The Demonics
Demons on Wheels (Man’s Ruin)
by Jon Sarre
Here’s another novel concept: A whole record wortha songs about ‘sickles’n’racin’, ‘sickles’n’racin’, ‘sickles in a B-movie soundtrack life (sorta like The Silencers’ last album ‘cept The Demonics got more lyrics, so it’s more like what Zeke’s second full-length was purportedly about, tho’ I’ve never really been able to tell for sure as Blind Markey doesn’t exactly go out of his way to share his post-junkie race fan world-view with his audience, preferrin’ to make ’em listen real hard in order to figure out just what in the hell he’s sayin’ and it’s probably not about B-movies anyhow). The Demonics new CD from Man’s Ruin, tho’, is chock fulla cyclin’ she-devils, similes about cylinders and silly soliloquies about “Sayten,” plus something about an “Anesthesiologist,” a lone dunebuggy chick (“Dunebuggy Denise”), a Beach Boys cover (“Little Honda”) and plenty o’ more dealin’ with the always bummer topic of motorcycle-enhanced death. The band’s pimply post-Ramones mix of trash-rock and Russ Meyer’s (or mebbe Roger Corman’s) sense of aesthetics gives the record a (fronted) idea of fun, tho’ in a definitely narrow gear-head’s prism where fast cars’n’faster women are the only two things worth livin’ for. Not a bad idea, don’t think it’s gonna be enough to base somethin’ as high-falutin’ as a “concept” on cuz yer typical two-wheelin’ rod enthusiast ain’t gonna be able to tell that from the vagromities of US Economic Policy anyhow, so be best advised to not think too much about it. I will wager that even Al Greenspan could listen to Demons on Wheels and tell ya that the Meatmen’s “War of the Superbikes” and the Mummies’ “Food, ‘Sickles, Girls” are better than the best ones here. And those two bands had other interests to boot.
(610 22nd St #302 San Francisco, CA 94107)