UNDER APPRECIATED ROCK BAND OF THE MONTH FOR MARCH 2016: THE LOVEMASTERS
This month’s Under Appreciated Rock Band is THE LOVEMASTERS, also known as Bootsey X and the Lovemasters, that arose from the reliably high-octane world of Detroit punk rock; but the band’s music has soul and funk touches that rarely show up in hard rock of any kind. The music is loose and sometimes borders on the chaotic, though always with a defined groove; and Bootsey X has a powerful and ragged voice that fits it perfectly.
This is the second post in a row to feature a UARB where I only have an EP, but sometimes that is enough for a band to become a favorite of mine. As far as I know, Amanda Jones only ever released Amanda Jones; but I have another Lovemasters track on a compilation album, and they released two full albums (including a Bootsey X solo album) plus an early cassette that I don’t have.
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Motown is of course the best known music from the Motor City, but Detroit has always had a hard-edged rock scene as well. Proto-punk gods Iggy and the Stooges and MC5 (“Motor City 5”) are both Detroit bands that were founded in the 1960’s. Perhaps the hardest rocking 1960’s American band that made it big is Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.
From Wikipedia: “Other notable [Detroit] bands from this time period include Alice Cooper, the Amboy Dukes (featuring Ted Nugent), the Bob Seger System, Frijid Pink, SRC, the Up, the Frost (featuring Dick Wagner), Popcorn Blizzard (featuring Meat Loaf), Cactus, and the soulful sounds of Rare Earth and the Flaming Ember.”
Rock and roll pioneer Bill Haley was from Detroit; in 1955, “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets was the first big rock and roll hit. Hank Ballard and the Midniters had a crossover R&B hit in 1954 with “Work with Me, Annie”; this band also recorded the original version of “The Twist” in 1959 as a B-side that Chubby Checker catapulted to a nationwide craze the following year. More recently, the White Stripes is one of the primary bands that ignited the Garage Rock Revival of the early 2000’s, among a host of other like-minded Detroit groups.
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Detroit and the surrounding suburbs also had several important punk rock bands and included one of the first hardcore punk scenes in the nation. One of these short-lived but talented punk bands was the Ramrods that was formed in 1977. Bandmembers were Mark Norton (vocals), Peter James (guitar), Dave Hanna (bass), and Robert Mulrooney (drums). According to Wikipedia, the last official Ramrods show was on January 28, 1978. Before the band broke up, Ramones manager Danny Fields and Seymour Stein of Sire Records had been interested in signing them.
Robert Mulrooney and Dave Hanna were first in a band called Streets that later evolved into the Deviates; Mulrooney says of that period: “We were a bar band playing covers, four nights a week, but we’d throw in stuff like Television’s ‘Venus De Milo’, and as long as [the audience] didn’t know it was ‘punk’, they’d dig it.”
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Surprisingly little is available on the Internet about the Ramrods (and also the Lovemasters for that matter); I cannot find so much as a 45 that was released during the band’s brief history. The best information that I have found is in a November 2014 post by John Perye on a website called berlinlovesyou.com; it includes a quote from drummer Robert Mulrooney: “The Ramrods were the first band in Detroit to play in the style of the Ramones.” Perye also writes: “I have heard countless stories from many Detroiter’s who argued that during the 1980’s there was no better soul-funk-party-new-wave band than the Lovemasters.”
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A retrospective album by the Ramrods called Gimme Some Action finally came out in 2004 on both LP and CD, but it is already so rare that popsike.com reported an auction in 2012 with a final bid of $32. Including the live medley mentioned below, the album has just 9 tracks.
Writing for the Detroit Metro Times website, Ben Blackwell writes of the Gimme Some Action CD: “The Ramrods are the name of Detroit frontline punk warriors. . . . Ramrods lead howler Mark J. Norton barks like a bored kid with an armload of bulldogs while guitarist Peter James’s scarred-yet-smooth soloing informs us that [the Stooges album] Raw Power was safely tucked under his pillow. While the ’Rods studio output is brief, the highlight of the disc is easily their 1977 live medley: ‘Helter Skelter’ [by the Beatles] catapults into a punk-painted ‘My Generation’ [by the Who] and declares the obvious in ‘Search and Destroy’ [by the Stooges] and cements its place in rock lore by adding the archetypical ‘I’m a Ramrod’.”
