tBS: Malpractise

[Torgo]

The Brain Surgeons: Malpractise. "Covering" all the bases.

It seems like all of my favorite bands are ganging up on me. One by one
each and every band that I really like is releasing the same type of album;
The "Super Compilation". Queen did it, King's X hurled one into the ring,
and now The Brain Surgeons have done it. These albums, well put together
compilations of previously released material plus a handful of new songs,
are more than mere "Greatest Hits" packages. In fact, the latest offering
from The Brain Surgeons, is much MUCH more than that.

The new Brain Surgeons album "Malpractise" is a compilation with a difference.

Malpractise (1997 Cellsum Records) contains twelve songs by the same Brain
Surgeons lineup as the previous two releases;  Deb Frost, Billy Hilfiger,
Peter Bohovesky, David Hirschberg and of course Blue Oyster Cult veteran
Albert Bouchard. Eight of theses songs were previously available ONLY on
special fan club limited cassettes, and four of them are brand-spankin'
new. The album is a strange concoction of  songs that don't quite fit
together, yet oddly enough work well with each other. Songs shift from
acoustic versions of Blue Oyster Cult and Brain Surgeons favorites from the
past to hard and heavy cover versions of  songs from other bands. The CD
cover, which features a humorous play on the title of the album, is once
again done by Steve Brodner, who has done the graphics for the first three
Brain Surgeons albums.

The album kicks off proper with "Needle Gun" and it is by far one of the
best songs on the album. Previously recorded by Hawkwind, the song was
recommended to the Brain Surgeons by the late Robert Rudich, a good friend
of mine who was as also as big a Brain Surgeons fan as they come. The Brain
Surgeons not only decided that the tune was a natural for them to cover,
but they have also fittingly dedicated the album to Mr. Rudich.

And so, keeping this in mind as I tore open the CD and dropped it in the
player, I made sure my volume level was bumped up a few notches from where
I normally have it set, and pressed the play button. As I stood my ground
at point blank range to my speakers, poised and ready to start dodging the
speaker grilles that almost threatened to come flying at my head, the
opening chords of "Needle Gun" had their way with me. The song is raucous
and riotous, with a
"crunchier than crunchy" guitar assault that would make even my 94 year old
Grandmother take to a table-top and start doing air-guitar licks. As
always, Deb Frost's vocals sound deliciously wicked and nasty. Like it says
in the chorus "It's gonna make you numb"!! Staying true with the Hawkwind
theme, the band also covers "Hassan I Sahba", which combines the
kick-to-the crotch attitude of "Needle Gun" with the Middle Eastern
atmosphere of "Lil Egypt" from the previous Brain Surgeons release, "Box of
Hammers". Not my pick for sing-along of the week (hell, I can't understand
a word they are saying) but a frenetic, frantic, and frenzied song all the
same. A few other "F" words might also have helped describe how much I like
it.

The album also has two other new offerings. "The Girl That Love Made Blind"
is a melodic little strummer of a tune that was originally written to be
part of the IMAGINOS saga, but didn't make the final cut. While not
sounding like anything that appeared on Imaginos (it has more of the feel
of BOC's Redeemed"), its inclusion on Imaginos might have worked nicely as
a dramatic shift in music style to help break up the album. This is the
very effect the song has on Malpractise. The last new song is "Tour Spiel",
another solid, heavy tune featuring Albert on vocals and one of the deepest
and rumbling guitar riffs in a Brain Surgeons song since "Happy New Year"
from the Surgeons 1995 release "Trepanation."

As for the songs that were previously unavailable on CD, they have never
sounded better. The first thing that hit me when I heard the opening chords
(and Albert's classic thunking and pounding of the skins) of "Ciudades Y
Navidades", was how this CD sounds so much better than the original
recording of it that appeared on the limited cassette "Career of
Christmas". The song sounded GREAT then, now it's enough to make the hairs
on my neck stand up and start slapping at each other. This Spanish sung
Christmas version of Blue Oyster Cult's "Cities on Flame" celebrates the
joy and wonder of the holiday season...... and then kicks it a few times
with steel-toed boots until it whimpers and cowers.

If there is one thing this album points out, it's a reminder that Albert
Bouchard was a force to be reckoned with when he was a member of Blue
Oyster Cult. And now that he is on his own there is still nobody that knows
the songs he wrote with BOC better than him. Right along side the other two
Blue Oyster Cult songs from Career of Christmas-"Career of Evil" and "Baby
Ice Dog", are a handful of BOC covers and Brain Surgeons songs done
entirely acoustic. Originally appearing on another fan club cassette called
"Pull The Plug", these songs provide a unique slant on some of the best
Brain Surgeons and BOC songs from the past. "Name Your Monster" finds Deb
Frost's vocals strange and hypnotic, and the new version (and BEST version,
in my humble opinion) of the BOC classic "Death Valley Nights" show that
whether it be smooth or crunchy,
the Brain Surgeons have got it covered.

Yet the album is somewhat incomplete. While it does contain most of the
Brain Surgeons material previously available only on rare cassettes, the
ommision of two of the songs from "Pull the Plug" makes me wonder why they
were not included. Perhaps the songs can find their way onto a future disk
One can only hope. And since this is the ONLY negative aspect of the album,
it hardly takes away from how nice a package it really is in my CD collection.

So is Malpractise ALL cover versions? Well, that's a hard call to make.
Certainly the Hawkwind and Mike Watt songs are covers. But what about the
Blue Oyster Cult songs? They are technically from another band's
collection, yet they WERE all written partly (if not totally in some cases)
by Albert Bouchard himself.  Then there are the new acoustic versions of
other Brain Surgeons tunes. Some might say an entire collection of recycled
(for lack of a better term) music, others may see it as an entirely new
collection. I don't care either way, I just know it SMOKES. So if you find
yourself needing to put a label on this album, you might have a hard time
doing it. Thinking about it long enough is enough to send sane men
scampering into the treetops. That's
OK though, I can always use the company up here.

Robert (Torgo) Sedler
torgo at norwich.net