$2.99 Wax Necessities
A Column By Tim Midgett

THE CULT
ELECTRIC
SIRE 1987

A friend of mine is a diehard postpunk aesthete. He has a soft spot for any old muck with a flanged D minor guitar chord floating around in it. Example: the Cult's Love.

He was properly horrified when his stylus first made contact with Electric.

I mean, there's sludge, and then there's SLUDGE.

Some clumsy, dim ex-Goths decided they wanted to ROCK OUT. Naturally, they ended up with something that is not especially kick-ass. It is bad poetry, with guitar riffs born of brain death. It is a lame amalgam of Deep Purple and Iron Butterfly, with a whiff of whatever AC/DC Sabbath Zeppelin monolith they were aiming to create.

And it has provided me and mine with enough laughs to last us through the end of the millenium.

Wouldn't you know it. I can't find the bastard album. Tempted to say someone stole it, but last time I did that, I ended up telling everyone a beloved LP had been lifted by some houseguests of a subletter. I found it horribly misfiled six months later.

Ah, I could do this one in my sleep. Why to buy this album:

--Ian Astbury's handsome wildebeest headdress.

--The way he shrieks "Salt shaker!" in "Love Removal Machine," among many aurally misbegotten lyrical turns. Not to mention the actual, lovingly printed words: "Cookin' in the kitchen / Insects on the bone."

--Billy Duffy's brazenly stupified lead guitar playing.

--"Born to Be Wild" (and you thought Steppenwolf was hamfisted).

--The drumming is actually pretty good!

--The record SOUNDS great, which makes it even funnier.

A thickheaded tour de force, Electric has aged much better than Spinal Tap. If you don't think it's worth three bucks, you're a tightwad with no sense of humor. Or else I've done a lousy job of selling it.

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