Willamette Week | Portland Tribune | Oregonian
Few records are able to merge the loose quality of a "live" sound with the tightness of studio shine. The Crack City Rockers' "New Myths" is one of them. It's that rare album that fills one with the anticipation of seeing the group's live show - crystallizing the vibrancy and insouciance of a well-performed club gig while not sounding as if it was recorded through a soundboard splattered with booze, sweat and who knows what else. The Portland-based group whirls and rages with short, sharp songs that merge the playfulness of punk with the horn-fueled mania of R&B. It's a unique blend, and it works, particularly on cuts such as "Glory of the Sun," "Munkey," and "Occult Piss" which sounds like an unholy merger of Elvis Costello, the Buzzcocks and the Kabalas. "New Myths" is a quick listen - all of fourteen minutes in length - but it makes the most of its brevity.
Sounding just a shade too old and a bit too well-educated for pop-punk, Portland's Crack City Rockers meld their purposefully snarky lyrics with jagged, high-impact power-pop (complete with keyboards, harmonies and occasional sax lines) on this seven-cut EP. While Eric S. Gregory's lyrics and vocal delivery aim for a cynical and streetwise undertow, the energetic pulse of the performance lift up the music (especially drummer Curt Schulz and lead guitarist Dennis Mitchell), making this an engaging and powerful listen almost in spite of itself. And while it's obvious that Gregory has some serious matters on his mind, there's enough wit around the edges of "Glory of the Sun" and "Truth Drug" to confirm his sense of humor is still functional. There's half a good album on "New Myths," so hopefully Crack City Rockers won't stop after six songs and a monkey yell next time out.
-Mark Deming, www.allmusic.com
If New York punk wasn't good for anything else (which, actually it was, but let's pretend), it at least inspired people like Eric Gregory of Portland's Crack City Rockers to build songs steeped in playful lyrics and intense electric energy. Along with an affinity for Television, Richard Hell and the Velvet Underground, the group's debut album, " Joyce Hotel," proved that this band has a knack for mining the depth and width of the punk genre. Its latest EP, "New Myths," goes further. While Gregory has never sounded more like the frantic Mr. Hell than on "Perfect Life," or the guitars sounded more like Television than on "Already Dead," this album shows the Crack City Rockers stepping outside of their NY influences. "Occult Piss" recalls a less emotive Elvis Costello fronting a more aggressive Attractions, while the brilliant "Glory of the Sun," with its fat, bleating sax line and sunny vocals, falls somewhere between Dinosaur Jr. and Madness. And when Gregory sings "So full of joy like I'm retarded, " you believe it.
-Mark Baumgarten, Willamette Week
Add this to the list of things the music industry needs more often: hype-building EPs. Granted, it helps if such a release is a band's first offering and not their sophomore effort, as is the case with New Myths, the latest from Portland, Oregon's, Crack City Rockers, but whaddya gonna do? Few bands arrive on the scene fully-formed, ready to wow the universe with a brilliant debut, but too many bands expect instant fame without paying any dues. In this age of instant gratification and instant celebrity, nobody has the time to lay the groundwork for a solid career -- especially when it comes to the ephemeral music scene. So maybe it's because the Crack City Rockers -- surely the darlings of Portland's Chamber of Commerce -- have bucked the trend and released an EP around which to rally the troops and not demanded unearned fame and fortune, or maybe it's because said EP is very good, that there is reason to get excited over 14 minutes of rock from a promising young band.
Blah blah blah, Steve, what do they sound like? Well, over the course of six songs (plus a throwaway 11-second track, "Munky"), CCR run the gamut from sunny power pop (after all, they do call Paisley Pop records their home) on opener "Glory of the Sun" to organ-fueled post-Heartbreakers (Thunders, not Petty) punk ("Occult Piss"). They even toss in some horns on "Already Dead" that favorably calls to mind the New York Dolls at their, um, horniest. The album isn't long enough to waste any notes.
