Classic Rock rated the album 8/10 concluding “Never a dull day in Wildhearts Land, so job well and truly done here. And as the title implies, here’s a band with balls.

In the rest of the round-up, there is:

• an interview with Ginger following the RabaRock festival in Estonia with Free! magazine
• review in All Access Magazine
• review in Subba-Cultcha

Check out this post for some of the earlier reviews.

You can read some of them here (Links open in a new tab/window):

Hard Rock Hideout

Street Voice News

Rocker’s Basement

AllAccessMagazine.com

Rock Report

Whiskey-Soda – In German, but a translation is available here.

ChangeTheRecord.net

RoomThirteen.com

Subba-Cultcha.com – Awarded Release Of The Week.

Bearded Magazine

Incidentally, if you want to keep up with the countdown, a widget is available on The Wildhearts’ Myspace page.

Valor Del Corazon has had a great review from UK daily paper The Sun:

That The Wildhearts remain largely unheard of by the masses is one of the great travesties of British rock’n'roll.

Easily his most personal work to date, this is an eclectic journey that deserves to be shared. Ballsy rock, soulful ballads, funk, grandiose epics and country all feature, but the one constant is an untouchable talent for writing a great tune and an almighty riff. Nineteen tracks. 19 gems. Pure tortured genius. MS”

Also Darren Stockford (formerly of this website)’s webzine “She Didn’t Like Rock ‘n’ Roll” has an in-depth review

Read on for the full review…

For better, not worse, the Wildhearts may the least fashionable band in rock’n'roll: too metal for pop fans, too pop for metalheads, fun but necessarily funny. And they’ve made the catchiest hard-rock record you’ll hear this year.

Myriad line-up changes, drug madness, and soured record deals have led the Wildhearts to release only a handful of legit studio albums in their 14-year career, through their singles still routinely crash the U.K. Top 40. On Destroyed – which re-teams singer/guitarist Ginger with two of the guys who played on the band’s lone U.S. release, 1993′s Earth vs. the Wildhearts – they come off like a British version of another great singles band, Cheap Trick, especially since “Only Love” and “Top Of The World” are each a word away from being Cheap Trick titles, while yet another, “It’s All Up To Me” does a reversal on that band’s “It’s Up To You”.

Gearhead Records (first US home to the Hives) will release a raucous B-sides collection here in March, but Destroyed better displays Ginger mastery of the roaring riff and indelible refrain. The raging “Nexus Icon” begins with a distorted staccato howl decrying celebrity worship and segues into the disarmingly sweet- natured “Only Love,” which suggests the Beatles on steroids – or at least ephedrines. On “Someone That Won’t Let Me Go,” Ginger needs a lover who’s “Gonna make me feel I truly am the best that I can get,” and by the 2.10 mark, he’s delivering a thrilling pitch shift to rival the key change in “Livin’ On A Prayer.”

Things get ferocious with “Get Your Groove On,” a lockstep thrash featuring guest screams by the Darkness’ Justin Hawkins. But at heart Ginger is a lover man, and he saves his choicest words for “So Into You,” with witty self deprecation (“I like your taste in outfits/ But I love your taste in misfits”) and lets a Police-style interlude stands so close to the glammed-out crunch. If this is unfashionable, bring on the drum solos.

DOUG BROD – EXECUTIVE EDITOR SPIN
GRADE A

“If something started to go wrong, we’d just think, what would Iggy do?”

Ginger’s standing in the upstairs bar explaining the method behind his band’s madness. Two hours earlier they’d launched the starship SilverGinger in a manner so damned rude it’d have whipped the knickers off a nun given half a chance (it certainly whipped someone’s small black lacys off – they landed on stage, much to the delight of Conny and Ginger).

London has probably never seen a show like this in a club this size. With flashpots, glitterbombs, fireworks, and more bangs per minute than that fuzzy, overplayed vid you keep in the bottom of your underwear drawer, this was a show in the truest sense of the word. Even without the pyro, this would have been a spectacle of Spielbergian proportions. Great washes of white light rose up and reflected off the glitter paper that was littering the stage, making it look, from my vantage point in the balcony at least, as if the band were playing on a lake of something hot and glowing. They say that when you die and take the walk down that long, dark tunnel, you see a brilliant white light at the end beckoning you. Hmm, you thinking what I am? SilverGinger 5 are a band who’ll gladly take that stick out of your arse and poke it in your eye.

