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The name of their new l.p.'s especially funny, because way, way, way back in the bad ole daze that we here in the offices of Sleazegrinder World Headquarters never will quit babbling about, it seems there was some kindof blurry disagreement in Allston. Between the long-suffering Tom Shannon, lead singer of Cheater Slicks, and the gusty, drunkard host of a certain
Cambridge cable access TV weekly shock-rock pageant. Something to do with Tom calling Beach Boys visionary, Brian Wilson a fag. Somehow, this apparently resulted in poor Tom's skull being caked with bloody viscera the next morning, while he was being interviewed on Sleaze's legendary pirate
telecast, while said host, somewhat obliviously, gorged himself on potato salad.
The 'Slicks weren't yet these much celebrated Gloomy Gus Garage Gods Worshipped Worldwide by crackpot damage enthusiasts everywhere, -not when we knew 'em. Mudhoney weren't covering their songs. Jon Spencer wasn't yet trading vicariously on their authenticity. There were NO teenagers naming their bands after Cheater Slicks songs and angling to get on their label, In The Red. It seemed like nobody liked them at all, except overseas, in places like Germany.
They were just these amiable, oddball bachelors 'we worked with at Rounder/Ryko records, whose sometimes estranged drummer, Dana, was locally perceived as a full-blown psychotic. Their house was room after bottle strewn room of drinking wreckage and musty old vinyl, cuppla jukeboxes here and there. We kinda spoke the same misfit lingo and there was a natural affinity between us. People thought it was eccentric that I wore a Daniel Boone hat to work, sometimes.
Those guys drank all most as much as me, and knew everything about sixties garage punk and weirdass tiki music from Polynesia, and Johnny Thunders. They taught me half of what I've forgotten about Australian blues-punk, and
..>..D(["mb","Blowfly soul. We used to get lost walking around in the rain together, and
have to take shelter in the unlocked church youth group van, before pressing
home again-the problem being that we thought we were in a different city,
than the one we were actually in, at the time. Strangers used to deposit my
passed-out body on their frontyard. What I..'m tryin..' to say is that I really
love those guys alot. When I used to go see them every other weekend, I was
usually like, the half of their audience that wasn..'t booing them. It was
just the sound guy, and me, and maybe a cockeyed old drunk at the bar
muttering deranged jibberish to himself, no-wait, that was me. Nowadays,
they can sell-out the Middle East in Cambridge, and pack ..'em in all
over-from L.A. to Scandanavia.
I..'m happy to report that success hasn..'t spoilt the Cheater Slicks.
They..'re definitely still the same cheerful, sunny optimists they always
were: "My friends and family are going, going, gone..."
You know-the demoralized anti-socials next door.
"Deadbeat" is probably my favorite song on "Endless Winter", because it..'s
the audio equivalent to a Charles Bukowski novel. It sez it all to me. The
clang and clanking clamor of the thoroughly dispossessed. Summa their
stuff..'s kinda out there, in a Birthday Party, or 13th Floor Elevators kinda
way. David Shannon..'s evolved into a cantankerous avatar of guitar, rackety
shades of Kim Salmon and Dick Dale. Chuck Berry on fire.
Their songwriting keeps getting better. "Walk Into The Sea" is the same
old, desolate conversation I ever ended up having with any of those guys in
real life, once alla Jon Spencer..'s wine and whiskey was finally all drained
dry in the wee wee A:M dawn. Cheater Slicks music is only for the lonely.
Chances are, if you..'re not just wretchedly disheartened and ridiculously
morose, you probably won..'t get this shit at all. Summa their noisey jams are
",1]);//--> ..>Blowfly soul. We used to get lost walking around in the rain together, and have to take shelter in the unlocked church youth group van, before pressing home again-the problem being that we thought we were in a different city,
than the one we were actually in, at the time. Strangers used to deposit my passed-out body on their frontyard. What I'm tryin' to say is that I really love those guys alot. When I used to go see them every other weekend, I was usually like, the half of their audience that wasn't booing them. It was
just the sound guy, and me, and maybe a cockeyed old drunk at the bar muttering deranged jibberish to himself, no-wait, that was me. Nowadays, they can sell-out the Middle East in Cambridge, and pack 'em in all over-from L.A. to Scandanavia.
I'm happy to report that success hasn't spoilt the Cheater Slicks. They're definitely still the same cheerful, sunny optimists they always were: "My friends and family are going, going, gone..." You know-the demoralized anti-socials next door.