In addition to catchy songs, the band possesses a sharp sense of humor. How else to explain NC-17-esque lyrics like "Estrogen Mess"'s "when the knife bit your neck and you bit his dick so hard that both of you screamed" with a sunny, upbeat (or is it ironic?) "ooh"s and "aah"s? (Note: the album is much less offensive than the above lyrics would lead one to believe.) Then there's the darkly funny album cover, a clip art joke along the lines of cartoonist David Rees. Sandwiched between Egyptian hieroglyphics are clip art drawings of a mohawked punk, a basketball player, and a woman painting a peace banner, the cynical intimation being that American individualism in the 21st century is as outdated as the ancient Egyptian culture (hence the album title), and the Crack City Rockers gleefully sit on the sidelines point this out, then proceed to rock out in the face of the abyss. That, or else the band didn't have a lot of money and using public domain art clips was a cheap way to illustrate a cover. Either way, it's all good.
But this good-natured, if full of hot air, discussion about the band's sense of humor and their album cover choices obscures my point about the beauty of the EP: Free of conceptual constraints than can (and maybe should) inform full-length albums, New Myths as an EP is free to roam, stylistically speaking. Each incarnation (for lack of a better term) of the band, be it poppy, punky, or even vaguely bluesy (check out guitarist Dennis Mitchell's coda on "Estrogen Mess"), is thrilling and different, yet unmistakably the work of the same band. No matter which direction the band chooses for their next full length LP, fans won't be disappointed. Consider the work of the EP officially done here .
-Stephen Haag, www.popmatters.com
If you're from Portland, home to these wham-bam-thank-YOU-ma'am! rockers, the album title's a broad hint. The Joyce is a once-lustrous abode now gone to seed as a residential flop whose assorted woes included a notorious '97 sexual harrassment suit involving the hotel manager preying upon female tenants. That's a perfect metaphor for the luckless desperation, waitin' for the man-style glammy punk blooze CCR excels at. The band is led by Eric Gregory, who sketches his street-luv vignettes from a (Lou) Reed's-eye viewpoint and delivers them with a weighty gravity that brings to mind, at times, David Johansen, Steve Wynn, and the Only Ones' Peter Perrett. (Worth noting: Lead guitarist Dennis Mitchell also fronts Rose City power-pop kings the Quags.) And the music's the perfect sonic yin to Gregory's late-night loser's yang. Highlights include the snappy New York Dolls-isms of "I Do All Right" and the funky hepcat shuffle "Now I Know," plus the stone brilliant "Zombietime," which sleekly marries Mott the Hoople to Iggy Pop and makes 'em play Reed's "Vicious." On the CCR Web site, an exhaustive list of "sources of inspiration" includes such disparate icons as Patti Smith, the Clash, the Doors, the Fugs, Mick Farren, writer Terry Southern, rock crit Nick Kent and--dig it--Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. Poets, fools, bums, and visionaries all--nice company to be keeping, lads.
-Fred Mills, Seattle Weekly
If there were some way to combine Lou Reed's lazy introspection with Marvin Gaye's sex appeal, you might be able to capture the essence of Eric Gregory. As lead singer of Portland's Crack City Rockers, he and bandmates Sean Flora, Dennis Mitchell and Curt Schulz twist old and new, happiness and frustration and love and lust on " Joyce Hotel," their debut album.
Through tales of urban angst and lethargic, bittersweet love, " Joyce Hotel" borrows liberally from the punk rock masters of late 1970's New York City. "Rolling Yr Eyes Blues" combines these two themes in lyrics like, "I spend my days in the city/And the nights are for yr arms/The sun never looks better after a night of yr dancing charms."
With shades of the New York Dolls, Richard Hell, the Talking Heads and a late-era VU, each of the songs pays subtle tribute to the past without appearing too imitative. This definitely is not the Strokes we're talking about. And though there are plenty of cool, indolent tracks on " Joyce Hotel," there are just as many that burst with unadulterated manic anxiety.
