Didn’t know much about The Birdhouse in 1988, and I don’t know much about ‘em now, either. All I really knew is that they dressed cool, and they shamelessly ripped off the Stooges, and that was plenty reason to celebrate back then. They were supposed to be a motley crew of freaks and social agitators who all met during a riot in Brixton, UK, in the mid ’80’s, but that’s all I really remember. Oh, and their bass player, Billy Scarr, was in the Dogs D’Amour for five minutes in 1985. Otherwise, it was a brief, blinding ascent to the dustbin for these guys. “Burnin’ Up” was released with a flurry of hype (“More Raw Power than a dozen Harleys put together!”), but failed to ignite it’s target audience (me and my friends, I would imagine) because it was, after all, the year of Guns N’ fucking Roses, which did not leave much room for anyone else, except Green River, and maybe a Halo of Flies single. Undaunted, they followed this one up a few months later with a muddy but unbowed live 10” on boner-inducing German vinyl label Glitterhouse, titled, imaginatively, “Raw and Alive”, and then spat out a second album, “Meglamania”, in 1989. It was produced by Vic Maile, the same sonic ‘wizard’ who ham-fistedly dated Motorhead and Girlschool forever with that awful 80’s cardboard thumping, and who made the otherwise lethal Godfathers sound like they were gasping for air from inside an empty fishtank. I didn’t actually have “Meglamania”, but I hear it’s even dumber than the first record, and includes an early, and surely regrettable, rap/metal stab. At any rate, it tanked. If you don’t believe me, go to the record store, it’s still sitting there. $1.99 or best offer. Still sealed. There was no way the grebo-baiting filthhounds in the Birdhouse were gonna carve out a niche for themselves in the mope-y, sweater wearing, casual-heroin-using world of the grunge/alt nation, so they all hopped on their superbikes and revved off into the sunset in 1990. I don’t know what happened to any of ‘em – singer Johnny Rev, hot blonde guitarist Kathy Freeman, Billy Scarr, second guitarist Mark Nicol, drummer Max Camtara. There’s a chance some of ‘em went on to bigger and better things, or weirder and sleazier things, but I’ve never seen a CD with an “Ex-Birdhouse!” sticker on it, and the last time I even mentioned them to anyone, I still had a full head of hair. So did Axl. It’s been awhile. Looking back, “Burnin’ Up” was Birdhouse’s finest moment, the crystallization of their Motor City Motherfucker aesthetic, a shaggy, shambolic mess of Iggy screams and Kramer distortion. They shared the hard-glam edge of Gunfire Dance, the psyche-fuzz freakery of Gaye Bykers on Acid, the relentless macho metal pounding of Rogue Male, the razorpunk thrash of the Necros, and Zodiac Mindwarp’s cosmic biker threads, but somehow, they managed to slip right through the cracks of sleaze metal history. This is probably because they relied more on tone and attitude than on actual songs, and just ask Princess Pang – you can have a great, raunchy, knife-fighting SOUND, but unless you’re a flabby stoner rock band with a less-than-alert fanbase, you gotta have the goddamn tunes if you wanna rope in the kids. Birdhouse thought they could carve out a whole career on that bit at the end of the show when you kick in the drumset and there’s distortion and smoke and screaming and blood and tits everywhere, but they never quite figured out how to START the party. A pity, really. They did have GREAT taste in leather jackets and sunglasses.