"Deadbeat" is probably my favorite song on "Endless Winter", because it's the audio equivalent to a Charles Bukowski novel. It sez it all to me. The clang and clanking clamor of the thoroughly dispossessed. Summa their stuff's kinda out there, in a Birthday Party, or 13th Floor Elevators kinda way. David Shannon's evolved into a cantankerous avatar of guitar, rackety shades of Kim Salmon and Dick Dale. Chuck Berry on fire.
Their songwriting keeps getting better. "Walk Into The Sea" is the same old, desolate conversation I ever ended up having with any of those guys in real life, once alla Jon Spencer's wine and whiskey was finally all drained dry in the wee wee A:M dawn. Cheater Slicks music is only for the lonely.
Chances are, if you're not just wretchedly disheartened and ridiculously morose, you probably won't get this shit at all. Summa their noisey jams are like these anguished sheets of fire. They make Tom Waits look like Tsar. Nikki Sudden used to nod-out on their couch. Dreadfully doomed geniuses. You should see their madman paintings. You know that old Patti Smith quote, "I trust my guitar/We blackout together"? That's how I feel about Cheater Slicks.
I used to go visit them, and I'd always end up really having a great time bonding with one of their other friends, like Jerry from Gaunt, or Jack from '68 Comeback, but the guys we were boozin' it up with all kept turning up dead within a matter of weeks. That's why I had to quit talkin' to those guys-it was all gettin' a little too "Twilight Zone" for me.
One of the songs on their new album is called, "Tattoos Are Stupid". I, naturally, worry that it's about me. Alpo from the Real Kids was their original bass-player. He died a few months back. All the CHEATER SLICKS albums are essential. "Whiskey". "Destination Lonely". "Cheater Slicks Forgive Thee". "Cheater Slicks Don't Like You". "Endless Winter". "Down On
Your Knees".
God Bless the Cheater Slicks.
From Odyssey by Phil Hunt:
 Since Dead Canary included this album as an MP3 download with every LP–there's no need to release a CD ever again as far as I'm concerned. What a great idea… Now, let's get down to business. There have been many bands that I've been crazy about–one need look no further than this site for evidence of that. But the Cheater Slicks are probably the only one that I would have wanted to actually be in. I don't mean that in the way of a typical, starry-eyed music fan who wants to walk a mile in the shoes of an idol. I'd just really like to feel what it's like to pursue something so sonically unforgiving and relentlessly personal–despite not really seeing any sort of material rewards–for twenty years, and to get this damned good at it. To have the time to realize a sound so completely, and to feel the hairs on my arms shoot skyward as I play something so astonishing. That would be something. "Walk Into the Sea" shows the Cheater Slicks in total control of their capabilities. Every cell and fiber vibrates with soaring improvisational energy, and the soul sounds authentically bruised and misused. You get a little taste of everything these guys do so well: the ringing, improvisational garage rock (My Position on Nothingness, Eye, Pipsqueak), the crackling, throat-rattling, machine-howl of primal rumblers like Tattoos Are Stupid and Baudelaire's Ghost, the obscure covers (Run, Run, Run by the Gestures and Crackin' Up by the Wig), the soaring, catchy pop found in Westford Cemetery (the best "upbeat" Cheater Slicks tune I've heard since "Refried Dreams"), and the tattered, ghostly shots of aching, melancholic beauty (Walk Into the Sea, Dead Beat, Dry as a Bone). You'll find songs that are equally as great, or maybe even better, on their previous albums–but "Walk Into the Sea" might be the most satisfying beginning-to-end album you can hear by the Cheaters. I should mention that I've been a fan for more than ten years. When I first heard their album "Don't Like You," in the mid 90s, I liked it–but I didn't realize at the time that I'd discovered one of my favorite bands. I had no idea that these guys would endure so long–certainly not long enough to see this year, their 20th anniversary, and their 8th (I think) proper full-length release. I couldn't wait for this, and completely acknowledge that I probably loved this album before I even heard it. Still, when you get yourself so revved up to hear an album, it's rare that it lives up to your expectations. This one did.
