these guys are gonna do their best to scramble your brains, claw off yer skin, and set fire to your soul in a distinctly Stooges-style furnace-blast of wyld rock ‘n’ roll abandon. Ya just know.
That, kid, is where yer wrong. There’s nothing particularly druggy, hellish, or insane about this album. In fact, it’s all pretty pedestrian. None of the songs ever kick into sonic overdrive – they just shimmer and groove along rather pleasantly in a sparse acoustic-electric mix. In fact, if I had to compare MDH to just one band, it’d probably be the Jazz Butcher, another pleasant semi-acoustic English band with an inaccurate name. But why compare them to just one band when they’re so much more? They could be a final-sale-everything-must-go Beatles, a low-budget Beau Brummels, or maybe a Left Banke tribute. “Hey, that rhythm guitar there sounds pretty damn Lou Reed.” “Hmmm… is that vocal more Alex Chilton or Nikki Sudden?” And that’s the thing about this album–all the songs seem to rely heavily on the glories of some other group or genre, which, as you recall them, are far more interesting than the band you’re actually listening to. But the pleasure of “Girl At the Bus Stop” a classic “worship-the-chick-you-can-never-have-from-afar” tune makes the whole thing worth it. And there’s always that great album cover. (Anyone who can find me a psychedelic smoking jacket like that gets ten bucks above cost and a tape of Hollies outtakes with My Drug Hell on the flipside – trust me, it’ll flow perfectly.)
