MONTICELLO – The Bastards (Treehouse Records)

As Roy Wilkinson pointed out in Sounds, calling an album Monticello could be considered somewhat disappointing when one of your previous releases was called Shit For Brains. Still, there’s little here to suggest that The Bastards were intent on selling out, because before we even get to the music there’s that rear cover. I’ll let Neil Perry, of the Melody Maker, explain. 

“The sleeve gives some idea of what to expect, featuring a well-built, red rubber-clad dominatrix, fine until you clock the dangling dick: from thereon in, Bastards are intent on trashing your preconceptions.” 

And he’s right because although Monticello is quite possibly one of the most brazen pieces of ear-bashing you could wish for, Perry can’t resist adding “massively entertaining” after words like “ugly” and “brooding”. The NME’S Edwin Pouncey adopted a more wordy approach as you may expect from that rag back then, calling Monticello “A red raw punkadelic mashdown that revives the spirit of early Big Black without having to resort to imitation ”.

And yet…delightful noise merchants they may have been, but The Bastards – AKA Minneapolis Joachim Breuer and Anthony Martin – weren’t just about racket and energy. On tracks like Don’t Know Much, they proved they also had something of a way with a tune, though like the early JAMC you sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find them. But whereas the Mary Chain were prepared to sing beneath all that wailing feedback, The Bastards – in Wilkinson’s words — “specialise in a baccy-chewin’ Neanderthal vocal style and sing in the first person, adopting the slob’s personalities. This…” he pointed out “can only mean that, like Killdozer, they’re college kids really” calling them “more vicarious spokesmen for the flabby redneck underbelly of America”. 

The opening track, the minute and half long Hole, sees the band pound along in almost Big Black style whilst Razor, like the other slower tracks such as Drunk and the sublime title track, finds them at their most Killdozer-like although Perry reckoned Monticello was “The LP Killdozer might make if they could hold down one of their own tunes for longer than a couple of minutes without suffocating it.”

That’s certainly true of Don’t Know Much, because as I’ve already hinted, you don’t need to dig too deep beneath the noisy, almost claustrophobic production (by Breuer, Martin and Butch Vig) to realise that it’s a really good SONG with Breuer hollering like he means it (maaan!). Perry reckoned Don’t Know Much was “crunching ever onwards like a steamroller driven by a four year old” and he’s probably got a point. Joy Of Gardening is another highlight with its neo-Glitterband chants of “yeah” and “oww”, and yet as they yell “you never give a shit for no-one” I’m hard pressed to think of a record that sounds less like its title than this. Joy Of Gardening? Misery Of Concrete more like!

The aforementioned Drunk follows and as Perry points out “Drunk is just that, rolling and sprawling around, pinned down, like everything else by Breuer’s hoarse ranting and fearsome guitar, while Martin’s bass achieves such a deep rumble it almost slips off the register.” 

Side one ends with the Sabbath-like Big Waste, which with its doomy riff is fine and dandy and all that, but flip the vinyl over and we move to a different stratosphere entirely because the first thing you hear is Neighbor which, to my ears, is one of the greatest singles of the 80’s. It is also the reason why I bought the LP in the first place. John Peel reckoned there was nothing else on Monticello album to touch it, and whilst he may have had a point I personally think this reflects more on the quality of Neighbor, with its screamed “I am in control” hookline, than any shortfalls elsewhere. The feedback that continues whilst the track momentarily stops mightn’t be an original trick, but in the hands of The Bastards it’s one of rock’s great, most rousing moments. (Wilkinson said “The harmonic squeals that Breuer bleeds from his instrument during a quivering chord progression make him sound like Eddie Van Halen’s deformed brother.”)

Side two also includes the almost obligatory cover version, what Perry calls “the musclebound onslaught of Bo Diddley, executed with abundant power and decapitated neatly with some dangerous guitar shrapnel.” In a nutshell it probably sounds exactly how you’d expect a Bo Diddley song being covered by a band called The Bastards to sound like, but personally I’m rather glad about that.

Drive My Car and Lithium both open with almost Damned-like bass riffs before the almost claustrophobic guitars and spewed out vocals arrive, leading us noisily to the closing title track, which incidentally is the only number here that clocks in over 3 minutes. It’s slow, and after a few fiddly bits early on, it’s relentless. The gravelly voiced yelling sounds particularly heartfelt on this track, too. It’s a fabulous way to end the album.

Monticello hasn’t just got one of the most, ahem, interesting rear sleeves you could imagine. I’m being totally earnest when I say that the Bastards probably made one of the best albums of the 1980’s. Its late 1989 release date surely means it was the last great LP of that decade if nothing else!

I’ll leave you with the final sentences of the Sounds, Melody Maker and NME reviews…

“A fine definition of sandblasting riff power. Hard bastards, these.” (Sounds)

“Monticello is a tarnished treasure, guaranteed to break heads at parties.” (MM)

“Bastards jam themselves into an electric brick wall of noise and manage to rebound beautifully. The result is a rush of excitement that threatens to squeeze your skull into dust…you know the kinda thing.” (NME)

I think we do. 

Joachim Breuer: guitar, vocals
Anthony Martin: bass, vocals

Plus Tommy Rey: drums

Produced by Butch Vig and The Bastards
Engineered by Butch Vig