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As reported in Wikipedia, following the break-up of the Ramrods, Peter James was an early member of the power pop band the Romantics, and Mark Norton and Dave Hanna formed a band called the 27.
Robert Mulrooney moved on to play drums for Nikki Corvette’s original band, Nikki and the Corvettes (I have a reissue copy of their wonderful sole album from 1980, Nikki and the Corvettes), plus Coldcock, the Sillies, the Mutants, Rocket 455, and Dark Carnival.
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When he decided to try his hand at being a frontman, and using the moniker Bootsey X, Robert Mulrooney formed the Lovemasters in the mid-1980’s. There have been several line-ups of the band over the years, and Mulrooney believes that one of the later line-ups (around 2010) was among the best: Eddie Baranek of the Sights (guitar), drummer Skip Denomme (drums), and Ricky Rat of the Trash Brats (rhythm guitar).
Robert Mulrooney recalls: “My first thought was, ‘What happened to all the fun rock ’n’ roll bands, like the Flamin’ Groovies or even Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers?’ I used to make up silly nicknames for myself all the time. One was ‘Surfer Bootsey’ as a joke because you’d never see any funky brothers surfin’ . . . and the name just caught on. We were Bootsey and the Banshies at first — we misspelled it that way just to piss off all the serious Goth fans around Detroit at that time. And then one night, I drove by a strip club and saw on the marquee: ‘Featuring Reggie the Love Master!’ I just thought that sounded cool.”
The Lovemasters opened for Red Hot Chili Peppers during the tour to support their second album, Freaky Styley (1985) when they appeared at St. Andrews Hall, an important Detroit music venue since its beginnings in 1980.
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Writing in 2010 for the Detroit Metro Times, Bill Holdship writes that “the Ramrods [were] Detroit’s first ‘official punk’ band” and also gives a great overview of what the Lovemasters were all about: “Bootsey X & the Lovemasters were the best live rock ’n’ roll show in town then — sometimes approaching rock ’n’ roll carnivaldom. . . . [I]n the mid-to-late ’80s, a Bootsey X & the Lovemasters performance was akin to seeing Iggy Stooge fronting a James Brown and His Famous Flames Revue — that is, if both the Godfathers of Soul and Punk had even greater senses of humor . . . plus, everything else such a concept would involve (with flashes of George Clinton’s Funkadelic and Sly and the Family Stone, both of which were psychedelicized versions of the [James] Brown revue anyway). The act came complete with horns, keyboards, a jive-talking emcee (who doubled on sax), and the ever-present — and ever-hot — Sugarbabes of Soul. . . .
“And if that weren’t enough, the crew mixed it all with such perfect punk-ified covers as Neil Diamond’s ‘Brother Love’s Travelin’ Salvation Show’, Elvis’ ‘Kissin’ Cousins’ and ‘Suspicious Minds’, Roy Head’s ‘Treat Her Right’ (the instrumental that always announced Bootsey’s imminent arrival onstage), and perhaps the greatest cover of the O’Jays’ ‘Love Train’ of all time.”
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I first heard the classic track “I’m a Ramrod” by the Ramrods on the 1998 Total Energy Records compilation LP and CD, Motor City’s Burnin’; I got it in a special package of 3 Detroit CD’s that also included Motor City’s Burnin’, Vol. 2 and Motor City Blues. The first two albums are stoked with killer tracks from many of the bands mentioned above and others. Among other things, Motor City Blues was my introduction to a simply amazing street musician named One-String Sam who plays a handmade “unitar” and has a bluesman howl unlike any that I have ever heard.
Preceding “I’m a Ramrod” on both the LP and the CD is a terrific track by Bootsey X and the Lovemasters called “Pusherman of Love”. Credits given on the Discogs website give Bootsey X as the lead vocalist and also the record producer; Robert Mulrooney is listed as the drummer and also the songwriter – as noted, Bootsey and Mulrooney are the same person. Other players are Mark Kern (bass), Craig Peters (guitar), Gary Adams (guitar), Don Jones (saxophone), and “militant rap” by Valorie Dawn Moore.
