Band : Long Dong Silver
Album title : Bound To Bleed
Label : Scarey Records
Distributor : Bertus - Suburban
Release date : Sept. 2008
Release : CD

Somewhere in 2002 the three Milano based Italian friends Datura Stramonium (vocals; not his real name, but who cares?), Mick (guitar; again a surname, for sure) and Black Mickey (bass; and yet again a guy goin’ under a taken name) got together to start a new band. All of ‘em had had a troubled past, and they were looking for the musical outlet to really represent themselves. One day the guitarist plays a viciously killer Garage Rock, Blues influenced riff, the bass kicks in, and the singer in a mad voice starts to sing the words…“It’s so sweet, so fuckin’ sweet, kickin’ your head on the cold concrete…”! Then silence…the threesome looked at each other in astonished bewilderment, and smiled…for they had found their niche (and they would work out that chance jam into their first song “Taste My Erection”).

After auditioning a couple of drummers they finally go for Carlo “The Hand Of Doom”, and a couple of months later they release their first 6-track EP, which soon starts getting positive reactions from both media and music fans. Live activity, started just after the release, sees audiences impressed with the band’s fury and energy, and the extremeness (the singer frequently hurting himself as a “purification process”…real blood on stage!) of the shows. Word gets around, and soon a reputation builds up: “True Rock ‘n’ Roll attitude”, “stage animals”, are but some of the descriptions than come about. More importantly, people speak of the madness…”the Rock Madness”, which becomes the band’s surname!
In 2004 LDS enters a studio to record 3 new songs, one of which used on the compilation album The Foreign Object, the other two on a split 7-inch EP with American band Filthy Jim…both issued through Scarey Records, a label owned by their good friend Carlo “Donkey Dick” Calemme. In early 2005 the original trio sent their drummer a-walking and invite an old friend, a weird character who can’t remember his name anymore and therefore goes by that of Memento…but obviously a good drummer! Soon after “The Rock Madness“ leaves Italy for a long European tour (actually, it were two of ‘em) with American bands The Supermen and Torg, who become good friends. But as Memento was unable to free himself from some obligations at the time, he was replaced for that period by Mone from the band The Leeches. In September 2007 the quartet (and I’m not sure whom was sitting on the drum stool at that moment) even makes it out to the US for a short American tour!

With Memento back in place, LDS returns to the studio to record their debut full-length in Spring 2008. The band’s music has been compared to being “…the missing link between Mondo Generator and Turbonegro with an heavy dose of old ‘70s Punk Rock alà Dead Boys…”. Personally, I’d like to add to that that there IS a strong Psychedelic side to the awkwardly attractive guitar play which is for sure gonna attract the attention of Stoner Rock fans. With lyrical topics dealing with stuff from the seedier side of life [drug abuse (album opener “Bound To Bleed”) and prostitution because of it (“Live To Get Fucked”), people’s eerie fascination with other people’s unlucky turns (“People Like It Rough”), the impossibility for a certain generation of youngsters to get from under the oppressive social and economical situations of their environment in order to improve their life (“Generation Masturbation”)…well, there’s simply enough bad stuff for younsters growing up in the suburbs of an industrial city like Milano to talk about in your songs…but also some items that come from the singer’s disturbed sexual fantasies, apparently (just check out “Spike Heels And Leather Mask” and, by the way, would it really be a coincidence that the band is named after a legendary porn star, whom also gave his name to a certain type of vibrator?). Weirdly enough, the boys apparently also have moments when words just don’t do it, and therefore the short “Hellephant” is simply instrumental!], the band gives us a somewhat disturbing insight to their ways of old. A somewhat “filthy” place we can only hope they grew out of thanks to the music and the success they’re currently generating with it!

The label recommends the album to any fans of the likes of Turbonegro, Bulemics, Mondo Generator, Dead Boys, Queens Of The Stone Age, Nitwitz, etc…and if you can find yourself within that musical realm I certainly would urge you to check out the songs the band posted at myspace.com/longdongsilvermadness (besides three tracks off the full-length, you’ll also find “Taste My Erection” off the band’s demo, and the two tracks off the split 7-inch with Filthy Jim). Well, even though the album is thoroughly enjoyable, I very much doubt it’s gonna make the boys enough money to survive on, so I can only hope they get the good fortune of making some dough on their live activities…and with the album only being distributed in our area 5 months after its release, we can only hope LDS (have you noticed that the abreviation of their name is an anagram of a certain drug…funny uh?) will be enabled to get out on a European tour (and why not beyond?) pretty soon (at the moment live activities are still concentrated on occasional gigs in the – local – Italian club scene)!

88/100

Tony.