It wasn’t just the chlorine-like chemicals from the firepots that brought a tear to my peepers tonight, though (and boy, did those li’l devils sting). When Ginger threw his mic into the crowd and let us get on with it as the opening riff to 29 x The Pain started up, the Scala suddenly became a church, with music the preacher. “Give me old, give me new, let me know you feel it too.” It may have been one of the oldies as far as tonight’s set was concerned, but this really did feel like there was “a brave new world” just around the corner. “I’m up, how can I get down when I’ve got all my friends around?” Ginger gestured to the crowd and we knew exactly what he meant. Shortly afterwards, he launched into an impassioned speech, marvelling at the fact that the show had sold out without the aid of the press, promotion or a record company, and thanking the fans on the ‘Net who’d turned a dream into something he could actually touch.

Back in the bar, Ginger’s still glowing from the warmth of tonight’s show. He says that he always knew it was going to be a great night, but reading the messages of excitement posted on The Wildhearts Mailing List, and the numerous goodwill emails he’s had over the past couple of weeks, had pushed him to almost coronary-inducing levels of anticipation. There was no way that this could be anything other than one of the best shows of his life. Failure was not an option. And all, apparently, because of Iggy and the Stooges. A picture of the punk legends hanging at the back of the Scala bar reminded the band that, no matter what happened tonight, they shouldn’t let it bother them, the cry “what would Iggy do?” becoming a kind of pre-show mantra.

So, when he’d had enough of his first guitar, Ginger just took it off and chucked it into the audience, fetching Old Faithful (his sticker-covered friend) from the wings and carrying on as if nothing had happened. Mic problems? Just let go and let the crowd do the work. Guitar trouble? Just hurl the instrument to the floor and wait for it to come back fixed. There was a time when a guitar-less Ginger looked a bit uncomfortable on stage. Tonight, he prowled the stage as if he’d really always wanted to be a frontman after all, curling up into a ball during The Monkey Zoo (“a song about monkeys”) and screaming the middle-eight in a manner that would’ve made Arthur Janov proud.

Not that Ginger needs to worry too much about being the sole draw here. Even before guitarist Conny took over the lead vocals on Girls Are Better Than Boys, it was blindingly obvious that he’s made of quality frontman material too. Though his guitar seemed to be annoyingly low in the mix for the first half of the set, his personality and stage presence blasted their way through the light show and started ricocheting around the venue’s walls from lift-off. It was a pleasure to see a bona fide, long-haired, rock ‘n’ roll guitar hero doing his stuff. There ain’t too many of ‘em around these days (though they seem to breed ‘em in Sweden – S$666′s You Smell Canadian got an airing tonight in dedication), the life having been sucked out of the art by a decade of miserable munchkins who’d rather be creating “aural soundscapes” than lifting people’s hearts.

Bassist Jon Poole has quite an imposing presence too. Maybe it’s the shiny dome, maybe it’s the natty whistle. It might even be the way he throws himself with absolutely full force into his backing vocals (he appeared to be in his element on the harder numbers like Motorvate and Inglorious). ‘Course, like a lot of imposing stage presences, he turns out to be a nice guy (our brief conversation about footwear – he’s a Converse lover too – was enough to convince me that I should cut down on my mileage. He reckons he can make a pair last ten years. I’ve had my current pair for just two and they’re already coming apart at the seams). Visually, he may not be the long-haired rock ‘n’ roll reprobate that Ginger had in mind when he advertised the post earlier this year, but the weight of his reputation as someone who’ll do anything brings a bit of danger – or, some might say, randomness – to the band. Which is exactly what Doctor G ordered. Whether or not Jon’s inclusion in SG5 is a permanent arrangement (he’s still a Cardiac, and with the possibility of clashing commitments as the band picks up steam, I’d imagine that he’ll have to let go at some point), he’s already left a sizable mark.

And, at the end of the day, sizable marks are what this band are all about. All or nothing. Do or die. I’ve never met a casual Wildhearts fan, and judging by the super-charged atmosphere in the Scala this evening, I’m unlikely to meet a SilverGinger 5 fan who thinks “they’re all right, I s’pose.” Ginger keeps saying tonight that it’s because of the fervour of the fans that this thing’s taking flight. But, as we all know, it’s because of his songs – those tunes that weld themselves to our hearts, twisting our innards into strange shapes, and reminding us that, despite the daily crap, life really is special – that that fervour keeps on growing.

