Cherry St.

X-Rated (Perris)
by Scott Hefflon

There’s a fine line in whiskey-swilling bar rock, and man, yer on one side or the other… There’s the soul/R&B side and there’s the post-glam side, and all yer good intentions amount to shit cuz it’s all breeding, baby… With mounds of hair or hip’n’clipped facial hair (tattoos and piercing are no way to judge anymore, seeing as both car mechanics and software programmers have bought into those self-defining accessories), the real determining factors are shaky at best to summarize. Hell, I still play my Backyard Babies/Hellacopters mixed tape in the car to the point of annoyance, but I’ve heard people sneer BB are just shitty glam with a make-over. But the whole slew of SubPop rock (Glucifer, Black Halos, Zen Guerrilla, Murder City Devils) strike me as drunk’n’dangerous and not just some skippy fashion statement to get chicks, dig?

And that’s where Perris and Cherry St. (like yer surprised with a name like that?) cluelessly peer over the fence at the ballsy rock and wonder why people are snickering at their scarves, ripped jeans, and poofy hair. (I have no idea what they look like. Perris is worse at packaging than Metropolis and Cleopatra, as in they just got Photoshop and think cheesy collages and bright colors are still cool.) Simply put, if yer more like Dangerous Toys and Bullet Boys than, shit, I dunno, Nashville Pussy or perhaps the originators, Bon-era AC/DC, we know the shit yer standing in even if you don’t.

My recommendation (aside from getting the fuck with the times and meeting up with a good graphic designer and finding a producer that doesn’t make your drums sound weaker than old Quiet Riot) is to check out recent Swede rock releases on Sub Pop or Denmark’s Bad Afro (just listened to the Chronics before this) and hear how AC/DC and Curtis Mayfield and all that great, classic soulful rock can be blended together and howl, swagger, solo like motherfuckers, throw ’em back, and still dress like men!
(PO Box 783 Cedar Park, TX 78630)