My DNA's For Sale: A Beginner's Guide to Turbonegro, Pt. 2

"Most rock 'n' roll bands start as a riot but end up as a parody. We started up as a parody, but ended up as a revolution."
- Happy-Tom

Scandinavian Leather (2003, Burning Heart)

Circa 2003:

Circa now:


I hated this album when it came out in 2003, as a Turbo-obsessed college student. Me and my roommate/best bud/fellow Turbojugend spent hours ranting and raving about how much it licked ass (and not intentionally). Today, I'm more forgiving (seeing these songs in the live context helped), but the wretched opener "Wipe it 'Til it Bleeds" still serves as a microcosm of the album for me: a slicked-back, heavily polished, watered-down version of Apocalypse Dudes. It's got a lot of variety and more than a few great melodies, but it lacks A.D.'s chesthair and virility; it's like a giant penis made out of rare gems, flaccid in spite of its own majesty. It's not all bad though. The second song, "Gimme Some", should've been the opener, delivering the kind of dark, razor-edged bubblegum that Turbonegro has always excelled at. ("Locked Down" also recaptures some of the black magic of Apocalypse Dudes.) But the biggest problem with Scandinavian Leather--and the guy had, admittedly, been through a lot--is Hank's vocals. The man from hell just sounds tired as hell here, and the results feel phoned-in. At the end of the day, I think Scandinavian Leather would've worked better as an EP or a mini-album. It seems stretched too thin, like they should've held back longer before dropping another album; too much, too soon.




Party Animals (2005, Burning Heart)

"All My Friends are Dead" is one of the 10 best Turbonegro tunes of all time, a piledriving Red Army hulk of a song, catchy as hell, full of snake-charming Euroboy money shots--and best of all, Hank sounds like his old self again! I worried it was a fluke, but "Blow Me (Like the Wind)" is even wilder, sounding very much like Happy-Tom's description of the album: "It's like the best bits of the Rolling Stones mixed with the best bits of Black Flag, but composed by Shostakovich, Stalin's in-house composer." Unfortunately, the album never recaptures the heights of the first two songs, but it's a step closer to the Turbonegro return to form I had hoped for in 2002. It's still very much part of the top-heavy "Apocalypse trilogy" that began with Apocalypse Dudes and continued with Scandinavian Leather, but Hank sounds so much more inspired here than he did on the last album that he breathes life into even the half-baked songs. That's the problem with this album: there just aren't as many great pop melodies on this one as Scandinavian Leather; it's a very straight-forward hard rock album, especially towards the midsection. (The flip side of that is that there are no songs on here as turdly as "Train of Flesh" or "I Want Everything.") If you mixed and matched the best bits from this and Scandinavian Leather, you'd probably five-Tom effort on your hands--but this is another step towards the true rebirth of darkness.





Retox (2007, Scandinavian Leather)



(Maybe even 4.5 Toms)"People say we've been making the same record for 10 years, that's not right. We've been making the same record for 4 or 5 years." So true. But the "Apocalypse trilogy" is over, and Retox is the best and most consistent album TRBNGR have made since getting back together. With its air-raid-siren guitars, pinch harmonics, and a chorus that would sound appropriate blaring from a Panzer steamrolling over Poland, "We're Gonna Drop the Atomb Bomb" is an awesome, surprisingly heavy opener that comes on like At The Gates covering The Weirdos. It's also definitely a subtly more metal record overall, but think Judas Priest rather than Entombed. Post-reunion Turbonegro has never lacked for polish, but the songs on Retox sound as if a lot more thought went into them, rather than being dashed off in between orgies with well-muscled sailors. There are a surprising number of hits here, stretched over the whole album. Two of the best moments come deep in side B: "Hot and Filthy" is positively Dudes-ian, and the wicked, minor-key "Boys From Nowhere" is like "Armed and Fairly Well-Equipped" part III. Since it dropped, Retox has grown on me with every listen--it really is the Turbo comeback album, and in all honesty I might actually like it more than Apocalypse Dudes. It was also fated to be the last Turbo album with Hank on vocals, and even though he was the band's third singer, it's tough to imagine what they'll sound like without him.