Terminal Boredom says:
Cheater Slicks "Walk Into The Sea" LP
 I know a dude who hates the Cheater Slicks. He says it's cuz they don't tune. All I can say to that is, "Shove the 12-tone system up your ass, throw out your copy of Psychocandy, and lick my hairy anal fissure." My God, what is wrong with people these days? The Slicks could give a fuck about tuning, and I could give a fuck about their not giving a fuck, cuz, well, they don't give a fuck about nothin (see opening cut "My Position on Nothingness"), and nobody seems to give a fuck about them (except for rabid thousand-strong fan base), so, fuck everything, OK? What's their to say, really? Yeah, it's lovely out. Fuckin great. Lemme pop a boner. I got a nice day boner and nowhere to stick it. NOwhere. Permanent state of existence for these folks. Maybe they're married, maybe they're record store clerks, maybe they're gravediggers. Maybe they'll buy you a shot of Whiskey at the watering hole, but they'll probably just save their money for another shot for them cuz Fuck You, right? "Run Run Run" and "Crackin Up" are the garage punk unknown classics on here, and they makes me real goddamn happy. This record makes me fucking happy, OK? (EEK)
From Independent Weekly (Chapel Hill):
Usually, Pod-twiddlers and keyboard jocks would be fronting their new discoveries midway through a year, ruminating on whether that one dude's rap record was all poptimist jam or if their was some rad bad-ass post-punk revival Part 17 being started by some band of some teen yobs ("They're so young, how do they do it?") in Sheffield. Please. Indeed, I must be way off in the garbage can hinterlands since my favorite band put out a new record just now, and nobody really gives a shit. That band, Cheater Slicks, don't really care and never have. Slicks don't fit in with any "scene" per se. they started playing bars in Boston and the only bass player they ever had was Alpo from The Real Kids, and that was that. Their guitar power flattens, sometimes a tad outta tune. When one of the Shannon brothers walks over to the amp, it can be a maelstrom of fuzz or swirling noise that Lou and company would be happy to have on "Sister Ray" on a good night with Quine in the audience. The drummer, Dana Hatch, does that Keith Moon thing< A>, nail-gunning the hell out of his kit, but turning his palms to the floor, so he's sort-of finessing shit. He sings, too.
They tend to occasionally cover super-obscuro tunes by nut-job high-schoolers with chips bigger than Keebler's on their shoulder, like "Crackin' Up" on this new album, Walk into the Sea. In September, they're playing in Columbus, OH, where they now live, to celebrate being together for twenty years. They moved there to be near Don Howland the Bassholes, but he's been living round the corner from us here in Asheville for a spell now. Their music is succinctly misanthropic, existential and psychedelic. Somebody once said they have like 1,000 fans. If was a betting man, I'd bet at least half are "in Europe," as they say. Fuggit.
There are a few of us here in the Triangle, and some even went to Vegas one year, to some "garage rock" festival, surrounded by a bunch of tattooed Stray Cats rejects to see them play, since they hardly ever tour. Living in the moment means going back to the back room and playing "My Opinion on Nothingness" again with the lights out and a cold one. Get it or don't. 2007: pretty good so far! Some other bands must've put out records, too. .. -->
..>..>From Smashing Transistors...
Name me one currently active band that's closing in on it's 2nd decade of making music and is putting out records just as good IF NOT BETTER than what they've done in the past. I'll give ya a minute.
Okay, time's up. If you said anyone but the Cheater Slicks we can go to the judges for a decision but I'm pretty sure the odds will be in my favor. It's not that the band is covering ground that they haven't stomped on before but the way they kick it around is totally their own style that has attracted discerning people from around the world to listen in on for a many year now.
"My Opinion On Nothingness" gets things off cracking lowly and mean...three chords and serpentine. For the benefit of the kids think Mudhoney picking up the Gories hitchhiking. They're so far out in the middle of nowhere where the AM radio can't even pick up some syndicated asshole chatter like Mark Levin...Yep. Some desperate strip of hi-way. A homemade cassette comp label "BFTG BEST OF" is found under the seat amid spent Bic lighters, Rally's wrappers and a couple of empty bottles of Jack Daniels...or cough syrup. Just floor it and focus you're eyes between the moon and the white lines. When going through hell be careful where you stop for directions. Ya might find yourself barrelling into an electrically charged mudpit called "Tattoos Are Stupid." Watch out! Those horns will strangle ya. Don't get stuck in a bog. If so, slam it back in reverse hard as hell back to where you picked the hitchhikers up. "Eye" kicks 'em out of the car, screaming, cuz it can take this trip alone while "Pipsqueak" snatches the ball back from whippersnappers such as Demon's Claws and shows them that though the Slicks may be a bit long in the tooth and graying a little 'round the temples IT'S STILL THEIR GAME and challenge all comers to bring it.
How the hell could a song called "Baudelaire's Ghost" not have some type of goth vibe?!?! Drag some of them black sunshiners to a graveyard way out back behind an deep cornfield and and laugh at them in a cigarette bark everytime they complain about mud (from that electric pit none the less) on their shoes and that creepy mist that soaks to the bone. "Dead Beat" compliments it in late fall rainstorm way and, dare it say it, prettiness that romancers of tragedy may find standing close to the edge of high buildings and or driving across a high bridge.
