CD Review – The Guilloteenagers: Cheese Balls to the Wall

The Guilloteenagers (Geee-OH-teenagers) CD Cheese Balls to the Wall had Club Bohemia resplendent in…cheeseballs, of course, for the record release party for this excellent and consistent disc. “The Guilloteenagers Are Back” blasts open the disc with early Alice Cooper meeting iconic Boston punk band Unnatural Axe and it doesn’t let up. “50 Seconds” takes the Black Sabbath “Paranoid” riff and brings it to the Ramones, smack dab in their face. The onslaught continues with a chant over power chords on the two minute, seventeen second suspended anthem “Let’s Get Greasy,” a middle finger response to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy,” Hannah Montana’s “Let’s Get Crazy” and Slade’s “Mama, We’re All Crazee Now.” Beer is a main theme here, and why not when cheese balls are bouncing all over the placeBefore Greg Walsh formed the band Pop Gun his song “Packie Run” was a staple on Boston Radio. “Part Deux,” track 4 from the Guilloteenagers at 2:04 is the logical continuance of bad-boy behavior. . And when you hear the energetic “Even Though I drink a lot” it sounds like the Real Kids on methamphetamine. All the songs on this eight song disc are under two and a half minutes save the last two, “Ride On King Jesus, Ride On” and “Michelob” (but, of course!) which clock in at 4:01 and 3:33 respectively.

Guilloteenagers hit you over the head with their aural aural assault, Buck-oh-Nine continues the blitzkrieg, drums wailing away happily, the bass plowing under the guitar stream. It brightens up a bit with “Books Endorsed by Kirk Cameron” – a bouncy, happy chainsaw riff with vocals that sneer unintelligible philosophy. It doesn’t matter, it’s all in good fun. “Ride on King Jesus, Ride On” slows things down a bit, the Lady Mondegreen (misheard lyric) here sounds like “Bright on…so long…” while the closer, “Michelob” is the “Ballad of Dwight Frye” gone frontal-lobe beer commercial. Blatant, indulgent, and proving that a mind can be a wonderful thing to get wasted on.

Joe Viglione is the Chief Film Critic at TMRZoo.com. He has written thousands of reviews and biographies for AllMovie.com, Allmusic.com, Gatehouse Media, Al Aronowitz’s The Blacklisted Journal along with articles for the Boston Globe, Radioworld, Medialine, Arts Media Magazine, the Beat, Musician’s and a variety of other media outlets.

Joe also produces and hosts Visual Radio, a twenty-one year old variety show on cable TV which has interviewed personalities such as film director Robert Zemeckis, Jodie Foster, director/screenwriter David Koepp, Michael Moore, John Cena, comics/actors Margaret Cho, Gilbert Gottfried, Gallagher, musicians Mark Farner and Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad, David Clayton-Thomas of Blood, Sweat and Tears, Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals, iconic drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, political commentator Bill Press and hundreds of other personalities. His Joe Vig Pop Explosion radio show airs on http://bostonfreeradio.com every Wednesday 1-3 pm and works hand-in-hand with the aforementioned cable tv program, Visual Radio. Contact Joe @ recordreview2001 (@)yahoo.com