Steroid Maximus
Quilombo

LA RECENSIONE

And there he is: he emerges from the shack in the center of Melbourne, hat on his head, filthy boots, a loaded carbine. J.G.'s stomach is at peace (he's just taken a dump) but damn, they're not getting away with it.

All night those damned drug-addict aborigines have been partying to the rhythm of jazz (??), while some villager brews in the cauldron. Cannibals. AHAHAHAH, if they don't stop, I'll eat them alive! A couple of leaves from my secret garden and: STEROID MAXIMUS!!!

BUM BUM BU-BUM BUM, the bongos continue relentlessly. But that's not all: huge metal drums crashing into each other, while the dancers masturbate clinging to a rubber tree. And moreover: what the hell are those damned psycho-lights doing in the middle of the jungle? It's a disco for microcephalic troglodytes!

The old cowboy (cattleman), carrot hair on his head, strides forward with murderous resolve. Eyes bulging, the trail of cacti and red sand illuminated by the full moon. Ok, at the turn for Ayer's Rock, three drunken fat guys pop up riding kangaroos. BANG! BANG! BANG! Damn: they were the saxophonist, the percussionist, and the clarinetist of the avant-garde city swing-band! But most importantly: since when do they attend indigenous orgies?

A flash and somehow the cattleman is tied to the torture pole. All around, flaming totems fall like domino pieces. What the damned Neanderthal men are chanting is a fierce and metropolitan voodoo ritual. But it's all in the hands of the doped shaman: the tribal band is tight and perfectly in time.

And the rhythm. Smoke Bull's (the village guru) favorite record is "Bitches Brew": he blasts it in grandma's gramophone while the grandchildren lick hallucinogenic toads. But in the vinyl shelf there's a bit of everything: contamination baby!

Meanwhile, the deadly dance has begun: whip lashes tear strips of skin from the adventurer. And the freejazz ensemble flares up in sharp breaks and metallic offbeats, alternating post-industrial ambient digressions (but prehistoric) with avant-garde machine-gun sarabandes.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAH!! Stop: at a gesture from the sorcerer, the ceremony transforms into a grim sexy noir-tinted staging, and the cyborg-chimpanzees behind the drums go silent. The old carrothead, a.k.a. Foetus, a.k.a. Manorexia, a.k.a. Wiseblood, a.k.a. Steroid Maximus, died with a smile on his lips.

You won't find it in the best record stores.