Machinegun Kelly – White Line Offside
MACHINEGUN KELLY
White Line Offside (1995 Megarock Records / 2004 Perris Records)
Original release cover (1995)
Re-release Cover (2004)
Tracklist:
1) Hell Suicide
2) White Line Offside
3) Wild Sodom
4) Crackhouse
5) Sister Sin
6) Bullshit City
7) Strange Kind Of Love
8) Kikk That Habbit
9) Rosalie *
10) Psycho Kid
11) Loosers Garden
* Missing from the 2004 re-release.
Lineup:
Andy Pierce: Vocals
Cliff: Guitar
Lefty: Bass
Stanley: Drums
After the sadly demise of Nasty Idols, maybe the most important
Swedish glam / sleaze metal band ever, Andy Pierce decided to try it
again and form a new band of sleazy and raunchy rock n’ roll: Machinegun
Kelly.
The disc has it’s clear influences in sleaze metal acts like early LA
Guns and Guns n’ Roses, Skid Row, Shotgun Messiah, in the classic punk
sound of Ramones and New York Dolls and a bit of hardcore, all of it
with a nasty and very heavy attitude and sound. Guitarist Cliff Lundberg
had a long career in hardcore punk: he played in important bands like
Driller Killer, Anti Cimex and Moderat Likvidation and his guitar
playing has kept traces of this earlier experiences. In some ways the
global sound follows the road paved with the “Vicious” album by Nasty
Idols, only with wider influences and more focused songwriting.
Pure, raw energy and unchained anger are maybe the best words to
describe this great album, filled with killer songs and devoid of any
fillers.
Pierce’s rude vocals and sinister charisma plus excellent songwriting,
direct, focused and without any frills, are the main driving forces
behind the album. The only weak side can be found in the drumming, which
sometimes isn’t at par with the intensity of the songs and a bit weak.
The songs are pretty varied, even if they all share the same flame
behind them: we range from the Vicious era Nasty Idols-like Hell
Suicide, to the punkish and catchy Sister Sin; from the Guns n’ Roses
(with a ton of gasoline added) mid tempo White Line Offside to the
dramatic and intense Rosalie, a beautiful, mature and haunting power
ballad (with no concession to unnecessary sugar) about the sad demise of
a suicidal girl, who was a close friend to Pierce. Rosalie was
strangely excluded from the 2004 reissue of the album, a real pity
because it’s one of the best songs in the album.
Lyrically, the disc is harsh, nihilistic and dark: the main themes
are self destruction with drugs and alcohol, the disgust for a society
perceived as a lie (the beautiful bullshit city), intense and
animalistic sex drive and sex, crazyness. Even if the lyrics are very
simple, they leave a mark because they pair very well with the songs and
because of their simple and unadorned intensity.
Overall, this album surely is among the best released in it’s genre
in the ’90s and one of the most intense as well. It was also pretty much
ahead of the times, since it heavily anticipated and influenced the
scandinavian revival of glam metal: bands like Crashdiet surely owe a
lot to the ideas and the music of this album. Be sure to get it, if you
like the genre!
Commercially, White Line Offside sold poorly because of the advent of
grunge (which in ’95 was rampant and more or less destroyed the sleaze
metal market) and the poor means of the little Megarock records. The
band also split a short time after recording the album because of
internal problems and clash with the record label.
A video was shot and released for the title track, but it was immediately banned from MTV because of it’s harsh content.
After the demise of the band, Andy Pierce embarked on a solo career,
which led to an album released in 1999, No Place for Late Regrets (which
I’m searching,
by the way), then to an hot metal-punk project with a no-compromise
attitude in 2002, the United Enemies, and then to the reunion of Nasty
Idols, which released a new album in 2009.
As a final note, I’m copying the notes that was written in the back
of the album under the title of each song in the original 1995 release:
Hell Suicide: About the dude with an attitude / Loud, wasted and rude…
White Line Offside: Doin’ his thing feelin’ fine / As long as he get’s his line
Wild Sodom: Pills over the hills
Crackhouse: House full of crack / It won’t kill he’ll be back
Sister Sin: She picks him up, brownstoned
Bullshit City: It doesn’t matter what shit you buy / If you can’t use it…kiss it goodbye
Strange Kind of Love: A pussy galore smash hit!
Kikk That Habbit: Shoeshine Billy and Mary Jane / Addicted to drugs, are they goin’ insane
Rosalie: Did she cut her wrists?
Psycho Kid: Hell is his place, can be everywhere / The U.S. or Sweden, we all get our share
Loosers Garden: Everyone is sick, addicted and wasted
SELECTED TRACKS:
White Line Offside
Bullshit City
Rosalie