Waking up the next morning after a three-hour journey home to south London (don’t ask) and far too little sleep, I pull open the curtains to be greeted with a burst of sunshine and the bluest sky I’ve seen for months. There isn’t a cloud in sight. After weeks of floods and hurricanes, this is… weird.

But oh, so damned right.

Thanks to Clay for the photos (used with permission) – to see more of Clay’s Scala pix visit http://www.lyvmusic.co.uk/

There’s a scene in the 1988 movie John Lennon: Imagine in which a reporter from the New York Times takes to task the greatest songwriter of his generation for trying to do something more with his life than just twist and shout.

“I’m someone who used to admire you very much when you were in The Beatles,” she says, insinuating that was all he was worth.

“Well,” says Lennon, not missing a beat, “I’m sorry if you liked the old moptops, dear, and you thought I was very satirical and liked A Hard Day’s Night, but I’ve grown up and you obviously haven’t.”

For Ginger, ex of The Wildhearts, lest we forget, there have probably been more than a few moments like this over the past few years, moments when he’s felt like telling some of his more vocal detractors to get a life. Whichever way he turns, there’s always someone blocking his exit with a big sign reading: “When are The Wildhearts getting back together?”. To his credit, he hasn’t flipped out (a few well-aimed retorts don’t count). Instead, he’s calmly but forcefully walked his own path, penning some songs for his friends Backyard Babies, knocking several shades of shite out of greasy rock ‘n’ roll with Super$hit 666, and hooking up with Alex Kane, the original American psycho, for some ‘White Album’-style fun with Clam Abuse. For just under two years’ work, it’s not bad going.

And then, there’s SilverGinger 5.

Black Leather Mojo signals Ginger’s “proper” rebirth. This ain’t no side project, this is the real deal, the record that’s going to kick open doors he never even knew existed. At least that’s the plan. The music industry’s a funny old thing, so I’ve no idea where this album’s actually going to take him, but at the very least it’s going to knock the rock scene for six. I’m confident of that because Black Leather Mojo demonstrates perfectly how bland and unemotional 95 per cent of rock music actually is.

Believe it or not, there was a time when commercial rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t a filthy phrase but a reason to be genuinely excited. Think AC/DC. Think Cheap Trick. Think Mott The Hoople, Slade, the Raspberries. Think big guitars with even bigger tunes. It’s this period in musical history – when rock and pop happily shared the same bed and no one even noticed because it was so damned natural – from which BLM seems to take a lot of its inspiration. Sure, there are glimpses of other influences – Anyway But Maybe and I Wanna Be New mix their Trickisms with some catchy-as-hell, classic Metallica-style riffing – but the overall effect is a record that could quite happily be performed on Top Of The Pops (circa 1974) in its entirety. And it’d probably manage to get those guys in the tank tops dancing real good too.

You wanna party? Try on Girls Are Better Than Boys for size. Echoing the feelgood stomp of The Yo-Yo’s’ You Got Me Out Of My Mind, this raunchy, Slade-style rocker features some cutely observant lyrics. Basically a list of reasons why girls outrank boys (“they give you sleepless nights and their breath smells good in the morning / And they look better than you when they dress in your favourite gear”), it’s the fun rock ‘n’ roll side of John Lennon’s Woman (it’s true – I bet even Yoko “don’t piss on the seat of the toilet”). And it’d make a cracking first single.

Heck, there are potential singles galore here. From the riffmongous Divine Imperfection, with its AC/DC meets Exile era Stones vibe (hard rockin’ riffs, parpin’ horns and gospel singers, plus a scorchin’ lead geetar break, the likes of which I’ve not heard in many a long year), to (Whatever Happened To) Rock ‘N’ Roll Girls, with its camp, showy opening and Cheap Trick-like descending melody, or even the southern fried Inside Out (country radio here we come?), there are songs here for everyone. And all of ‘em produced to divine (im)perfection.

Sound-wise, BLM delivers in buckets. In a word? Try ‘widescreen’. If this was a movie, it’d be 2001: A Space Odyssey (minus the men in monkey suits, natch). It’s a cathedral of sound, both dense and vast – at times there’s so much going on in the arrangements you have to wonder if Phil Spector didn’t sneak into the studio while producer Tim Smith was in the loo and have a bit of a twiddle. It’s also as warm as a pair of knitted underpants.