"Born Nervous" and "Beggar and a Chooser" could have been written by a more disciplined version of the Stooges that wasn't so obsessed with rabid destruction and screaming. It's fairly easy to imagine Iggy Pop yelling the lyrics from "Born Nervous," "I'm lust-driven and I like it that way." "Hey World" is a neurotic paranoid fuck-you to anyone and everything. Gregory sounds like a man possessed as he yells, "I go out of my skin /To prove that I'm here/Hoping for the best/And gasping for air."
And as you might expect from a band that takes its cues from Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, sex and lust are frequent themes throughout the album. During "Rolling Yr Eyes Blues," Gregory announces to a woman that "If you'd only take me home you can cum all nite long/And I swear I'll pass out on the floor." Sounds appealing, doesn't it?
In the hands of a lesser band, the active pining for sex in many of the songs might seem self-indulgent or sleazy. " Joyce Hotel," however, is laced with an attitude of intense self-criticism that at times borders on self-loathing. Lou Reed's ghost creeps through these songs. You can almost hear his voice from the VU classic "Waiting for the Man," a song about a visit to a heroin dealer in uptown NYC: "Up to Lexington/One-two-five/Feel sick and dirty/More dead than alive." In fact, many of the slower songs add to this atmosphere with hazy, melancholy blues guitar licks that are reminiscent of Robert Johnson.
The Crack City Rockers might be students of the past but they are definitely creating something special for a new generation."
-Kareem Ghanem, The Stanford Daily
It's hard work being soul men. The Crack City Rockers know this full well, from lead singer Eric Gregory's exasperated, I-don't-know-how-much-longer-I-can-stand-it-girl vocals to the band's sleazy swagger. The Portland, Ore., band shows plenty of attitude on the 11 songs on this debut. "We're strange creatures, pale and large in the light of the night," Gregory wails on the horn-driven and guitar-fueled "Hunger," one of several songs - "Born Nervous," "Zombietime," and "Beggar & a Chooser" - that take their cue, in sound and libido, from early Rolling Stones. Jagger and company aren't the only inspirations of note. The leadoff track, "I Do All Right," with its call-and-response lyrics and "Oo-ees!" comes off like a juiced-up Swinging Medallions. The "humid side streets" and "whore you used to know" in "Yr Rotten Luck" sounds like a Lou Reed interpretation of a Charles Bukowski poem. "Hey World" makes you think Prince is doing a guest spot when Gregory declares with "Dirty Mind"-energy, "Hey world! I wanna make you cum!" The Rockers' ability to bring all these influences together in a fun and fresh way makes Joyce Hotel worth your time."
-Andy Turner, Amplifier
It's not surprising that Portland's Crack City Rockers have baptized their firstborn "Joyce Hotel" - not only is it the name of a once-glamorous, now-sketchy hotel just off West Burnside Street, it also summons up the thought of James Joyce, literary oddball, who ended his masterpiece, "Ulysses," with an orgasmic, echoing "Yes." Which is to say, tales of lust and desire play out against a dingy urban backdrop throughout Eric Gregory’s honest, raucous lyrics. These are raw, bluesy chronicles of sex and the city, driven almost as much by a decadent restlessness as by the cool meandering of Lou Reed's rock 'n' roll poetry."
-Allison Dubinsky, Portland Tribune
As the Rockers hammer out a sound that owes much to '70s NYC bands like Television and the New York Dolls, Gregory's voice swoops through tales of drug-addled outsiders and love amid urban decay. He sounds like a younger, more tuneful Lou Reed, and he shares the former VU leader's penchant for consciously literate lyrics....On " Joyce Hotel", the bluesiest tinge of early punk is an obvious inspiration. The typically gorgeous production of Portlander Larry Crane's Jackpot Studios and a distinct energy-reverent, not worshipful-forge something new from a well-worn idiom."
