Blue Meanies
Asian Man
The Blue Meanies have been around for years, but Full Throttle was the album that seemed to me to finally capture their mad genius in a somewhat approachable way. Full Throttle floored me with its razor sharp, whiplash style changes and layers of tightly controlled chaos that went far beyond the ska-core genre the Blue Meanies get thrown in with. There's lots of clever hornwork, true, and some ska rhythm is present here and there, but the wall of noise factor and manic aggressiveness mixed with all sorts of undefinable yet decidedly non-ska elements makes them more than a little bit of a misfit. What has always amazed me even more than what I consider to be their best album is their ability to pull this shit off live. Crazy energy. Captured here are twenty-one different songs from the road. Over thirty shows were recorded, but tracks from only eight cities made the final cut. The recording quality is great, and they kept just enough of the banter. A lot of time and effort was put into making this a great live record, and it totally paid off. It could never be quite the same as standing in front of and watching the raging storm, but it's a damn good documentation nonetheless. Asian Man Records, P.O. Box 35585, Monte Sereno, CA 95030-5585; http://www.asianmanrecords.com
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