Published on May 2, 1999
Time for a quick show of hands here. How many of you have heard
of Scatterbrain?
Okay, you eight people can put your hands down now.
Rising from the ashes of Ludichrist, Scatterbrain was a band
that was far ahead of its time. Merging the worlds of funk, hard
rock, classic rock, Spike Jones and – egads! – classical,
Scatterbrain were a band that you had to hear to believe. (I went
one better, and had the good fortune to meet them prior to a show
in Chicago. Their soundcheck proved they were one incredibly tight
musical group.)
Their high-water mark remains their 1990 debut album
Here Comes Trouble. To this day, this remains one of the
greatest hard rock/heavy metal albums I’ve ever had the pleasure of
listening to, and I count my advance copy of the tape, signed by
the entire band, as one of my prized possessions.
The group – vocalist Tommy Christ, guitarists Glenn Cummings and
Paul Nieder, bassist Guy Brogna and drummer Mike Boyko – break out
of the traditional gloom-and-doom style of heavy metal, and decide
to do something unique: they had fun with the music. Who else would
deliver a cover of Cheech & Chong’s “Earache My Eye” that both
stayed close to the bone of the original and gave it a Red Hot
Chili Peppers-type flavor? Who else would write a song called “I’m
With Stupid,” a wonderful little ditty about waking up one morning
to discover you had grown a second head? Who else would take a song
like “Down With The Ship (Slight Return)” and throw in snippets of
about a dozen classic rock and metal landmark tracks? (See if you
can recognize all the references; many of them aren’t that hard to
identify.)
Add to the mix a more serious side to the band, one that dared
to look at censorship (“Goodbye Freedom, Hello Mom”),
matter-of-factness (“That’s That”) and even throw in a little
Mozart to the mix (“Sonata #3”). I mean, who else could get away
with such a hodge-podge, and put together one kick-ass album?
In a sense, Scatterbrain was destined to fail because of this.
Here Comes Trouble is an album that definitely puts a smile
on your face, but it challenges you to listen closely to what’s
being said in the songs, even when they’re nothing more than a
lampoon of ’80s life (“Don’t Call Me Dude”) or a bizarre poem set
to a jazz beat (“Drunken Milkman”). Most people didn’t get it…
and that’s too damn bad.
The fact is, Scatterbrain were an incredibly tight musical
outfit, and Christ could have easily become the Frank Zappa of the
metal scene. His songwriting ability was incredible, as these
tracks show. Why they didn’t become famous is beyond me. Maybe they
shouldn’t have made the jump to a major label after the critical
success of
Here Comes Trouble; Elektra dropped them after one release,
Scamboogery. I don’t have the answers; if I did, this band
would still be around today and selling millions of records.
Even after almost a decade,
Here Comes Trouble remains an incredible album that begs not
only for your attention, but to be super-glued into your CD player
or tape deck. You could not blame Christ and crew for trying to
reach for the stars; in fact, after listening to this album, don’t
be surprised if you find yourself wishing that they had
succeeded.