Search - Swingin Neckbreakers :: Live for Buzz

The greatest '90s rock'n'roll album you never heard

Fran Fried | Fresno, Ca. United States | 02/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It ticks me off, drives me NUTS!, when people say "rock is dying" and things like that -- especially when most of the best rock'n'roll of the '90s and beyond never even got the chance to be heard on the right two-thirds of the FM dial (though now Steven Van Zandt is doing his damndest with his "Little Steven's Underground Garage" show). Take the garage underground, for example. Until Van Zandt, the only place you could hear a lot of the great contemporary stuff was on college/community stations, or if you were plugged into the loop and saw the bands on stage.

Exhibit A: "Live for Buzz," the 1993 debut album by the mighty trio from Trenton, N.J., The Swingin' Neckbreakers -- one of the best bands the three-decades-old garage scene ever produced. The group has it all; a killer name (taken from old pro wrestler Ken Patera's signature move), most excellent taste in remakes (read on), solid guitar bashing (Don "Shaggy" Snook for the first two of their four albums to date, Jeff Jefferson since), a drummer (John Jorgenson) who puts Bamm-Bamm Rubble to shame -- and a fiery frontman (John's brother Tom Jorgensen, the bassist) who can take the "sat" out of "Saturday night" with one shout into his microphone, be it live or in the studio. And at 6-foot-something, with a mouth big enough to give Steven Tyler a run, Tom looks ready to swallow his big ol' industrial-strength mic whole -- if he doesn't scream it into oblivion first.

"Live for Buzz" was a revelation to garageheads in the early '90s, and it hasn't aged much since (even if we have). This is still a disc powerful enough to shake a few neck bolts and lower vetrebrae loose and send you home hoarse, creaky knees pulverized, by the time you're done dancing to it. Their cover songs are so obscure by mainstream standards (even a Kinks tune, "I Took My Baby Home") that they've had no trouble making them their own: "Boss Hoss" by The Sonics, "Thinkin' Man's Girl" by Lord Luther, "The Girl Can't Dance" by Bunker Hill, "Same All Over the World" by '60s Connecticut teen band The Squires, "Shake It Some More" by Tony Sheridan. And their originals ("You," "Little Pink Medicine," "Take Your Life" and the title cut) are flat-out incendiary.

When the "industry" was pushing "grunge" down our throats in the early '90s, I was forcing it right back up -- and listening to the Neckbreakers and their kindred souls instead. This was where it was at -- and still is. I want fire, passion and melody from my rock'n'roll -- no moaning, groaning, contrived, heartless mnelodrama -- and this was the most fiery and passionate and ass-shaking rock'n'roll album of the entire '90s. And it hasn't aged a day in 12 years."