Late last year, The Fleshtones released a new album, It’s Getting Late (…and More Songs About Werewolves), via Yep Roc Records!
The Fleshtones are are tour, and they perform at 9:30 Club on Thursday, August 14!
In a world where there are no more heroes, The Fleshtones walk the earth like Roman gods.
It’s Getting Late (…and More Songs About Werewolves) is a smash that could have dropped at any point in The Fleshtones’ epic career — it is an outburst, and a celebration of the SUPER ROCK sound. Unlike their contemporaries, they have not dialed down the tempos to compensate for osteoporosis, they have not lost anything on their fastball, and continue to throw it for strikes. The hardest working band in garage rock has never sounded better, and now you see why they’ve been your favorite band’s favorite band for decades.
Since their inception in 1976 in Queens, New York, and their sweaty, boozy gestation at legendary venues such as CBGB, Max’s Kansas City, and the storied Club 57— recently feted at the Museum of Modern Art, where their proto-video underground film “Soul City” was unspooled for art stars, glitterati, and a raft of punk rockers who managed to get past the front gate — they have perpetrated their proprietary brand of SUPER ROCK, a frenetic amalgam of garage punk and soul, punctuated by the big beat and unleashed with the spectacular show business majesty which has kept them on the road for over forty years, adored by audiences whose love for them borders on religious fervor.
Watch the official music video for “Festa di Frankenstein” by The Fleshtones on YouTube:
The Fleshtones’ SUPER ROCK sound literally defines American Beat Music, and they have delivered their message with evangelistic passion, always skirting the edges of the mainstream without pandering to any obvious fad or trend. They have appeared on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand TV show; charismatic frontman Peter Zaremba was a host on MTV’s original late-night alternative broadcast The Cutting Edge; and they were the last band to publicly perform at the World Trade Center’s Windows on the World, a society gig by any standard. Always true to their school, they have flags planted in the old world and the new — they appeared with Andy Warhol on his short-lived talk show Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes, and throughout the mid-1980s they regularly played at the Pyramid Club on Avenue A in New York’s storied East Village, and were instrumental in helping to start Wigstock, the drag queen festival that has become an outrageously vibrant part of the New York City experience.
Never as obviously demented nor self-consciously “psycho” as the Cramps (with whom they shared a rehearsal space in 1977), The Fleshtones could also be found after dark basking in the sick blue light of their television sets, watching late-night horror movies and basking in the weirdness of America, while simultaneously soaking up the on-stage outrages of the Rat Pack, Little Richard, and the Rolling Stones, honing their own live show into an explosive, frenzied manifesto of rock’n’roll gone right.
The Fleshtones are the only band who played at CBGB in 1976 to have never taken a significant break from recording or performing since, and their line-up has been remarkably stable, anchored by Zaremba — wildly swinging, funny, uncompromised, and confident, he is equal parts Dean Martin, Mick Jagger, and Count Dracula — and SUPER ROCK guitarist Keith Streng, who seemingly flies through the air. They are backed by one of the most solid rhythm sections in the world, the decidedly Charlie Watts less-is-more-but-do-it-with-panache drumming of Bill Milhizer, who’s held the chair for forty years, and newcomer Ken Fox on bass, who has served for a mere thirty. Previously, those spots had been filled my luminary mercenaries with pedigree, including Clem Burke from Blondie on drums, and Fred Smith (Television) and Andy Shernoff (the Dictators) on bass, testimony to The Fleshtones OG punk rock roots and authenticity in a world run over by poseurs and off-the-rack frauds.
The Fleshtones
W/ The Yachtsmen
9:30 Club
Thursday August 14
Doors @ 7pm
$32.50
All ages