-Jay Horton, Willamette Week
It is impossible to talk about the Crack City Rockers without inevitably remarking on Lou Reed (so let's get it out of the way). Dirty and shadowy music that bustles with ghosts, sexuality, meanness and alluring, unholy fun. Lead singer Eric Gregory has the very same nervous confidence as Lou Reed-that growls one refrain and then rolls over the next, a junkyard dog wanting its belly scratched. But that's where they depart from their self-avowed idol, with bop and energy, like the first super-charged taste of heroin (and not the 1000th drawn-out desperate need for a fix)."
-Phil Busse, Portland Mercury
Influenced by Richard Hell, Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground, " Joyce Hotel" tells Dylan-esque tales of city life and, frequently, Portland life. (The title, incidentally, is also the name of a run-down inn off West Burnside Street.)...The resulting mix is blasting, raw and jangly. Flavored by glamrock's lusty slur and rock's swagger, the album is a fresh offering to Portland's indie rock-dominated soundscape."
-Jenny Tatone, Oregonian
Gregory is a true poet and he heaps intense, personal visions on the backs of simple Pop musical themes as a means to petition his private lord with crazy prayer. But, you cannot petition the lord with prayer.... Eric Gregory's visions are packed tight with voogum. His songs drip with it. Instrumentally this band is as familiar as an old sofa. But there is darkness at the core of these emanations and it clings to the memory like ashes and cold rain."
-S.P. Clarke, Two Louies
It’s been just over two years since we last heard from CCR, headed by the devilishly quixotic Eric S. Gregory whose musical influences span the decades and include Bowie, T. Rex, Lou Reed, the Stones, Love and Rockets and Supergrass, to name but a few. The band has remained intact, with Gregory fronting the ensemble, backed by guitarist Dennis Mitchell., bassist Sean Flora (who adds keys, guitar and background vocals to the mix) and drummer Curt Schulz. As before, sax man John “Kid Presley” Leubner (formerly of Jesus Presley) adds fine horn sections to a couple of tracks. The sum of the parts is a potent mixture to be sure, only more polished and precise in the two years which have ensured since their last release. They were certainly no slouches before, however.
The half dozen songs presented here reflect Gregory’ passions, which include a Bukowskian fascination with sex and the underbelly of existence, with themes that touch upon black magic and the occult. Gregory is eloquent and poetic in his lyrical excursions, exhibiting either an unusual philosophy of life, or a vivid imagination. Or both.
The X-rated, horn-driven “Glory Of The Sun” could pass for Ziggy-era Bowie or T Rex in all its reptilian charm. Mitchell contributes fiery licks at the turns, while Schulz pushes the beat. Well executed- in two minutes flat- “Perfect Life” sounds like “Bang A Gong” T Rex, with a touch of “I’m Alive” era Love And Rockets (possibly the same thing). The winning number of the set is the transcendent “Truth Drug,” which echoes the ‘60s song (Paul Revere & the Raiders and the Monkees) “Not Your Stepping Stone,” while churning out a snarling stance of its own, balanced on a rolling bassline and pinioned by jagged, soul-drenched guitars. Very cool! “Occult Piss” sounds like early Supergrass, mixed with latter-day Squeeze-with a memorable chorus and some impressive guitar work in the turnarounds.
“Estrogen Mess” continues the high energy approach, with a hyperactive delivery and frenetic instrumentation. The same can be said for “Already Dead,” which inspects the state of Gregory’s existence: “I’ve got a way of holding pain in/A methodology to closing my heart off/Where a door opens wide/ Then closes with a cough.”
The Crack City Rockers display a flair for high energy rock, with a twisted world view; as well as impressive skills at executing their oddly compelling brand of rock and roll. Gregory’s heady, erudite lyrics and the overall high level of musicianship help to make the Rockers one of the more accessible bands in town, with a sense of humor and a propensity for wicked fun.
-S.P. Clarke, Two Louies