Vegas Kings

Vegas Kings
You’ll Never Work in This Town Again
The title of their latest album may be fantasy, but there’s nothing contrived about the Vegas Kings’ brand’s of snarling garage rock, writes PATRICK EMERY.

Hollywood producer Julia Phillips chose the title You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again for her account of the chemical and sexual proclivities of the Hollywood movie scene to capture the response of industry bigwigs to her titillating narrative.

Contemporaneous with Phillips’ scandalous publication, the executive arm of Joh Bjelke-Peterson’s Queensland government was invoking the motto with equal enthusiasm – and considerably greater force – to those vaguely associated with anti-establishment rhetoric. Forget being stood up for lunch; if you stepped out of line in the Bjelke-Peterson era (1968-1987), your entire livelihood was at risk.

If Brisbane’s Vegas Kings were living in the shadow of Bjelke-Peterson, it’s a fair bet their sharp-stick-in-the-eye psychedelic garage aesthetic would cause them to feature prominently in various lists of undesirable local layabouts and the odd magistrates court summons. The fact that the band exists at a time when dictatorial decree has given way to the more insidious partnership of public policy and private interests doesn’t necessarily make for a welcoming reception. It should, however, mean they suffer less physical attention from the local constabulary.

Whether the persecution suggested by the title of the Vegas Kings’ third album, You’ll Never Work in This Town Again, is real or imagined may be a matter of sociological conjecture. What’s obvious is that the album is corroborated testimony of the band’s commitment to the cause of sharp edged rock’n’roll.

The emphatic cry that launches ‘I Got This Thing’ commands attention; its guttural Ron Asheton-spiked riff grabs you by the throat like the community policing tactics of yore. ‘Good Soldier’ is a drag race in the suburbs to a soundtrack of Radio Birdman playing rockabilly covers, while the title track is more of the same, but with a dose of suburban ice to raise the psychotic stakes.

Despite its crystal-shattering guitar break, ‘Wait and See’ has, at its narrative heart, a plea for patience. That respite comes from the speeding country romance of ‘I Tried to Make You Mine’, before ‘Dog Complex’ (featuring the Butcher Birds’ Joanna Nilson on vocals) reduces the romantic dialectic to a spitting, snarling mass of musical pleasure. ‘Man’ takes facile male introspection discourse and smashes it into a shape; ‘Your Cousin’ screams out with love for Digger and the Pussycats’ brand of primitive rock; and ‘You Had Friends in High Places’ is what happens when the devil goes down south and ends up in Memphis watching The Oblivions tear a crowd to shreds. ‘When You Gonna Leave Me?’ shoves rockabilly and Stax soul into a garage-blues blender and ‘Six O’Clock Swill’ is a chemically affected country track that almost masks the alcoholic delirium of the lyrics.

Anti-corruption advocate Tony Fitzgerald made headlines recently claiming that Queensland had lost the plot on political reform. The Vegas Kings might just be indirect confirmation of his provocative thesis. If that’s the case, then maybe corruption has its positive side.



You’ll Never Work in This Town Again is out now on Mere Noise/MGM. - Mess and Noise

VEGAS KINGS
You’ll Never Work In This Town Again
(Mere Noise/MGM)
The Vegas Kings are here to make you lose your shit. This album sounds like they lost theirs already. Pushing all dials up to the setting marked ‘Sweet Freaking Jesus’ and not letting up until the ammunition is well and truly spent, You’ll Never Work In This Town Again sounds like Brisbane copping a swift kick in the balls. For about 35 minutes straight. Of course, being Brisbanites you should have known and expected this already. Vegas Kings shows are the stuff of legend, and this record delivers exactly as it should: ten gallons of blistering, sweaty fun.
Now, being an advocate of local awesomeness, you’d expect me to go off on a “why are the Vegas Kings not the biggest band in Australia?” diatribe. Well, I already know why; You’ll Never Work… is not a safe sounding album. It reeks of spilled beer and exploded amplifiers and car crashes and nuclear radiation. In all probability, this album will give you catastrophic organ failure and flay the skin off your face by the third, titular track. And that’s a shame, because on your way to the hospital you’d miss out on the mega-cool appearance of Butcher Birds bass lady Joanna Nilson singing on ‘Dog Complex’.
Local producer whiz Jeff Lovejoy has worked his signature magic on this, bringing out a raw, sharp edged shard of a recording that would cause a nasty puncture wound if stepped on. If the above description isn’t exciting enough without me using genre related adjectives and comparing Vegas Kings to some other bands, then stop reading, put the magazine down and go buy insurance or something. There’s nothing for you here.
(4 and a 1/2 stars) - Time Off Magazine

...undoubtably one of Australia's best (and loudest) live acts"... Rave Magazine (Live Review)

Vegas Kings are always going to be one of the most explosive Brisbane live bands. - Time Off Magazine - Live Review

“…from dirty dirges to sweat soaked stompers, Vegas Kings put a fresh twist on everything the blues ever stood for – 9 out of 10 Australian Guitar Magazine (album review)

“A raw and raucous, down and dirty, swamp rock debut from this Brisbane band who knows how to play it sweaty, loud and mean…” (8/10) BLUNT Magazine (Issue 22)

"... there's something about the grubby, sordid, engine revving sonic attack of this threesome that's music to my ears,
literally." Beat Magazine (Album of the Week - For Those Who Came in Late)

"Vegas Kings have managed the
almost impossible; capturing the raucous, rippling, incendiary, stomp of a live blues gig on wax (well, plastic).
Channelling everyone from Howlin Wolf to John Lee Hooker to The Black Keys to Credence Clearwater Revival - but eventually ending up in their own part of town - this band yowl like jilted men and play like the devil's sons!"
(INPRESS - Single Of The Week Review - "It's Alright")
- Various