Hookers - Casting The Runes: from The Battle Of Clontarf To The Gates Of Valhalla
Remember last week, when I made some purchases so I could stay in touch with the music buying public? You know, keep up with the kids? I am never doing that again. Never. As proof of my new dedication, this week Ima tell yall about Hookers.
Not the kind you meet out back of the Crown Motel on route 1&9 and pay in badly-forged 5 dollar bills, but the band from Kentucky. Yup Kentucky. I first heard of the band from a mix tape I was given once. The tape had exactly one good song on it, Kiss My Fuckin’ Ass from these Kentucky lunatics. I spent a good month tracking them down and bought pretty much all they ever put out, which was not a whole hell of a lot, mostly 7 inches from record labels like Devil Doll, Crypt and Sack O Shit.
This Double CD is more or less complete. It follows the band through their 7 stages with each’s various members. And it likewise follows the band’s development (if you wanna call it that) from loud crashing garage punk band to loud crashing garage metal band. It’s made up of equal parts badly-recorded studio tracks interspersed with Hammer Horror film lines and one which is, I think, of Jerry Lee Lewis threatening somebody with bodily harm and equally badly recorded live shit, complete with crowd taunts (“ya’ll are hardly worth my time” the singer yells at one point. That’s awesome.) But none of this shit makes any difference, just needs to be noted.
What matters is, this is the lowest-brow, most rocking shit you are likely to find. Imagine if Married With Children was a band, only Peg and Kelly were always topless and Al could play over-amped guitar like a madman. And Bud was dead. That’s what this bizness is like. It rocks; furiously, drunkenly, straight retardedly. Every song Hookers did make it clear exactly what they were about and I don’t suspect them of posing for a second. The lyrics are about fucking, drinking, smoking, also about the Devil and monsters or something. There is also a lot of confused-ass Celto-Norse mythology, like the title of the collection for example. What are they talking about? There are also a couple songs where they are gonna kick somebody’s ass it seems like, so everybody better watch it. None of it makes much sense and, as mentioned before, it was all recorded as though the band didn’t give a shit. Because I’m sure they did not. And you shouldn’t either.
Lyrics are important. Cleverness and audio integrity are real good. But albums that make you feel like you are 15 beers into what promises to be a bad-but-memorable night are fucking necessary.
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