Review Summary: I've had the pleasure of a few..
VII
A grimy little bacchanal of unwashed power chords, sooty production and a cracking good time, allow me to present Sacramento spark plugs Tales of Terror . Despite early associations with the West Coast hardcore scene, the band’s penchant for miring themselves in med-tempo and creating roiling maelstroms quickly established them as a precursor to the grunge scene being etched into existence by similarly fuzzy progenies U-Men and King Snake Roost. In retrospect, it’s easy to see how seamlessly Tales of Terror would have squeezed onto the Amphetamine Reptile’s
Dope-Gunz-‘N-F*cking In The Streets roster, and how much closer their tack adhered to the psych metallic freak-outs of the Eastern scene, rather then the frenetic SST outfits they spent their time touring with. Their aesthetic alliances from the get-go spoke for themselves.
Tales of Terror was released on CD Presents Records, a label owned by famed champion of the obscene David Ferguson, a man notorious for his love and tireless promotion of outsider art, whose work had taken him into the timelines of everyone from John Lydon, Bad Brains, drag legends The Cockettes to Basquiat and Black Panther orator Elaine Brown.
Drunken abandon, toothless grins and a warped sense of humour pervades
Tales of Terror, only too self-evident on an album that kicks off on a slouchy cover of “Hound Dog,” only to usher in a song called “Over Elvis Worship” twenty minutes later. Like most of their peers, both in California and eastward, Tales of Terror were a live band above all else, and the LP only manages so well in capturing the band’s frantic and unhinged spectacle. Still the foaming mouths are there for the consuming. The album spends about fifteen seconds finding its wobbly footing and then hardly lets up for its half-hour stretch. It’s a dizzying little trip and the wild-eyed Iggy Pop/Dead Boys head-nods are on fine display here, all the more pleasurable for how well they’re pulled off.
Sadly, the band would be short-lived. In 1986, just four years after their first gig, and only two years after
Tales of Terror sprung to life, the band’s guitarist would be beaten to death during an alley fight, ending Tales of Terror’s promising start, not to mention whatever recognition they might have reaped as early fans like Green River and Mother Love Bone went on to splinter into some of grunge’s most respected acts. What’s left is a lovely little reel of untamed youth painting the walls with blood and shit.
