old punks web zine

Page Six

CD, Vinyl, Cassette Reviews
(note: this page has been excerpted from the old punks site)
(further: if you click here you will go to their site in verity)

The Electric Eels - Their Organic Majesty's Request (CD) (Overground): "The Eels perhaps came closest to embodying it [the perceived rage of the Cleveland art-dropouts]; but it was there in everyone else. It was a desperate
stubborn refusal of the world, a total rejection: the kind of thing that once
drove men into the desert... We had been promised the end of the world as
children, and we weren't getting it" - writer/singer Charlotte Pressler.

We can argue this all day, but The Electric Eels were the 1st real punk band of the 70s. Sure, they borrowed from The Velvets, Captain Beefheart, and The Stooges, but their snottiness, dumb violence, and high artistic nihilism were the antecedents for the DIY, corner bar archetype epitomized by CBGBs in New York. Another example of a brutally important band being in the wrong place in the wrong time, The Electric Eels are a band you either know about and place in the correct context of their importance to punk history, or a band you've never heard of, ensuring your ignorance on the subject. Sadly, very few people will ever hear this band.

The Electric Eels formed in 1972 and fell into ruin for the last time in 1975, after only 6 gigs, each ending in either violence or arrest. For a band so bent on destruction I'm amazed the 22 tracks on Their Organic Majesty's Request even exist. Original members John Morton, Brian McMahon and Dave McManus (also known as Dave E.) were inspired (or pissed off) by a supposedly great opening act at a Captain Beefheart concert. Figuring they could do better or suck just as bad, they formed a band.

Dave E. sang with a snottiness that pre-dates The Dead Boys and The Sex Pistols by not only years but a generation. John Morton on guitar was the center of the band as chief writer and instigator of violence. By all accounts a "hulking" individual, Morton beat up people both in the name of "art terrorism" and for sport. He beat up his bandmates as needed, and for yucks ventured with McMahon into tough working-class bars, instigating fights by slow dancing as a gay couple. Arrested after their 1st show, John was wearing a coat covered with safety pins (take THAT, Richard Hell!) and Dave was covered in rat traps. The police named them "Ratman and Bobbin". Ba dump bump!

Famous names joined the band, including Anton Fier, The Cramp's Nick Knox, and various members of The Styrenes, The Pagans, and Pere Ubu. They rarely used a bass, which only helped in their case because the focus then fell directly on the stark violence guitar and the anger of the vocals. Their posthumous 1975 single "Cyclotron"/"Agitated" is perfect because it is stripped bare to the bone. At various times they could drone like The Velvet Underground, inflict serious sax and art damage like The Captain, or steal a Stooges riff. The Electric Eels really deserve a lot of credit (or blame) for what The Dead Boys became infamous for years later. Plus they were also quite the arty farties, so if you have even half a brain you can analyze and appreciate them on that level too.

Later on in his career, the hulking John Morton played guitar for Sheena Easton. Fact is stranger than fiction indeed. (8-27-00)