Oh dear sometimes pure effort isn’t enough. Check out Rogue Male First Visit from 1985 on Music For Nations.
They had songs about motorcycles, they looked like particularly burly extras from Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, they were heavy, they were at least 80% made of metal (50% chrome, 50% titanium), presumably drank toasts from the skulls of their enemies and I assume all their home furnishings were made of studded leather.
The cover of First Visit pretty much gives you all you need to know, it’s a cyborg. Okay fine, cyborgs are pretty cool but it’s better than that, by far. Can you guess why children? Because it looks a bit fierce? nope, that’s just a cyborg thing – you buy a new one, it comes with ‘bit fierce looking’ as standard. Because it’s wearing a furry cloak and epaulettes that make it look like particularly camp eastern European dictator? nope, that’s just the way cyborgs roll. Well, check out above the scary robo eye, yes the hair. IT’S A CYBORG WITH A FREAKIN’ MULLET !! Praise be! It doesn’t get much more 1985 than that*.
Unfortunately, there’s also a clue as to First Visit‘s limitations right there too. There’s no nice way to say this, it looks a bit cheap and that also runs to the production. This in turn means that we’re stuck with a muddy mix which effectively neuters the dynamics of their Motörhead / Tank / UK Subs boogie. I have no doubt they were excellent live (they had a reputation for it) but for Homo Legous 21stCentuius there’s precious little evidence of that here. Best of the bunch is opening track ‘Crazy Motorcycle’, followed by ‘All Over You’, which takes as its central tenet that Mr Rogue Male is about to blow his, umm, load ‘All Over You’, but don’t worry children it’s far too indecipherable to be properly obscene and I’m sure there was a hidden political message. There is a revenge story of sorts, I think, on the second side of the LP in ‘Dressed Incognito’ which involves a woman catching her fella at it with a lady of dubious virtue and offing them both.
To be honest that was pretty much all I could make out, the production really was that bad. In fact fr ages I was convinced he was shouting ‘I didn’t do anything to Elvis’ on the last track, which you have to admit is a damn cool line. Unfortunately, closer listening revealed it to be the much more mundane ‘I didn’t do anything to deserve this’.
As always I feel that I need to say that First Visit is a far better LP than any I have ever made and again, I feel honour-bound to say it is the best album with a mullet-toting cyborg on the cover in my collection and you should know that’s not a claim ever to be made lightly.
Now before I go I also have to draw your attention to a seldom-glimpsed phenomenon on the inner sleeve, yup Male Camel Toe (MCT). Now I have spotted a particularly striking of this before, but this one is a doozy – in fact I’d go so far as to identify it as, a rare, Double Armadillo. Respect.
432 Down (with a mullet).
*which is why large swathes of my homeland still regard it as a desirable ‘do.
I recall seeing Rogue Male on ECT in the 1980s. Briefly an awesome band … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWk_w-Pyrao
Cheers for that one. They did have a really good live rep – you gotta love their Terminator-on-a-tight-budget chic too! sadly history littered with good live bands who could never quite get that down on wax.
Did I mention that I collect albums with mullet covers? So this goes straight into the ‘Want’ chart with a bad-hair bullet.
As 1537 might say, ‘true story’.
Whoa, that’s cool+. I doff my fedora to you Bruce.
This sounds absolutely dreadful. I prefer my cyborgs in the form of Yul Brynner, not MCT-sporting, mullet-wearing rawkers. I’m going to pretend you really don’t own this so we can move on past this.
Sincererly,
Yul Brynner
Thanks for dropping by Yul, always good to hear from a fellow cue ball. I did briefly try to recreate the MCT earlier in the mirror, sadly I’m a one armadillo guy.
Cheers for suggesting we can get around this one.
I dig their clothes and hair. I think I need this.
Nooo!! Mike nooo!! Resist.
Have you ever grown a mullet? I had one briefly and have no photographic evidence of it, I have also had to kill everyone who ever saw me at that time.
You. made. me. laugh. (said in the American Werewolf in London style)
Thank you. Cyborgs with mullets… a time machine would have been a good thing for these guys. It’s only with hindsight that we see ourselves in our full ridiculousness. I can’t bring myself to listen to the tracks in case I like them and start emulating the fashion. My wife would give me the ‘horses head’ wake-up call.
Sadly I can’t greet you as Jenny Agutter from same film … to be honest if I could I would spend very little time blogging.
You are very welcome – sadly my mullet-growing days are over, it is the king of haircuts as far as I’m concerned. Don’t worry I listened to this one so you didn’t have to.
Thanks again. UKIP is the mullet of all political parties – Just because they’re popular for a time, doesn’t mean they were ever any good.