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The Reds
at NYC's RITZ |
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| Some bands have all the luck. And some bands have none. The Reds, a punky metal foursome |
| from Philadelphia with the patience of saints and the sound of a construction crew in Hell, have |
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| little more than others but still far less than most. After two moderately successful independent singles, |
| they said "I do" to A&M in 1979, leading the company's first rush of new wave signings after the debut |
| upset victories of the Police and Joe Jackson. But A&M's promotion of The Reds a nine song, molten |
| green-vinyl slab of atomic guitar fuzz and primal bawling that suggested Cheap Trick in analysis or |
| Joy Division in a barroom brawl - was less than zero. The Reds are now into their third manager in |
| five years, can barely get arrested in their hometown (where snotty upstarts are already dismissing them |
| as old wave) and can only get their records released by the small but hardy Stony Plain label in Canada. |
But their misfortune has only made the Reds meaner. Led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Rick Shaffer's |
| ultra-distortion chords and raw fingernails-down-the-blackboard yell, the band recently beat a sparse, |
| lethargic Tuesday night crowd at New York's Ritz senseless with a menacing confidence and ferocious |
| passion barely contained by the grooves of their last two albums, Stronger Silence and last year's Fatal |
| Slide. Bruce Cohen pushed his keyboards into overdrive, the serrated Suicide-like edge of his synth |
| drawing blood from songs as hard as the three-minute bullet "Gone Too Far" and mutant Gothic shuffle |
| "Slippin' So Tight." In the backfield, drummer Tommy Geddes and bassist Jim Peters (who bears a |
| distinct resemblance in looks and the smart muscular clip of his playing to Jefferson/Tuna/SVT thumper |
| Jack Casady) hammer down like an anvil rhythm chorus, anchoring to ground zero rock n' roll Shaffer's |
| flights of rage. |
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What probably flusters A&R departments is that the Reds stand proud and un compromising at a noisy |
| disorienting intersection of big arena heavy metal and faster-louder hard-core punk. Like a tightly wired |
| Raw Power Stooges, with Rick Shaffer substituting pointed anger and shattered-mirror screams for |
| overblown Iggy excess, they combine fat power chords and dentist drill riffs - real AC/DC stuff - with brute |
| breathless beat attacks, while Bruce Cohen deftly triggers sound-effects punctuation and paints dark |
| keyboard brushstrokes with the wily atmospheric approach of Roxy-era Eno. And in Shaffer, the Reds have |
| a writer who knows how to color his white noise with melody and rhythmic tone. Of the two new songs in the |
| band's Ritz set, "All So Wrong" opened with a migraine tribal rumble and the guitar and keyboards in a police |
| siren duet before breaking into a frantic Ramones-ish dash. Cohen's organ rippling under Shaffer's pained |
| vocal. "Terror In My Heart" was harsh aggro-funk, a slice of heavy metal New Order with a jungle drum |
| boogie distantly related to Peter Gabriel's current ethnic-bop experiments. |
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"Okay, it's all rockers from here on out," cracked Shaffer about two-thirds of the way through the show. |
| And he wasn't kidding. "You Don't Know" from Fatal Slide, "Do You Play The Game" from the criminally |
| underrecognized Stronger Silence and finally "Victims" and "Self Reduction" from that A&M debut - all |
| whiplash rockers, heavy enough for the hardiest headbanger, yet powered by a pos-punk urgency and |
| lyrical frankness that reaches peak intensity in the manic crescendo of "Self Reduction," with Shaffer's voice |
| exploding in metallic shards of horror against a hypnotic synth triplet as his guitar goes into freak-out gear. |
The Reds are not America's only underground warriors in distress, but for my money, they are among |
the best. The Reds deserve your green; you need the experience. A fair trade, I'd say.
• David Fricke
MUSICIAN MAGAZINE |
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