One of the joys of Ginger’s music, for me, is its ability to press all the right emotional buttons. I’ve always thought that his comments about Stop Thinking being a “comedy record” belittled the emotional core of that album. The Chicken Song is a comedy record. There’s Always Someone More Fucked Up Than You is five weeks’ worth of therapy, and I appreciate it.

Thankfully, BLM doesn’t come equipped with its own get-out clause. And it feels all the better for it. The highs are higher than anything Ginger’s ever recorded before. He’s always had a knack for knowing exactly when to change key, when to let rip with another chorus, when to take the song in another direction. There’s never any wastage, and everything is maximum impact.

You can almost see the emotion being wrung out of these songs as they’re performed. As the guitar solo kicks in on Church Of The Broken Hearted, I can feel my stomach rise up toward my chest. It’s like riding the best damned rollercoaster in the world. Rock ‘N’ Roll Girls has a key change towards the end that gives me a head rush so joyous I have difficulty staying upright. And the lyrical rawness of The Monkey Zoo touches places only Ian Hunter’s Michael Picasso has managed to touch in recent years. Constructed around three verses, beginning “sex”, “death” and “life”, this lush, powerfully arranged ballad aches with 35 years of human experience. It hurts. Like life, it’s meant to.

Aw, the fact is, I could enthuse about this album ’til the sky falls in, but none of it means anything. As Nick Kent never said, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Words are completely meaningless because you can never accurately describe what an orgasm feels like. The best way to find out is to have yourself some sex. (Ooh, I love it when I talk dirty.)

Back in black. With his mojo working. The past was great but the future’s gonna be even greater.

Trust me. It’s better with leather.

“So, Ginger, when are The Wildhearts getting back together?”

Running Ginger’s web site, acting as a go between for the fans and the artist formerly known as Mr Wildheart, me and Tara get to read an awful lot of letters that feature this question. Sometimes it’s the whole point, other times it’s a sneaky PS. It’s understandable, I suppose. The Wildhearts changed people’s lives. They were more than a rock ‘n’ roll band, they were a way of life; a year zero for people fed up with being force fed mediocrity. But… aw, come on, folks, the band split up a year and a half ago, it’s time to move on. There’s no mileage to be gained in sitting on your backside waiting for the past to overtake you. Don’t you wanna be, y’know, surprised?

I think it’s safe to say that the Clam Abuse album came as a bit of a surprise, even to its makers. Apparently, the condom split while Ginger and ex-Life, Sex And Death guitarist Alex Kane were having a quick knee trembler in preparation for the fully blown shagfest that is to be the Silver Ginger album. The resultant offspring was christened Stop Thinking, for obvious reasons.

Taking their cue from the inspired lunacy of mid-to-late period Beatles albums, Ginger and Alex knocked up some amazing songs in a broad range of styles (including country and western, Europop, opera, and, of course, ‘Beatlesque’), and spent just one month recording and mixing the record. A mere two months later, it was in the shops – three months from start to finish; an amazing achievement in the 1990s, though something that Ginger has wanted to do for quite some time (he was talking about releasing two or three albums a year as far back as The Wildhearts’ debut).

And now… this. The tour. 15 dates around the UK, with the one-man Tyla show in support – an excellent bill for both band and fans. Tyla, on his first lengthy UK jaunt for many a year, not only pulls in a few extra punters (and, of course, gets some decent exposure in front of a Clam Abuse audience), but also provides the ideal drinking buddy for Ginger. Everyone’s a winner, baby.

Naturally, impatient little scamps that we are, me and Tara decide we can’t wait ’til the final London date, and make our way down to Portsmouth to catch the second night of the tour. When we arrive, around 6 pm, we poke our heads around the door to Tyla’s dressing room, where we find Tyla, Ginger and – the first surprise of the night – Danny McCormack, sitting around having a quiet booze.

Danny is his usual chirpy self, anecdotes tumbling from his lips at the rate of one a minute as he puffs on a slim cigar. It’s impossible to be in Danny’s company and not feel completely at ease. The guy is on a constant high. He’s here tonight mainly to lend Ginger some moral support, though he also gets involved in the evening’s entertainment, playing acoustic guitar on the first and last songs in Tyla’s set (Billy Two Rivers and Only Girl I Ever Loved). His presence gives everyone, both on- and offstage, a massive lift.

Ginger spends about 20 minutes soundchecking, playing mostly off-the-cuff blues licks. For some strange reason, he’s wrapped a scarf around his mouth, outlaw-style. As I move in to take some pictures, he starts posing.