Side two starts off with a cover of "Run, Run, Run". Not the Velvets nor the Third Rail tune but a take on the Zombies-ish folk rocker by the Gestures (which, like the Third Rail song appears on the first Nuggets boxset though the Third Rail one appeared on the original Elektra LP set and the Gestures song didn't.) Any frills from the original are torn off stripping the song to a torrential psych surf storm. It's final noises fade as the waves wash in for "Walk Into The Sea", a look at a million mile vista through bloodshot eyes while standing in the earshot of an dingy old guy bar.
"Crackin' Up" is not the Bo Diddley song but is a cover of The Wig song by the same name. It starts off as kin to the kin of the 'upbeat' (tempo wise...not necessarily the mood though) songs on side one, drops into a dirge just to pick up momentum again like an old locomotive gaining speed. "Westford Cemetery" is almost (gasp!!!) a goddamn pop song. Well, a pop song in a Flying Nun Records band getting drunk and mad in some depressed American town and pushing the volume much louder than usual. The album ends with "Dry As A Bone". It has a feeling of regret but not asking for sympathy because of it.
Before the album's title was settle on it being called "Endless Winter". A name like that carries a lot of heaviness and hopelessness around with it. So could "Walk In The Sea" though but it also gives off an idea of expansiveness and a possibility to wash some of the dirt off a soul.
..>..>
From Dusted-
Cheater Slicks
Walk Into the Sea LP
(Dead Canary)
You've seen their records in stores, you've seen them play at a bar, you know you've heard of the Cheater Slicks and you never picked up any of their records. I know you did this because there have been well over two thousand people who haven't done that. Those aren't big numbers but in the long run maybe it's not the numbers that add up. And besides, six or seven albums out of a pretty desiccated relationship with In the Red, here comes their masterpiece, their best since side B of Whiskey. It hits in the album's final three songs, in which you hear a chord burial ("Crackin' Up"), a brilliant transmutation of Kiwi strum into the Who ("Westford Cemetary"), and some of their most dead-eyed blues on record ("Dry As a Bone"). If you've heard what leads up to those songs on another Cheater Slicks record, well fuck you then, because it's the inclusion of these that makes a good album impossibly great. Now that Dead Moon is gone, the mantle for pure, saved-by-age punk rock is thrown on their shoulders. Drink it up now before it's gone forever. (DM)
..>..>
From French Blog:
Les Cheater Slicks de Columbus (Ohio) ont récemment fêté leurs vingt ans d'existence. C'est plutôt rare pour un groupe garage. Mais au delà de cette longévité, ce qui frappe c'est l'incroyable qualité de TOUS leurs albums. Et ils ne se sont pas restreints au garage pur jus puisqu'on leur doit des reprises fabuleuses dont une, tiens, de Lee Hazlewood qui me revient à l'instant à l'esprit. Malgré tout cela ils ne connaissent pas la même popularité que les Dirtbombs ou les Oblivians. Ce n'est pas pas réellement qu'ils soient un "secret bien gardé" comme d'aucuns voudraient trop vite en conclure mais juste un groupe qui reste aussi discret - c'est d'ailleurs peut-être leur souhait - qu'essentiel. Ils ont récemment sorti "Walk Into Sea", somptueux nouvel opus sur Dead Canary. A l'image de la tempête sur la pochette ce disque est fougueux. Les compos telles ces espèces rares et sauvages des bas fonds marins surgissent et laminent tout sur leur passage, faisant par la même occasion la nique à toute une ribambelle de nouveaux groupes encore dans le petit bassin au niveau de l'écriture. Il n'est pas trop tard, plongez en eau profonde avec les Cheater Slicks.
From Oor (Holland):
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| GARAGEROCK |
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| (DEAD CANARY/IMPORT) |
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| Nooit verwacht, toch nog gekomen: een nieuwe plaat van Cheater Slicks, de band waar je onvoorwaardelijk van houdt óf waar je jeuk van krijgt op hele vreemde plekken. Ik hou van ze, met heel mijn hart, maar schrok wel even van het belabberde niveau van de eerste helft van kant A. Enfin, je moet bij de Cheater Slicks altijd een paar happen meuk op de koop toenemen, omdat ze nu eenmaal op het dunste muzikale koord in garageland dansen en er dus wel eens vanaf flikkeren. | ..>
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