Folks with a taste for eardrum-damaging rock and roll guitar of a particular mid-seventies vintage will want to venture out to the Whisky A Go Go tonight – probably for the first time in a long time – for a rare LA appearance by the legendary Cheetah Chrome. Chrome was a founding member of Rocket From The Tombs, which split up in late 1975 before it could make a record, with its members moving into Pere Ubu (taking singer David Thomas and guitarist Peter Laughner) and the Dead Boys (Chrome and drummer Johnny Madansky), effectively becoming the yin and yang of American punk rock in 1976. I’ll never forget walking into the Music Machine during the summer of 1989 to see Chrome guesting with the Jeff Dahl Group and seeing Dahl careening around the stage, arm in arm with Stiv Bator in the closest thing to a Dead Boys reunion LA would ever see. Rocket’s LA debut in 2003 was even more momentous, a real rock and roll riot from a bygone era, with the original practitioners (minus Laughner, whose songs were voiced by Chrome) still raging against the stink of life.
Do check out his new EP Solo, on Playboy Records, and the Batusis album he made with Sylvain Sylvain a few years ago. But don’t miss the opportunity to see one of the true cultural heroes of the last century up close and in person. He’s backed by the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs, another blast from the (considerably more recent) past that should give your weekend the jolt it needs.
