The Screws – Shake Your Monkey – Review

The Screws

Shake Your Monkey (In the Red)
by Jon Sarre

Spot the cover, any cover. They’re all covers. Mick Collins’n’the lovely’n’talented Terri Wahl pull a Detroit Cobras or pre-Mr. Downchild ’68 Comeback an’ record a whole record of other peoples’ songs (which isn’t what UB40 goes around doin’, it’s more I figger like Jeff Evans ‘fessed up to as bein’ easier to just do someone elses’ thing the way you remember it than to rewrite it and stick yer name on it. Honesty counts for sumptin’, babbeee!). The Screws on this second rec, with Jimmy Hole and Mick McHugh pickin’ up for Dan Brown and Marty Moore, pull out all the stops and fuck you up cuz Collins is onea the hardest workin’ motherhumpers around and he’s not gonna do some lame shit just cuz we live in the light of the techie sonic dark ages these days… Nah, remember rock’n’roll?

Think about it, darlin’… “Dirt” drum plop plop plops kick the record off, then comes up dirtier guitar instead of dropped out dropped in to see what condition my liver’s in bass riffage, then harp. Then Mick starts out like Iggy offa the first Stooges album, desperationville, then he gets over that’n’spits out “Gotta have ya! Gotta HAVE Ya!” Perfect. After that, The Screws just run with it, Big Joe or mebbe Ike, or mebbe Ted Turner turning around suddenly like John Lee Hooker (RIP) frontin’ The Cramps (“Keep on Lovin’ Me”), John Lee doin’ Jerry Lee (“Shake It, Baby”), Motown with Stones purloined pianer (“In Case You Need Love”), Stones themselves rewrit as the Delta momma blues they wanted to sound like, something Greil Marcus would be sure to, uh, appreciate if they sent this disc to him in the mail (but they didn’t! They sent it to ME! Eat yer heart out, Greil! Go buy yerself one! [“The Storm”]). Ya also got the best Doo Rag song they never got around to writin’ (“I See You Baby”), a James Chance cover gone out like Miss Lydia Lunch and Mr. White in Teenage Jesus and The Jerks (“Flip Your Face”), Chuck Berry chuggin’ like he’s got one lung and there’s a penny whistle stuck in it (“Ramona Say Yes”), nonsensical nursery rhymage channeled via Hendrix via Bo Diddley (“Strange Things”) and lurkin’ behind ya’n’breathin’ down yer neck bluesy jazz snatches (“If Lovin’ Is Believin'”). Hell, they even take apart Edger or Johnny or Jonathan Winter (or someone else named Winter, Shelley?) on “I’m Yours and I’m Hers” and strip it down to pass out in the parkin’ lot with Lightnin’ Hopkins and give an albino a nasty sun burn with a flashlight. Mebbe that’s why Mick sings “Turn out the light/It’s too bright” on “Monkey Doin’ Woman.” No one wants to smell scorched human flesh. No one I know anyhow.
(PO Box 208 Burbank, CA 91506)