Small Feces (2005, Bitzcore)



Like any odds-and-sods collection, Small Feces is for the completist, with plenty of stuff you've heard before--but it also features a few Turbo classics that are scarcely available anywhere else. Of the 42 songs here, a whopping 16 are covers. Most of them are well-executed but unambitious ("War on the Terraces", "Suffragette City", "I Don't Care About You", Ebba Gron's anti-capitalist barnburner "Staten Och Kapitalet"--the latter is a truly inspired choice though), but a standout is Turbo's rendition of "Gimme Shelter", which they turn into a Brainbombs-style mongoloid stomper that really plays up the eerie darkness of the original. And then there is "(I Fucked) Betty Page", one of Turbonegro's greatest and noisiest songs, with tongue-in-cheek lyrics made legitimately creepy by how vicious Hank and the boys sound; it really sounds like it was written at the same time as "Librium Love" or "Kiss the Knife." And the unreleased songs on Small Feces are all surprisingly excellent, from the infectious, almost pop-punk "Kick It Out" to the raging D-beat thrash of "Let it Burn". But best of all is the absolutely astonishing "My Hometown", a tender and wistful minute-and-a-half gem that I've used to instantly transform people's opinions on Turbonegro. Again, it's probably best not to bother unless you're already a jugend, but if you are, Small Feces is extremely fun and (mostly) essential listening.

What does the future hold for the denim recruits, especially now that they've parted ways with Hank Von Helvete? It's hard to say, but it's possible that the change could be just the shot in the arm Turbo's been looking for these past few years--and going from this and other videos, I have to say I like the cut of new frontman Tony Sylvester's jib. (On the same uploader's video of "Denim Demon", he sounds like Damien from Fucked Up!) The future looks bright, if you dig darkness!

Armed and Fairly Well Equipped: A Beginner's Guide to Turbonegro

Hey jügend! Did you know that Turbonegro is one of, like, the greatest rock and roll grüppes of all of times? It's true, buddy. We here at SCB have compiled this handy-dandy buyer's guide to help you out in the heady task of selecting the best Turbonegro record album for your hard-earned dollars. Each record is assigned a rating out of five possible Happy-Toms. (I also listed the first label to release the album in order to give credit where credit is due, although most of these have been reissued through multiple, international generations and a tangled web of reissuing labels. For cover art, I just picked the best version, since the reissue of Never is Forever has a way better cover than the original and I couldn't decide which variation of Hot Cars I liked more.)




Turboloid (1990, Straitjacket Records)


Well here it is, the humble beginnings of the Turbonegro legend. They are pretty humble: this record doesn't sound too far off from the muck being cranked out by contemporary Sub Pop or Amphetamine Reptile bands. If you're into nowadays noise-rock like Pissed Jeans you might find yourself grooving along to the hit single "Cockwork." And "Let's Go To Mars (Richard Burton's Penis)" trundles along on some pretty damn tasty Happy-Tom bass plonk. But in the final analysis, this is a pit stop on the roadway to darkness, and unlike some of the other early Turbo records you won't be losing out too much by skipping this one until later in your Turboducation.




Hot Cars and Spent Contraceptives (1992, Big Ball Records)


"Venom meets Radio Birdman in an institution for sexually abused retards." If that legend-making quote from Swedish DJ Lars Aldman doesn't tell you everything you need to know, maybe you should just stick to listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor or whatever. Turbo's lineup changed pretty significantly in between Turboloid and this one, so a change is to be expected--but what you get here is a full-on transformation from tender boys into rich and flavorful men. Hot Cars is one of those annoying albums that opens with an extended sample--but "Librium Love", the song that follows, sounds much like the scenario Aldman described above, except if all persons involved were equipped with flamethrowers. This is a dark, noisy, demented, brilliant album that more than lives up to the moniker of "death punk"; contemporary listeners may be surprised to find that the band documented here has more in common with Brainbombs or Rusted Shut than they do with later incarnations of themselves. This is the most undiluted of Turbo material; definitive vocalist Hank Von Helvete had not yet joined the band, but Harald Fossberg actually sounds quite similar and the songs here are cobbled together from C4 and cut-up gay porn magazines. "I'm in Love with Destructive Girls" manages to out-Stooge the Stooges with its relentless, brain-nullifying chant of "YEAH-YEAH. YEAH-YEAH. YEAH-YEAH. YEAH-YEAH." Which, subliminally, is informing you that you MUST OWN. The German edition added a cover with a painting of Sirhan Sirhan and bonus track "A Career in Indie Rock", which seems to be a 20+ minute recording of a really nasty gay porn movie. Which is also on the current repress. Rejoice!




Never is Forever (1994, Dog Job Records)

After dumping Hot Cars onto an unsuspecting world punk marketplace, Turbonegro changed their name to Stierkampf ("Bullfight", durr) and released a 10", which I skipped over since almost all of it is re-recorded better here. Turbo here deliver another flawless record which sounds COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from its predecessor. The band billed this album as their tribute to Blue Oyster Cult, and it's definitely a riposte to the "raw, primitive" garage scene then exemplified by labels like Crypt Records and Sympathy for the Record Industry (Long Gone John would ironically release the next Turbo album in the US). Never is Forever is exactly what it sounds like: a "suburban deathpunk opera" of epic scope and vision, like an episode of Law & Order rendered by a Romantic painter and soundtracked by Poison Idea. The songs are also catchier and more digestible than the Claymore blasts on Hot Cars, with jams like the Evel Knievel tribute "I Will Never Die" revealing a melodic tenderness not hinted at on the previous album. But the band that exhorted you to "go with Satan" and "kiss the knife" has not retired: "Time Bomb" is among the darkest and most seething of all Turbo songs, and "Nihil Sleighride" is the unofficial sequel to "Armed and Fairly Well-Equipped." It's an epic journey well worth undertaking--like reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, only with more dicks.




