TAROCK MUSIC

You’ve got your favorite bands from some distant past that nobody else cares about, and so do I.  One of mine put out their debut album on A&M in 1979, the same year Joe Jackson, the Police, and sort of Squeeze, put out albums on the same label.

But the band I’m talking about, who are called The Reds, seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.  There is a 1979 A&M compilation release called Propaganda featuring tracks by The Reds, Joe Jackson, the Police, Squeeze, the Granati Bros, Bobby Henry, Shrink and David Kubinec so, once upon a time they were all on the same plane.  Their self-titled debut album got reviews in Rolling Stone (where future MTV star Kurt Loder, of all people, compared them to Pere Ubu), and Robert Christgau gave it a B+ in the Village Voice.  The Reds got their hard-rocking post-punk art-metal doom-groove on vinyl before Joy Division did, before Killing Joke did, before the Birthday Party did.  Clearly they were primed for stardom.  But it never came.

In 1979, for some bizarre marketing rationale, A&M let The Reds put out a really nifty green-vinyl 10″ EP, which I used to own, but dumbly got rid of, which included a cover of the Doors, Break On Through.  Their second and third albums, Fatal Slide and Stronger Silence (from ’80 and ’82), and ’84 five-song EP called Shake Appeal on Sire Records.  Later I definitely picked up a cassette of 1986’s Band Of The Hand soundtrack, to which The Reds contributed five songs, alongside Bob Dylan’s and Andy Summer’s one each.  There were other soundtrack contributions too.  But for the most part, pffft.  Nobody ever said a damn word about them.

Until December of last year, when I stumbled upon their CD Baby page, I had no idea The Reds had released Cry Tomorrow (produced by Mike Thorne) in 1992.  They have a MySpace page which lists such intriguing influences as Roxy Music, Jon Lord, Traffic, Slim Harpo, Mtume, R.L. Burnside, Jah Wobble, Parliament, King Tubby, the Yardbirds, Massive Attack, for starters.

Anyway, as of last September (2007), there’s also a new CD, Fugitives From The Laughing House.  Key tracks on the new one include Big Town (a tough and compact train-rhythm churner), Little Cisco (a blurry and sinewy thing with early David Johansen in its vocal inflections), and especially Gunn’s Suicide, this dense, rolling snowball of scritch, scratch, echo and murk that’s probably as deep and hefty a six-minute dub-metal as you’ll hear this year.  Metalgaze droners of the Isis/Neurosis/Pelican ilk would sell their souls for a sound like this.  It’s exorable, and it fills the whole room.

• Chuck Eddy, Paper Thin Walls, October 2007

mmmMMMmmm . . . deepness in a band is magically delicious.  The CD title is a mouthful, but very telling in the nature of The Reds approach to music.  They are serious in their effort to break away from crap.  Fugitives From The Laughing House is powerfully nerve sizzling.  Totally aggressive and entrancing.  Rick Shaffer’s vocals defy the borders of time.  What grabs me about this CD is how Shaffer and Bruce Cohen cut with laser like precision to the heart of the matter, which is good music executed with know-how and why-for.

Rating: Off The Hook

• Corbyn Bricie, Unsigned The Magazine, The Heat, Music Reviews, 2007

While glancing quickly at the biographies of Bruce Cohen and Rick Shaffer, the two troubled geniuses behind The Reds, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 caught my eye.  Apparently, these two contributed a song to the soundtrack of this slice of my youth.

When I dove into Fugitives From The Laughing House, I was struck by the cold, stark, oppressive quality of the disc, sounding like a late-night session between the Velvet underground and the Stones at their most debauched.  Dum Dum Dice seems destined for a David Lynch film, or at least a Lynch film from twenty years ago, and it concluded the first part of the emotional journey through music.

The opening group, starting with the spacious Wild and concluding with the aforementioned Dice quickly gave way to Big Town, a far more conventional rock track that bounced with steady drumming and piercing guitar abrasions, which bled seamlessly into Carelessly.  Fugitives is more than a traditional listening experience, as it feels like film via music.  With pedigrees that feature independent theater to Doors covers and major labels, Cohen and Shaffer have covered a wide array of experiences and they construct a sound that could be applied in a myriad of ages.

