When it comes to testifying to the power and glory of rock’n’roll, very few bands have topped The Kiss Offs on their sophomore LP, 2001’s Rock Bottom. It’s a veritable love letter to the “sweet, sweet, sweet rock’n’roll” in which they place their “faith, love, and hope,” as they sing in “Broken Fingers for Talented Singers,” which they dedicate to “young girls age 10 to 21/Singing screaming the words to ‘Born to Run.’”
Lead singer Philip Niemeyer’s snotty vocals may lead to suspicions of irony, but he’s in deadly earnest. He’s a believer in “The Power of Rock’n’Roll” as a life force, and the band’s legendarily chaotic live shows proved he and the rest of the band were ready, willing, and able to fold, spindle, and mutilate themselves to demonstrate their allegiance to smart but primitive garage punk. “I can rock like a mountain!” cries fellow vocalist Katey Jones in one song, and by God, she can.
Everybody has one: a band they love that absolutely no one else knows about. Trying to spread the word is a hopeless endeavor, leaving said poor solitary missionary to lead a lonely existence, embittered that no one else is struck dumb by a genius that is self-evident. Well, that’s how I feel about The Kiss Offs. I don’t remember where or why I bought the Austin, Texas quintet’s 2001 LP Rock Bottom, but I love them and think everyone else should love them too. I think they should be bigger than the Rolling Stones. I’ve told people this. “The Kiss Offs should be bigger than the Rolling Stones!” I’ve cried. They just look at me like I’m insane.
But I don’t care. I know what I know. And what I know is that Rock Bottom is a great album, from the guy on the cover showing off the ass of his black pleather pants to the relentless drive and great handclaps of “Love You Hardcore,” to say nothing of the wonderful vocal give and take of Niemeyer and Jones. If nobody understands you, they sing, rock’n’roll does; “So you can’t sing/Then scream and shout/Cuz if it’s in ya, its gotta come out/Three chords are great/But one will do,” sings Niemeyer, and as a rock aesthetic it’s unimpeachable.
“Let Me Find the Good In You” is driven, at autobahn speeds, by guitar and cheap keyboard, and Niemeyer and Jones sing it together. It’s one of their rare tunes that isn’t about rock’n’roll, but it’s about one of their other favorite subjects: kissing. And it rocks, especially when the keyboard and guitar share a moment of dissonance, and when both singers repeat, “With your eyes closed” as the guitar ramps up and the drums crash. “Love You Hardcore” leaps out of the starting gates and has the propulsion of The Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner,” and features Niemeyer singing about “holding hands in the record store” and repeating, “Love you hardcore/Cuz you never ever ever ever ever failed to treat me right.” It’s a catchy as all hell break-up song, and features a great guitar solo, and I just listened to it five times in a row and it brought a smile to my face every time.
“Broken Fingers for Talented Singers” is an anthem about the saving power of rock’n’roll and features some great back and forth between Niemeyer and Jones on vocals. The guitars are loud and there’s a cheesy organ solo followed by a cheesy guitar solo followed by a quieter section and the song is, as I noted earlier, dedicated to all those lonely teen girls in their lonely teen rooms all alone with their loneliness, saved only by the music coming out of their radios. And the Kiss Offs hope that the songs are there for those girls, just as they were there for them. “We Can Work It Out” features frenetic vocals, one very distorted guitar, some dynamite power chords, and more breaking of the speed limit. The lyrics—unlike the rest of the LP—don’t particularly move me, but the song’s hard edge, guitar feedback, and general blitzkrieg approach keep me coming back to it.
“Mmm Mmm Mmm” boasts a super-catchy melody and is another saliva-driven salute to the act of kissing, and it’s hard to beat Katey Jones’, “Yes it’s true/I love you!” or Niemeyer’s deadpan “Kiss kiss.” There’s some cool guitar shredding too, as the band supports Jones as she sings about how she likes all kinds of things, but prefers “the sweet taste of you.” “The Freedom of Rock” also has an infectious melody, to say nothing of a rock steady rhythm section, and cryptically opens with some super-distorted guitar followed by Niemeyer singing, “When they found me I was bleeding in the dirt/And when they found me I was lying upside down.” I suppose he’s singing about the physical costs of playing rock’n’roll, but who knows. Later he sings, “I can’t really sing, but you know/I give it my all,” and I’ll be damned if I’ve ever heard a better description of what makes rock music so special. It’s a simple matter, they sing, of washing the stains from your clothes, the blood from your skin, and the tears from your eyes, and it reminds me of the guy who wrote, “Writing is easy; you just open up a vein and bleed.”
The great “Prolonged Adolescence” opens with organ and guitar and is a marvelous salute to never growing up, but instead to staying “up all night” to hear your favorite band. The power chords crunch as Niemeyer and Jones repeat, “Uh, uh, uh, etc.” “We can ride our three-speed bikes, oh up all night” they sing, and you can practically feel the wind going through your hair as they speed from one club to another, saying fuck you to steady jobs and the stultifying rigors of adulthood. The LP closes with the four-part “Pleather Pantz,” which opens with “Cut Your Pretty Face,” a powerhouse rocker with big guitars and one cool organ riff in which Niemeyer declares he’s going to “cut your pretty face, child.” The band then goes into a slow and uncharacteristically atmospheric instrumental, which I assume constitutes the tune “Studio Headphones.” In “The Power of Rock’n’Roll” Niemeyer proceeds to “surrender to the power of rock’n’roll,” with Jones throwing in and the intensity level rising as Niemeyer sings, “Hey boy/Take off that white t-shirt/And fly it over, uh, over your head/Like a flag of truce.” The band then kicks down the door Who-style, with Niemeyer and Jones singing wildly before Niemeyer repeats, “Let it bleed” as the band reprises, with a secret agent guitar, “Cut Your Pretty Face,” after which it presumably jets off on their three-speeds to catch another great band to surrender to.
Rock Bottom is greatness in the raw and one of my favorite rock’n’roll albums of all time because it perfectly encapsulates the stakes of being in or loving a rock’n’roll band. I have never forgiven the Rolling Stones for singing, “It’s only rock ’n roll,” because the music has the power to save and transform your life. The Kiss Offs take Lou Reed’s “Her life was saved by rock’n’roll” and run with it because they believe it, unlike those jaded old toads in the Stones. Their humor and commitment are palpable on Rock Bottom, and as I said previously, I cannot think of a more passionate love letter to rock than Rock Bottom. I’ve been listening to this album for 15 years now, and it has not let me down once. Not once. It doesn’t make me feel young again when I listen to it; I AM young again. And sitting in my bedroom, singing and screaming to Born to Run. Let it bleed, indeed. Listening to Rock Bottom is like opening a vein, and having liquid gold pour out, all over your black pleather pants. Love you hardcore!
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
