Satellite town sleaze-rock never got better than Thee Hypnotics and Penthouse. If their timing was as good as their wardrobes both would now be hangin' with peak period Keef at the crossroads, changing blood from state to state. Black Moses boast Hypnotics singer Jim Jones and Penthouse bass outlaw Graham among their ranks. If rock 'n' roll was turned into a Wild West Theme Park, these would be the two black clad strangers paid to swagger through the bar saloon doors. Their dirty engine starts up. Jim scowls. He knows he's operating in a dirty business, it's just the only one he knows.
From the Mississippi via High Wycombe, he dredges up a voice equal parts Steve Tyler and Steve Tyler. It's the sound Bobby Gillespie hears when he's singing 'Rocks' in his dreams. Songs are summarily dismissed like old girlfriends given the cold shoulder because, well, it's the cool thing to do. Titles are superfluous. They should all be called 'Down In The Hole'.
The first receives no mercy. The second is left waiting at the altar. You can't describe what they do to the third one. The crowd, finally stirred from a coma only explainable by the Rhopynol Cocktails on offer at the bar, rouse themselves to cheer for an encore. They launch into a primal blues cataclysm which sounds like it's called 'Bleed'. Jim's guitar howls, pleading for mercy. Graham thrashes his bass in a way only achievable by someone who refuses to acknowledge that he's playing the instrument at all, and in fact refers to it as his 'fat guitar'. Somewhere, in downtown LA, Chris Robinson shivers. Slash, momentarily distracted from constructing a spliff the size of Europe, breaks involuntarily into a smile.
Black Moses. They're coming for ya.
Jason Fox
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