It seems like all of my favorite bands are ganging up on me. One by one each and every band that I really like is releasing the same type of album; The "Super Compilation". Queen did it, King's X hurled one into the ring, and now The Brain Surgeons have done it. These albums, well put together compilations of previously released material plus a handful of new songs, are more than mere "Greatest Hits" packages. In fact, the latest offering from The Brain Surgeons, is much MUCH more than that.
The new Brain Surgeons album "Malpractise" is a compilation with a difference.
Malpractise (1997 Cellsum Records) contains twelve songs by the same Brain Surgeons lineup as the previous two releases; Deb Frost, Billy Hilfiger, Peter Bohovesky, David Hirschberg and of course Blue Oyster Cult veteran Albert Bouchard. Eight of theses songs were previously available ONLY on special fan club limited cassettes, and four of them are brand-spankin' new. The album is a strange concoction of songs that don't quite fit together, yet oddly enough work well with each other. Songs shift from acoustic versions of Blue Oyster Cult and Brain Surgeons favorites from the past to hard and heavy cover versions of songs from other bands. The CD cover, which features a humorous play on the title of the album, is once again done by Steve Brodner, who has done the graphics for the first three Brain Surgeons albums.
The album kicks off proper with "Needle Gun" and it is by far one of the best songs on the album. Previously recorded by Hawkwind, the song was recommended to the Brain Surgeons by the late Robert Rudich, a good friend of mine who was as also as big a Brain Surgeons fan as they come. The Brain Surgeons not only decided that the tune was a natural for them to cover, but they have also fittingly dedicated the album to Mr. Rudich.
And so, keeping this in mind as I tore open the CD and dropped it in the player, I made sure my volume level was bumped up a few notches from where I normally have it set, and pressed the play button. As I stood my ground at point blank range to my speakers, poised and ready to start dodging the speaker grilles that almost threatened to come flying at my head, the opening chords of "Needle Gun" had their way with me. The song is raucous and riotous, with a "crunchier than crunchy" guitar assault that would make even my 94 year old Grandmother take to a table-top and start doing air-guitar licks. As always, Deb Frost's vocals sound deliciously wicked and nasty. Like it says in the chorus "It's gonna make you numb"!! Staying true with the Hawkwind theme, the band also covers "Hassan I Sahba", which combines the kick-to-the crotch attitude of "Needle Gun" with the Middle Eastern atmosphere of "Lil Egypt" from the previous Brain Surgeons release, "Box of Hammers". Not my pick for sing-along of the week (hell, I can't understand a word they are saying) but a frenetic, frantic, and frenzied song all the same. A few other "F" words might also have helped describe how much I like it.
The album also has two other new offerings. "The Girl That Love Made Blind" is a melodic little strummer of a tune that was originally written to be part of the IMAGINOS saga, but didn't make the final cut. While not sounding like anything that appeared on Imaginos (it has more of the feel of BOC's Redeemed"), its inclusion on Imaginos might have worked nicely as a dramatic shift in music style to help break up the album. This is the very effect the song has on Malpractise. The last new song is "Tour Spiel", another solid, heavy tune featuring Albert on vocals and one of the deepest and rumbling guitar riffs in a Brain Surgeons song since "Happy New Year" from the Surgeons 1995 release "Trepanation."
As for the songs that were previously unavailable on CD, they have never sounded better. The first thing that hit me when I heard the opening chords (and Albert's classic thunking and pounding of the skins) of "Ciudades Y Navidades", was how this CD sounds so much better than the original recording of it that appeared on the limited cassette "Career of Christmas". The song sounded GREAT then, now it's enough to make the hairs on my neck stand up and start slapping at each other. This Spanish sung Christmas version of Blue Oyster Cult's "Cities on Flame" celebrates the joy and wonder of the holiday season...... and then kicks it a few times with steel-toed boots until it whimpers and cowers.
If there is one thing this album points out, it's a reminder that Albert Bouchard was a force to be reckoned with when he was a member of Blue Oyster Cult. And now that he is on his own there is still nobody that knows the songs he wrote with BOC better than him. Right along side the other two Blue Oyster Cult songs from Career of Christmas-"Career of Evil" and "Baby Ice Dog", are a handful of BOC covers and Brain Surgeons songs done entirely acoustic. Originally appearing on another fan club cassette called "Pull The Plug", these songs provide a unique slant on some of the best Brain Surgeons and BOC songs from the past. "Name Your Monster" finds Deb Frost's vocals strange and hypnotic, and the new version (and BEST version, in my humble opinion) of the BOC classic "Death Valley Nights" show that whether it be smooth or crunchy, the Brain Surgeons have got it covered.
Yet the album is somewhat incomplete. While it does contain most of the Brain Surgeons material previously available only on rare cassettes, the ommision of two of the songs from "Pull the Plug" makes me wonder why they were not included. Perhaps the songs can find their way onto a future disk One can only hope. And since this is the ONLY negative aspect of the album, it hardly takes away from how nice a package it really is in my CD collection.
So is Malpractise ALL cover versions? Well, that's a hard call to make. Certainly the Hawkwind and Mike Watt songs are covers. But what about the Blue Oyster Cult songs? They are technically from another band's collection, yet they WERE all written partly (if not totally in some cases) by Albert Bouchard himself. Then there are the new acoustic versions of other Brain Surgeons tunes. Some might say an entire collection of recycled (for lack of a better term) music, others may see it as an entirely new collection. I don't care either way, I just know it SMOKES. So if you find yourself needing to put a label on this album, you might have a hard time doing it. Thinking about it long enough is enough to send sane men scampering into the treetops. That's OK though, I can always use the company up here.
Robert "Torgo" Sedler