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The 6-track EP CD that I have by the Lovemasters is called Hot Pants Zone and came out on Total Energy Records in 1995. As with “Pusherman of Love” (which is not on the EP), the Lovemasters manage to perform several songs with sexually charged music that is playful and tongue-in-cheek, without being smarmy or misogynist or sleazy or embarrassing – that is not unheard of, but it is a hard pose to pull off. The opening cut, “(Annie Got) Hot Pants Power” and their famous song “Genius from the Waist Down” fall squarely into that category.
The Lovemasters also have a cover version of “I’m a Ramrod” that is every bit as tough as “I’m a Ramrod” by the Ramrods. In their version, there was at least one key lyric change; in place of a tacky sexual reference – surely the double double entendre of “ramrod” is enough after all (in both the song name and the band name) – they substitute a clause that even a lot of my Christian friends should be able to get behind: “. . . ’cause everybody knows that the world’s a cheat / Yeah the world’s a cheat”.
These three songs plus “Beat Girl” list Bobby Beyond as lead vocalist (that’s Robert Mulrooney in yet another guise) plus Gerald Shohan (guitars, backing vocals), Ricky Rat (rhythm guitar), Mike Marshall and Steve King (bass on two songs apiece), Jimmy Paluzzi (drums), and Sophie & Irene (backing vocals on “(Annie Got) Hot Pants Power” – mostly minimalist moans, ooh’s and aah’s).
For “Pony Down”, perhaps the slowest song on the EP (but just barely), the Lovemasters has a different line-up of musicians that is more like those who played on “Pusherman of Love”: Bootsey X (lead vocals, backing vocals, drums), Mark Kern (bass), Craig Peters (guitar), Gary Adams (guitar), Don Jones (guitar), and Mike Murphy (backing vocals).
The black guy in the cover shot leaning on the classic Detroit car (complete with fins) next to the gorgeous model flipping the bird turns out to be a drug dealer who happened to be watching the photo shoot in a rough part of town.
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The final and probably best song on the album Hot Pants Zone, having the curious title of “(Santa’s Got a) Bomb for Whitey” is actually by Dark Carnival and is taken from their album Greatest Show in Detroit (1991). Bootsey X dominates the proceedings, and it sure sounds like the Lovemasters to me.
Dark Carnival was sort of a Detroit punk supergroup that was assembled by Detroit music promoter Colonel Galaxy, whose name was a nod to Elvis Presley’s longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Bootsey X was the first bandmember to be recruited; others included his bandmate in the Ramrods, Mark Norton, plus (as listed in Wikipedia): “Gary Adams from the Cubes [who was also a sometime bandmember in the Lovemasters], Mike McFeaters from What Jane Shared, Jerry Vile from the Boners, Sarana VerLin from Natasha, Greasy Carlisi from Motor City Bad Boys, Robert Gordon and Art Lyzak from the Mutants, Joe Hayden from Bugs Bedow, Pete Bankert from Weapons, [and] Larry Steel from the Cult Heroes.
“Later, Dark Carnival saw some turnover, with the ‘big’ names signing on: Niagara from Destroy All Monsters, Ron [Asheton] and Scott Asheton from the Stooges, Cheetah Chrome from the Dead Boys, Jim Carroll even came in from New York.”
Credits for “(Santa’s Got a) Bomb for Whitey” by the Lovemasters / Dark Carnival are Bootsey X (lead vocals), Ron Asheton (lead guitar and backing vocals), Gary Adams (guitar), Joe Hayden (bass), and Ron Cumbo (drums). I have no idea what the song is about, but the infectious repetition of “got a bomb for whitey” that recurs throughout the song typically runs through my head for weeks every time I play this CD.
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At the beginning of “(Santa’s Got a) Bomb for Whitey” by the Lovemasters is a bit of wacky but intriguing dialogue. I found precisely one reference to it on the Internet, a blog post by A. Templeton Goff answering a question about a different skit. He says: “[It is by] the Credibility Gap, the first group that featured Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and David Lander (McKean's partner from Laverne & Shirley). It’s from their album A Great Gift Idea. . . . Pretty hard to come by these days (it’s never been released on tape or CD), but it’s well worth the effort to find. IMHO, it ranks with National Lampoon’s Radio Dinner, Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, and Stan Freberg’s United States of America as one of the all-time great comedy albums.”
