Australian rock bands have done great things (like accrue Grammys and iPod commercial rights) trading on nostalgia the last few years. So while Sabbath and Led Zeppelin (Wolfmother) and Iggy Pop and the Faces (Jet) were the references on those releases, it’s all 1988 on the Sunset strip at Oxford Art Factory this evening. The Hell City Glamours are checking off everyone from Faster Pussycat to the New York Dolls and the older influences which would eventually trickle down to glam and sleaze metal: the early Rolling Stones and Bowie. Even the Black Crows get a look in with a dash of AC/DC and you’ve got pretty much the only purveyors of this (critically maligned) genre in the country, here tonight to launch their debut album.
When Hell City Glamours finally took the stage to the rapturous reception of a room full of fans and family (apart from one heckler in a Status Quo t-shirt calling for “some FACES!” – make sense of that), it was clear this was their night. All long limbs, long hair and tattoos, they also were fans of the long tradition of front men wearing their own band’s shirt (hello Iron Maiden, Henry Rollins). They command attention with a big sound and a good deal of swagger, the right smattering of solos and doubled up guitar riffs, care of two guitarist stomping theatrically around the stage.
I will not pretend to know much of anything about the Hell City Glamours, other than that they’ve been plying their trade around town a good few years, and it shows. They do what they do very, very well; seriously, but with enough cheekiness to undercut the ridiculousness of their genre. Launching their debut record was cause for celebration on their part, and HCG tore up the stage for an adoring crowd who ate it up to the last of the three song encore. The stand out for me with it’s opening cowbell groove recalling Honky Tonk Woman, was Worst Kind of Man, a sleazy number with a great riff. But if there’s anything on the record to break HCG out of the hard rock/glam ghetto and into the larger consciousness, will be a tall order.
A killer breakthrough is probably not the point, nor a fair thing to expect of a debut album. HCG seemed just to be very satisfied with themselves to have a record out at all, and that’s all rock and roll is about. There’s nothing too rock about launching your record via iPod commercial. So, while we wait for Axl “And 23 Other Guys, None of Them Slash” Rose to release the near mythic Chinese Democracy and make do with Motley Crue’s lacklustre attempts at recapturing Dr Feelgood on The Saints of Los Angeles, while KISS threaten to never record again as the music industry is dead and buried, having Hell City Glamours around to keep the local scene alive – injecting some fun into what can be an extremely self-serious enterprise – can only be cause to get wasted and flash the person standing next to you. If that’s what you’re into. If it feels good, do it.
*I do a pretty balls job of living up to this, sorry Mum.
