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Apocalypse dude
It’s Sleazegrinder’s world; we’re just writing about it



For the past couple of years, my favorite rock critic has been a guy from Cambridge who calls himself Sleazegrinder. There are lots of reasons for this. Chief among them, at the moment, is the fact that he has his own T-shirts. A master of gonzoid Bangsian prose, Sleazegrinder is one of the most dynamic voices to come down the pike since metalscribe Chuck Eddy, only he’s much more interesting and apocalyptic. And, like the best rock bands, he’s demonstrated a self-promotional savvy that serves as entertainment in its own right. His writing has appeared in ’zines from New York Waste to Maximum Rock N Roll, but you can most reliably find his rantings at his Web site, www.sleazegrinder.com. The site serves as a portal into the netherworlds of a genre he’s dubbed " super rock " : a nebulous cacophony of voices from the bleak, seedy, deranged, and evil end of showbiz. He’s on record in proclaiming Urge Overkill’s Saturation (DGC) the world’s greatest rock-and-roll album ever, and he’s written handy treatises on such close-runners-up as the acid-biker-metal street-poet Zodiac Mindwarp (from whose catalogue comes the Sleazegrinder handle) and Motörhead-meets-Terminator rape-fantasists Rogue Male. His writing, like the records and films and books he sets his mind to, is filled with unfiltered sex, death, danger, kicks — fear, as another man said, and loathing.

Now he’s got his own soundtrack, too — he’ll celebrate Cock ’N’ Roll: The World’s Sleaziest Rock Bands, the first release on his Sleazegrinder Records, at the Middle East next Friday, June 27. ( " What kind of idiot starts a record label in 2003? " he mutters over the phone from his home in East Cambridge. " I do what the devil tells me. " ) A 26-band paean to the perils of bad living, Cock N Roll is an odds-on candidate for international underground hard-rock album of the year. The liner-note art is so explicit that half a dozen printers turned down the job, and tracks like Skum’s " Slut " and Porn Rock’s " Porn Star " live up to the premise so well that an indie-porn producer has licensed them for a flick called Bad Girl Games.

But underneath the smut lies some serious worldwide rock action. Detroit’s Lanternjack kick the disc off with fistfighting swagger descended from the Stooges; Hamburg’s Devil’s Day Out sound like the Hellacopters being shot down by small-arms fire; and Finland’s the Dogshit Boys keep the spirit of Zodiac alive with " One Minute Fuck. " " I didn’t want any stoner rock, " he says, " and not friggin’ hardcore bands pretending to rock, and none of it could sound the same but it would all be sleazy, and if I couldn’t pull that off then I wasn’t gonna do it. "

Sleazegrinder’s alter-ego, Ken McIntyre, grew up in Cambridge; after college, he wrote for the occasional movie magazine as well as pulps like True Detective and Inside Detective. Then came what he calls " the oblivion years " — he spent seven years drunk, and after he came to, about four years ago, he stumbled across local motorpunks Rock City Crimewave. He was so impressed that he sent an unsolicited review to The Noise. In the process, he invented a persona: a rock-and-roll combat correspondent, a compromised hero dug deep into the trenches of debauchery, at war with the world and himself. " The idea was always to build this up just like Zodiac Mindwarp, " he says, " with the same pseudo-mythological vibe. It’s like, Mark Manning created Zodiac Mindwarp, and he knows the difference between the two, but at the same time, you can choose who you wanna talk to. "

And the Sleazegrinder multimedia empire is growing. He’s already overseen two record-release parties for Cock ’N’ Roll in Albany and Detroit, and the third is next week’s show at the Middle East. The record label has a Zodiac Mindwarp tribute album due in the fall. And Sleazegrinder has edited a book called Gigs from Hell, a compendium of bands relating their worst tour stories, being published by London’s Headpress. " It’s about absolute cosmic defeat on every level, " he says, echoing a theme that permeates the best of his writing. " Who says rock and roll is all about glory? It’s fucked-up shit all the time, and it almost never works. "

Cracktorch, Rock City Crimewave, the Erotics, and Joker Five Speed play a record-release party for Cock ’N’ Roll next Friday, June 27, at the Middle East, 472 Mass Ave in Cambridge. Call (617) 864-EAST.

 

Issue Date: June 20 - 26, 2003
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