Lou Rone ALONE (Gulcher 429)

1. Transistor
2. Easthand
3. Begging Within Your Love
4. Mirrors Of Imij
5. Rio Rone Sr.
6. Fetish In India (Billy's Song)
7. Waiting In The Night (Vibia)
8. MX In U
9. Rafter's Flight
10. Rainstar (The Final Battle)

What more can I say about this Lou Rone (ne. Lou Barone nee. Lou Barrone neee. Louis Harlow) that hasn't been said already. Or at least hasn't been said by ME. With a resume like Rone's maybe much shouldn't be said but known, but since you're out there reading this and I'm in here writing this "one-sheet" in order to enlighten you ignorant hoi-polloi as to the man's history, talents and whatnot I better fill you in lest the man and his importance to the cause of rockism be totally overshadowed by the latest blinding flash of alternative wonderment to pass your jaded eyes. Guitarist, vocalist, bandleader, Johnny Thunders hairpal and Von Lmo confidante...Lou has been all these and more. Born somewhere between the boroughs in 1951, Lou began molding his chops in a variety of smalltime bands in the late-sixties before heading for the shores of Blighty in an attempt to create the new Cream. Upon return to these shores and steady prowling amidst the lower Manhattan watering holes known as Max's Kansas City and the 82 Club, Rone formed his band Cross which besides actually releasing a just-try-and-find-it single actually performed at the legendary CBGB Summer Festival in 1975 which drew international attention to the famed Bowery hotspot whose very future is in doubt as I now type. Talking Heads, Blondie, Television and the Heartbreakers were the groups that glommed all of the attention during those hot July/August nights, while Cross' Purps- influenced heavy metal just didn't seem to ignite with the critics for some odd reason. Odder still is that Rone doesn't even recall/remember/realize that the gig he played was one considered important, indeed, a high point watermark in the development of seventies American punk rock consciousness! After a gig with future Red Transistor/Blue Humans guitarist and Ed Wood biographer Rudolph Grey in Danger and a spot as guitarist in the crypto-metal proto-no wave band Kongress, Rone saw himself drafted into former McKinley Junior High pal Von Lmo's metallic no wave band, which coincidently was also named Von Lmo! After a few tumultuous months Rone was once again leading new versions of his old Cross followed by a succession of bands throughout the eighties with names like Double Cross, Kross, Triple Cross and (for a change of pace) Funhouse and the Lou Barrone Group. Triple Cross actually made it to wax via a 12-inch EP which sported some of Rone's better HM guitar stylings and a general late-sixties flashback that had me thinkin' Jeff Beck, and not totally because of that video of Rone playing with Lmo at Max's on Christmas of '79! Flash forward to '05...Lou has left the hectic New York groove for the Amish-infested confines of Lancaster, PA and in his spare time he's put together a CD for your enjoyment which the fine folks at Gulcher have had sense enough to release for your dining and dancing pleasure (haven't used that cliche in years!). I don't wanna go through the whole thing track by track (besides, I'm too lazy to look for the track listings), but it is a doozy, showing off Rone's unquestionably good guitar playing that proves that heavy metal (even the "mainstream" kind) doesn't always mean you have to be sorry to your "cultured" alternative friends. At times Rone sounds like an angry hoarde of raging scimitar-wielding arabs on horseback out for Lawrence of Arabia's curlylocks, and at others he recalls the best of his fave guitar godz sorta cranked out and rechanneled for a new millennium. Heck, at times Rone even recalls his no wave avant-metal days with Kongress and Lmo, or at least hearkens back to the time when MX-80 Sound were trying to revive the heavy metal as intelligent music idiom in the face of a load of nth rate bands glomming all the "new wave of heavy metal" attention at the expense of THE GOOD STUFF. Hope you like this CD and not just because I do. If you have any real sense you'll enjoy it just the same no matter what I prattle off about Rone, his story, and his sound. As it stands, Rone has one wish he'd like to fullfill besides seeing this one released, and that's to promote it with a gig at CBGB before they close up (barring any last-minute good nature to befall Hilly and his crusade against rising rent), hopefully utilizing the talents of one John Garner of Sir Lord Baltimore fame on drums! Howzat for a gulcherally- significant metallic scoop y'all! (Chris Stigliano/Black To Comm/ black2com.blogspot.com)