500 MILES TO GLORY

December 7 - 14 , 1 9 9 5

*** Various

500 MILES TO GLORY

(Red Devil)

Gearhead magazine, the West Coast bible of hot-rod/punk-rock style, made a grand metaphorical leap when it coined the term "Drag Punk Underground." The 'zine is about big, chunky muscle cars and music that demands all the same references to velocity, mass, and 13-car pile-ups. It helps to have some artfully contrived context for all this junk. Gearhead's 500 Miles to Glory compilation is a soundtrack to a fictional time once described by head 'Head Mike LaVella as "this world where every woman was beautiful, every man was handsome, and everyone worked on cars." Boys and their cars (ideological cousins to the boys with smoking jackets and cocktail shakers) -- sort of the indie-rock answer to the Men's Movement.

Highlights: some old-school Gories-ish stuff (the Fall Outs' primo "Don't Want the Sun"); a surf on the wild side headed up by the Drags' swaggering, rust-toned "Tarantula"; souped-up chump rock by Uncle Joe's Big Ol' Driver (even though they're kinda out of their element); and Teengenerate stealing the show in one take of amphetamine rock-and-roll bliss called "My GTO." It's worth the ducats just for the hot-rod-movie dialogue between tracks, and worth a listen if only to imagine what rock and roll might have looked like if the Beatles, political correctness, and the energy crisis never happened.

-- Carly Carioli