The faithful

The Forty-Fives remind us why we fell in love with rock and roll to begin with

By John O'Neill

The Forty-Fives play the Skinny Sunday, July 30.

In all honesty, the Forty-Fives thing was love at first sight. I'd already been sold on them after a cursory listen to their first disc, Get It Together (Artemis/Ng), which crossed the desk at Phoenix HQ nearly a year ago. But nothing -- not the album nor the hipster "new-mod" looks in their press packet photo -- could prepare me for meeting the real deal.

Arriving at the club barely a half hour before they were slated to hit the stage one muggy Sunday evening in Worcester, Massachusetts (a.k.a. Wormtown, and more commonly referred to as the armpit of the East Coast), the foursome's late arrival was flat-out, Spaghetti-Western-style ugly: ruffled black shirts, wrinkled black jeans, tousled black hair, and a general physical aesthetic that suggested the band had either made the five-hour trip up from Manhattan by grabbing hold of a Greyhound bumper, or they'd just been rolled in the side alley for their milk money. As it turns out, they'd been on a serious bender the previous evening with all-time party legends the Fleshtones and had come out the other side looking seriously taxed. As drummer Adam Renshaw confided as he sucked on a Coke and headed for the stage, "I'm not sure how we'll sound tonight, but for the record, I pissed my pants about 10 hours ago."

You can guess what comes next. In front of 15 people, battling grade-A hangovers, and suffering the added injustice of having to open for a disco tribute act, the Forty-Fives went into instant overdrive and assaulted the joint like everything was beautiful and they were actually gonna get paid more than gas money. A brutish mix of British Invasion pop, whiteboy Memphis soul, neo-garage guitar licks, and post-punk sonics slapped together with a keen knowledge of rock history, and a sheer determination to deliver it to whoever was paying attention.

An hour-and-a-half and another soda later they packed up, hopped in their van, and rode off to continue their low-budget, east-of-nowhere-west-of-nothing tour of America. With only brief week-long stops home, the Forty-Fives played 260 shows in a 10-month period. Not having learned their lesson the first time, they circled back around to a number of venues, winning a larger audience each time and making a few points obvious to at least one music scribe.

First, they're genetically hardwired to stomp ass on stage. A classic study of fluid musicianship smacking head-on with barely controlled emotions, the Forty-Fives made every gig a small reminder of why we fell in love with music in the first place. Even though their guaranteed money was inevitably shitty, they never bitched, and they always ended up owning the crowd.

Second, if they aren't the best young rock band in America right now, they're certainly the purest embodiment of rock and roll to careen down the pike since the Flat Duo Jets started coping Gene Vincent licks some 15 years ago. They've got the sound, they've got the soul, and they have the attitude down. The Forty-Fives are directly dialed in to rock and roll's spirited past without the whole revivalist shtick weighing them down.

Third, and probably most important to their current status as underground heroes, there's no way music this vital has any business being on a self-respecting (read: typically boring) record label. Get It Together is a 13-song, 30-minute workout that references pretty much everybody who ever mattered -- the Sonics, Chuck Berry, Booker T & the MGs, the Who, the Kinks, Mysterians, MC5, and even the Monkees can all be heard at some point. What's more, the whole mess -- wailing Hammond organ, gritty vocals, a throbbing rhythm section, and tight guitar workouts -- is shellacked together with a tough-as-nails punk resin. It is totally out of step with today's commercial radio. Which would also go a long way in explaining why the band was stuck touring without distribution while Artemis (also home to Warren Zevon, Kittie, and Steve Earle) dragged the release date out for almost a year. Mercifully, Get It Together is finally available (you can pick up a copy this Sunday when the band blows through the Skinny), and the band is ready for a better-financed stab at winning over the world.

"It's a hell of a lot better than it was a year ago, [but] we're still knockin' ourselves out for no money," chuckles Renshaw from somewhere in Philadelphia. "As a matter of fact, we're looking at no money tonight. It's a new club so it's kinda an experiment. But sometimes that's what you gotta do."

"We sold [the album] out of the back of our van and at shows basically for 10 months," adds guitarist/vocalist Bryan Malone. "Now that it's out it's easier to get shows -- better shows with better bands and better clubs. Plus, we've been through these [cities] three times now, so it's better every time."

And while Artemis may be at a loss on how to market the boys, they've done just fine working their magic and building a fan base. Besides the usual swing through clubland, the Forty-Fives have landed opening slots for rock pioneer Link Wray, country outlaw Steve Earle, and guitar god Wayne Kramer. They're also slated to head out later in the year to tour with hardcore philosophers Bad Religion.

"Actually, we do really well with different crowds," says Malone. "We're just a rock-and-roll band. A lot of people call us `garage' to [help] identify us, but we can play with anyone and hold our own. Country bands, punk bands, hip hop . . . we always come out pretty unscathed."

Good music is able to transcend a specific style or genre, and, as the First Great Band of the 21st Century, the Forty-Fives (with the right amount of label clout) are actually in the position to bring guitar rock (as in twist and shout, not shout at the devil) kicking and screaming back into the mainstream. A tall order for sure, but one Renshaw and his crew are more than capable of pulling off, though they're also well grounded to the reality of their situation as current trend poison.

"The album did real well the first week on the college charts, but it's not flying off the shelf" he says. "One song was remixed for commercial radio but we aren't holding our breath. Songs like `Without Love' aren't really played on the radio. Every couple of years you might hear a song and go, `Hey, a pop song that's good,' but that's few and far between. We have no illusions about [radio success]."

"We're just out on the road for three weeks; that's pretty much our m.o.," adds Malone, summing up the bands plan for impending world domination. "We're the rock-and-roll machine that blows through and plays a real rock-and-roll show. We just drive around and play shows. We've got material we recorded at Sun Studios that I haven't even listened to in three months. We've been on the road so much, I didn't even know who had the master tapes! I called the label and they didn't have 'em, so I called Sun and they hadn't sent them out. I just told them to hang on, we'd be by Memphis to pick them up in a few weeks!"

John O'Neill can be reached at johndelrey@yahoo.com.