“That’s the one!” I say, referring to his ‘devil sign’ rock star pose. “That’s the cover of the next album!”

“Yeah!” he shoots back. “I dunno whose next album…”

Alex arrives a short while later, and the pair run through a few songs with the backing tapes. It’s weird at first, hearing a full band but seeing just two guitarists. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to get used to it, though. Once the wall of sound hits you and the tunes start to fry your brain, you quickly forget that half of what you’re hearing is on tape. In less talented hands, this could be a complete nightmare. Instead, it’s… a very pleasant dream. The half dozen of us who are standing around watching the soundcheck are singing along like it’s a proper gig. I shoot Danny a huge grin across the room. He catches and returns it. Let the madness begin.

And madness this surely is. With their faces whited up in a ‘scary clown’ stylee, Ginger and Alex become Clam Savage and Clint Abuse, the two ringmasters in a circus that prides itself on providing the best entertainment seven quid (plus bar bill) can buy.

The thing I find most disconcerting – at first anyway – is the fact that Clam and Clint really are characters. This isn’t Ginger and Alex, it’s performance – almost theatre. For part of the set, Clam has an American accent when talking, and there’s plenty of vocal sparring between the two musicians. I’m not sure how much of it’s rehearsed and how much is spontaneous. Some of it’s indecipherable (to my ears, anyway), though it’s easy to pick up on the spirit of what’s being said. Clam seems to slip back into Geordie for a while, before picking up the American accent again – most noticeable when urging a woman in the crowd to “touch my guitar, baby…You can touch my guitar, baby… Oh, oh, OH MY GOD!”

Most of the album is played (no Barney Sings The Blues, natch), along with a newie (the Alex-penned Let’s Get It On), a cover (Blue Oyster Cult’s Godzilla), and three Wildhearts B-sides (Give The Girl A Gun, Skychaser High and Beautiful Thing You). And if you’re wondering how they pull off Unlucky In Love, with its female perspective lyric, wonder no more. Clam sings it, substituting all the “I”s with “she”s. Simple but effective.

The percussion on the Wildhearts songs sounds a bit clanky and basic, having been rerecorded for this tour, but the backing tapes for the Clam Abuse tracks sound great. They aren’t straight steals from the album either. For instance, set opener She’s So Taboo goes off into an extended ‘jam’ at the end. This gives the gig more of a ‘live’ feel than simply playing along with the standard, released version of the track would. A lot of work’s obviously gone into making the show as close to the spirit of a totally live gig as possible.

Bearing in mind that this is only the second time Clam Abuse have played live in front of an audience, tonight’s show works better than it has any right to. The crowd are amazingly receptive to the new stuff (‘amazingly’ because the album was only released the day before), and interact with the band as if they’ve been following them for years (one excited chappy grabbing the microphone and shouting “rock ‘n’ fuckin’ roll!” repeatedly as the ‘Buse bring Beautiful Thing You to an end). OK, so there’s not much dancing down the front (save for the people who come crashing through from the back whenever a Wildhearts song gets an airing – jeez, have some fuggin’ respect for your fellow gig goer, people!), but that’ll come.

For me, this feels like a major homecoming. It may sound like hippy-dippy bullshit to you, but as the closing strains of There’s Always Someone More Fucked Up Than You echo around the building, I swear get an almost overwhelming feeling of love, warmth and happiness.

Me and Tara head backstage to grab our bag, popping in to say goodbye to everyone before we head back to our hotel. It’s been a long day, and I’m drunker than I’ve been in a good while. We find Ginger sitting flaked out on the sofa in Tyla’s dressing room. I ask him how it was for him. The gist of his answer is “great, but weird.” I don’t think he’s quite taken it all in yet. This is just the start of brand new adventure.

Before I get a chance to tell Ginger what I thought of it all, Danny comes in, reaches for an unopened family pack of salted peanuts, unzips himself and dips his trouser snake into the bag, making a joke about nuts which inspires more groans than giggles.

“Don’t tell Tyla,” says Danny, laughing. “He’ll probably come in and eat ‘em!”

I can’t help wondering about the two egg mayo sandwiches I’d pinched from the very same rider earlier in the evening… nah. I mean, he wouldn’t… would he? Aw, stop thinking.

Clam Abuse, I think I love you.

Pictures: Darren Stockford