270603423

The A's @ CBGB's with the RAMONESIn the infamous words of David Fricke of Rolling Stone:Shameless thieves though they are, the Philadelphia-based A's plunder the Sixties and early Seventies with style and humor. Like the Cars in design and the Knack in intent, this band welds pop's cheery past to the concentrated power of punk's nihilistic present, creating a flagrantly derivative whole that would simply be the impressive sum of its obvious parts if the A's didn't go about their piracy with such panache.The Beatles are easy targets. The moody organ intro to "Nothing Wrong with Falling in Love" is borrowed wholesale from "Strawberry Fields Forever," and the A's liberally shoehorn "Twist and Shout" into their own teenage rant-and-raver, "Grounded/Twist and Shout Interpolation." The call-and-response vocal in "Teenage Jerk Off" can be traced to the Shangri-Las, while Rick Di Fonzo diligently practices Seventies-guitar-hero gymnastics à la Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page for a few brief flourishes in "Five Minutes in a Hero's Life."Though the A's may not have any shame, at least they've got the chops to compensate. Admitting that originality is not their forte, they substitute an instrumental offensive that overruns even Rick Chertoff's picture-perfect production. When he isn't copping guitar licks from Beck's Truth or reworking television's Outer Limits riff in "Artificial Love," Di Fonzo wields an arrogant axe that's matched jibe for jibe by lead singer Richard Bush's street-corner growl. Drummer Michael Snyder, bassist Terry Bortman and keyboardist Rocco Notte provide feisty support, often spicing their attack with pranks (e.g., the orchestral crescendo in "Five Minutes in a Hero's Life").If the A's combination of guts, gimmicks and guffaws is too much fun for one album, it's also too refreshing to be held against them. (RS 303)