KICK, 'KICK' (private press, 1980)
In which I offer zero excuse for my absence and give up any semblance of a regular posting schedule and instead commit to continue to upload retarded hard rock and heavy metal records as I find them or, as in the case of Kick, they find me.
People make up fake genres all the time - ye-ye, acid-folk, biker-punk. And if they can get away with it then so can I. ...cos - the way I see it - KICK - along with mono-syllabic cross-coast plasma brothers BLOOD - may be the torch-bearing vanguard of 1980s BEACH METAL! I'll scan in the back cover tomorrow at work (NO I WON'T!), but you should see 'em: not one, but TWO dudes in creased white chinos, matching color flying V, one dude with a sailboat on his shirt, everybody with patented business-casual styled coiffs. All centered against a black and white backdrop of tasty waves.
Kick get mega credit for rocking so hard and keeping things t-totally beach-centric from their inland home-base of Atascadero as well as for parodying the Annie soundtrack with their cover-art AND - not least - for including the word 'HOT, 'ROCK' or 'ROCKER' in three out of the eight tunes on offer: all of which move in a pomp/late 70s hard rock direction akin to early RATT and a million other opening-act, satin-jacket scuzz-dispensers.
That said, KICK's lone LP smokes pretty much all of the way through; the dedication to their craft attentively reflected in the AUTOGRAPHS my copy bears. Lead vocalist Chuck Lynch states 'I LIKE ROCK N ROLL HOPE YOU ENJOY IT!' Thanks Chuck, I will and I do! Lead guitarist Ed Blackburn advises that the listener and former owner of this record might perhaps 'ROCK IT OUT!' Huh - I might just do that, Eddie; thanks! Drummer Vaughn CASTLE, on the other hand, is more succinct, simply signing his obviously fake and awesome name.
'KICK' is beer-and-beach, top-down-turf-and-surf satisfaction, the only misstep arriving in the form of the proggy, one-bong-hit-too-many 'Wake Me When It's Over.' Kick have no business talking or playing for over six minutes at a stretch, but they do it anyway; use this track as a piss-break or pop out to check the mail and you'll be fine.
Found this record for the sum of one dollar in a flea-market in Meridian, MS. when I should have been visiting my aged grandmother. Well, I'm no Gram Parsons, but in his immortal cornpone accent, I'll dedicate this blog:
THIS ONE'S FER YOU GRANMA!
UPDATE: Perhaps fittingly, moments after typing this blog post I spilled half a can of Coors Light over this record. Where was my autograph warning to drink responsibly guys?!??!
'LOVE HOT'
'ROCK 'N' ROLL RAMPAGE'
'JUST FOR YOU'
'GONNA BE A ROCKER'
'HOKY POKY MAMA'
'IF I SAIL AWAY'
'WAKE ME WHEN IT'S OVER'
'ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD'