Hittin’ the Run is a bluesy, Peter Gunn sounding track that bubbles with sixties sensibility, while Lethal Dose is a far darker, more solemn piece.  Shaffer’s voice is regularly buried within the sludge of drums and ambient guitars, adding to the challenging nature of the work.  In the end, the disc plays out like a great novel, and like all gifted authors, Shaffer and Cohen do not believe in neatly wrapping up their story, nor do they favor happy endings.  I do not want to spoil how the disc concludes, so all those who consider themselves appreciative of unique musical visions should pick this up immediately.

• Rich Quinlan, Jersey Beat, The Quinlan Chronicles, 2007

The Reds Are Rocking

During a regular visit to our recent uploads feature page, The Reds caught my attention.  Punk?  Here?  I was rather surprised.  After reading the member profile, I wisely decided that these videos deserved a fair look.  Both videos, Wild, the first track on their new CD Fugitives From The Laughing House, and  Cry Tomorrow, from an earlier album, are a very pleasant surprise in a whirlpool of thoroughly modern music.  There is no need for a gimmick.  The Reds simply capture your heart with their obvious raw passion and superlative talent.

Wild quickly went from “I need to look at this” to “I LOVE IT.”  One reluctant yet non-judgmental view turned into five views.  During the first, my visual and auditory senses peaked and were quite busy.  I watched again, concentrating on the graphics as they faded in and out of the screen, taking on a personality of their own.  The lion’s share, a very pleasant revelation, came with the third view, when I closed my eyes, allowing myself to merge with the music.  This is an auditory marvel.  Suddenly, it dawned on me.  The sound I heard was a sweet mixture of The Clash and The Rolling Stones, and a dash of The Police all perfectly blended.  This was a truly sweet experience!  I envisioned days gone by.  Sudden flashes of a single white feather dangling from a new second ear piercing that tickled the neck ever so lightly, danced through my mind.

This is a thoroughly modern sound, which brings fleeting visions of one of the most highly charged times in the history of music.  Clearly discernible over the acoustics, the lead vocalist flaunts the most potent voice I have heard in recent years.  The sound is bewitching.  There is a notable absence of pounding bass beats blaring from amps.  There is no need for loud screaming.  One does not need to strain to listen to the words of these songs.  Cutting-edge, haunting chords resound from synthesizers.  A classic drumbeat reverberates while softly whining guitars and a plucky keyboard collectively compose the characteristics of Cry Tomorrow.  One would expect this to sound like a one-man band, primitive and jagged as the artists struggle to find a melody.  No assumption could be further from the truth.  The instruments blend beautifully, and again, the potent vocals rise above the din.

The Reds have a detailed website, containing tidbits of their very rich history.  Fugitives From The Laughing House, their 2007 release, is available for purchase.  The good news is that until your copy arrives, you can listen to these amazing artists on Spotify and Pandora!

• Claire M, The Lioness Den Blog, September 2007

It was something of a coincidence that this CD landed in my box at Radio ARA (Luxembourg).  It wasn’t addressed to me, and it was still plastic wrapped, so somebody must have thought that this would be my line of work.  I liked the cover artwork, the packaging, and was instantly curious to listen to The Reds, a two-piece from Philadelphia.  My first impression was that they are a talented young band that plays this fashionable retro post-punk sound, so imagine my surprise when I looked them up on the internet and learned that they have been around for thirty years already, even releasing albums on major labels from the late seventies to the mid-eighties. I am excused because my musical awareness only started in the late eighties.

This historical context changed my opinion, and although I am not familiar with the bands past, what they do on their album, Fugitives From The Laughing House is impressive, to say the least.  Their music is centered around Rick Shaffer’s haunting, distorted guitar, and Bruce Cohen’s chilly keyboard sounds.  Shaffer is also one hell of a singer, whose voice conveys a sense of despair and anguish.

Unlike many new bands who copy something they grew up with, The Reds rather seem to have helped develop the movement without having garnered the deserved recognition.  At times they sound like the Rolling Stones, then again there are glimpses of Lou Reed, and quite often proto-punk elements reminding me of the Stooges.  A certain Suicide bleakness cannot be denied either, and towards the end, the band even plays with dub elements, and it works.

Fugitives From The Laughing House is a great album that is superior to those released by younger bands who only follow a fashion.  The Reds are sincere about what they do; this much is obvious when you listen to their one hour of dark garage proto-punk rock.  They are not young enough and don’t sport expensive haircuts, so they will never sell as many albums as younger hyped bands, but if you are looking for real quality music, this is certainly a place to start.

∎ Pascal Thiel, DisAgreement, Luxembourg, 2007