As laid out by A. Templeton Goff, the dialogue is taken from a sketch by the Credibility Gap called “Kingpin”, the story of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. if told in a “blaxploitation” film. (Only the first two lines plus the fistfight are actually on the Lovemasters album):
BUS DRIVER: Sorry, fella, you’ll have to get to the back of this bus.
KINGPIN: Listen, you honky-donkey! No one tells Kingpin to get back!
(Sounds of a fistfight)
BUS DRIVER: I . . . I thought you were nonviolent, Kingpin!
KINGPIN: Sure, man. Only when I’m . . . dreamin’!
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The Lovemasters’ sole full-length CD came out in 1997 and is called Pusherman of Love. Besides the title track, “Pusherman of Love”, the album includes two versions of “Genius from the Waist Down”; one is live, and the other is an “electrifying radio mix”.
Early on (around 1989), Bootsey X and the Lovemasters also released a cassette called Strip Music for the Suburbs; its six selections include “Pusherman of Love”.
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Robert Mulrooney, a/k/a Bootsey X fell onto hard times when his apartment burned down, and he also developed a lot of health issues. In about 2007, he was offered the chance to tour with soul legend Nathaniel Mayer. Outrageous Cherry guitarist Matthew Smith, who was also along on the tour, recalls of their performance in Berlin in November 2007: “Bootsey X was happy to be in Berlin. We played a great gig with Nate [Nathaniel Mayer] at Bassy, a really nice club, nice vibe. . . . I do remember walking through the streets of Berlin with Bootsey, and noticing that he looked like an integral part of the whole scene. I remember thinking that Bootsey X makes sense on the streets of Berlin. He was a great friend, and a fantastic musician. Nate loved his drumming, and so did all of us.”
I have a CD by Nathaniel Mayer called Why Won’t You Let Me Be Black? that was released in 2009 on Alive Naturalsound Records. The cover shot was taken at the same time (and also with the Eiffel Tower in the background) as the above photograph showing Nathaniel Mayer with Bootsey X (middle).
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Bootsey X was determined to release his final album despite his failing health, and Women’s Love Rites came out on vinyl in June 2013; he was wheelchair bound by then. Musicians performing on the CD include many who had been in the Lovemasters: Mike Marshall, Gerald Shohan, Ricky Rat, Don Jones, and Steve King, plus Dave Hanna of the Ramrods and Matthew Smith, who had played with him in Europe during the tour with Nathaniel Mayer.
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Bootsey X died on Thanksgiving Day 2013. The John Perye post, which was written for the first anniversary of his death, concludes: “So on this day, let us remember the great times and music Bootsey X a.k.a. Bobby Beyond a.k.a. ‘Genius from the Waist Down’ a.k.a. ‘Pusherman of Love’ or for short just Bob, has left us with. He may not have sold a million records, but the mark he made on the Detroit music scene outweighs any statistics imaginable. Thanks for all the wisdom, Bootsey, you are sorely missed.”
(March 2016)
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Since I am down to a quarterly schedule rather than a monthly schedule, my annual list is a lot shorter, so I will try listing all of the people that I have discussed in some depth rather than just the Under Appreciated Rock Band and the Story of the Month. They are all punk rock bands of one kind or another this year (2015-2016), and the most recent post includes my overview of the early rap/hip hop scene that an old friend, George Konstantinow challenged me to write – probably so long ago that he might have forgotten.
March 2016 – 1980’s-2000’s punk/funk band THE LOVEMASTERS; Story of the Month on Pat Boone; also, Twisted Sister, the B-52’s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, ZZ Top, Deee-Lite, Katrina and the Waves, Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, the Ramrods, Robert Mulrooney, Bootsey X, Bobby Beyond, One String Sam, the Credibility Gap, Dark Carnival, Nathaniel Mayer.
(Year 7 Review)