Ass Cobra (1996, Amphetamine Reptile)


Picking a favorite Turbo album is impossible, but Ass Cobra is the definitive one. Ass Cobra is the dialectical synthesis of the ass-ripping death-punk of Hot Cars and the lush, hard rock melodrama of Never is Forever; it's ass-ripping melodrama. Christian A. Calmyer, who also recorded N.I.F., here captures the most perfect buzzsaw guitar tone ever laid to tape, and generally this is the best Turbonegro recording of them all: raw and nasty, but also crystal clear. This stands side-by-side with the Dwarves' Blood, Guts, and Pussy and the New Bomb Turks' Destroy-oh-Boy! as one of the best punk albums of the '90s. The songs here are among their best: "Denim Demon" and "I Got Erection" deserve their classic status, but every song is a gem--and my favorite is actually the bonus for the SFTRI American release, "Screwed and Tattooed", the greatest satanic biker ballad ever written. This album also marks the birth of the denim aesthetic; in Tom's immortal words, "Leather is for empty, little people. Denim is for us big guys! And the kids LOVE it." While the Dicks reveled in being a "commie faggot" band, Turbonegro's denim transformation truly made them into a classic MC5-style rock-and-roll gang, like the Red Army Faction if they were sexy sailors out for vengeance. Whether you're an American punk rock boy or a new wave telephone hooker, you will love Ass Cobra. (Also note that the Denim Demon single features as its B-side "(I Fucked) Betty Page", one of the very best of all Turbo songs and one which should've been on Ass Cobra.)




Apocalypse Dudes (1998, Boomba Records/Virgin in Norway)



Apocalypse Dudes is the consensus favorite, the album that made them stars, and the Turbo record that even non-Turbo fans can love. I still consider it a tiny step down from the previous three albums, but that's basically like saying the Gospel of John is a step down from the other three; they're all essential. And A. Dudes is a diamond-hard, ass-blasting Eurotrash smash that expands on the band's long-running fixation with Feel the Darkness era Poison Idea, The Dictators, and Alice Cooper, adding a heavy dose of sexy glitter magic to create a rich cocktail that tastes like a White Russian with extra semen. The opener "The Age of Pamparius" serves notice: now with Chris Summers (Prince of Drummers) in the mix, this is easily Turbo's most musically varied and dynamic record since Never is Forever. But the biggest change here is the addition of Euroboy, a 25-year-old wunderkind who spends most of the album's run time ejaculating crazed guitar leads in every possible direction. In true punk cliche fashion, I hate guitar solos, and it's testament to Euroboy's abilities that I love his addition to the TRBNGR sound. It might sound like a strange comparison, but he reminds me a lot of Randy Uchida from G.I.S.M. in his ability to deliver wild wank that still somehow fits perfectly into the song. (I think my favorite moment is when he affects a pedal steel in the otherwise blistering "Prince of the Rodeo", with tasteful[!], slow-bent single notes.) And the songs are as poppy and well-crafted as they've ever been, sounding much closer to the grand pomp of Never is Forever than the firebreathing punk of Ass Cobra. Where Ass Cobra depicted a gang of denim-clad urban guerillas on a bloody rampage, Apocalypse Dudes is the "too much too soon" sequel, a portrait of the same gang of deathpunks as jet-setting, world-class superstars: zillion dollar sadists zonked out on hashish, riding a Concorde to a rendezvous with anus. Jello Biafra, uncharacteristically, said it best: "possibly the most important European album ever." Eat shit, Wagner. ("So you think you had an opera? Well, not like this!")


Unfortunately, the sense of excess and wild-ass/ass-wild madness on display in Apocalypse Dudes had some basis in reality, and Turbo broke up soon after, "in the waiting room of a psychiatric emergency ward in Milan, Italy." The last song they played onstage, in their hometown of Oslo, was the immortal Hot Cars classic, "I'm in Love with Destructive Girls." Broken on the wheel of a decadent and cruel music industry, Hank von Helvete returned to his hometown, where he worked as a guide at a whaling museum. But the world would not let our heroes rest, and in 2002 the denim recruits would rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of this golden age of confusion...