The Miracle Workers
Inside Out

The best live testament of the Stooges?

Well, I hope no one thought of the DVD released during the recent reunion...

Perhaps «Metallic K.O.», that’s much better; but aside from the precarious audio quality, the band doesn’t have many cartridges left to fire and the atmosphere is a bit like that of the Sex Pistols concert at Winterland in San Francisco, with bottles shattering on stage, the flame of «Louie Louie» now reduced to ashes, and the classic "break ranks" already echoing in the air.

None of that, for me the peak is the apocryphal «Live At The Forum» by the Miracle Workers, blessed year 1988.

Who the hell are the Miracle Workers?

Quick to say. They are five lads: Gerry Mohr on vocals, Matt Rogers and Danny Demiankow on guitars (he, actually, isn’t quite a lad but never mind), Joel Barnett, and Gene Trautmann on bass and drums respectively. Like the Sonics, they hail from Portland, Oregon, USA; only, they don’t love the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but are devoted to a heavy garage-punk-rock, where Stooges influences are evident, and for those who don’t catch them, they are showcased in the animalistic covers of «No Fun» and «TV Eye», performed whenever the opportunity arises.

The manic love for the Stooges explodes right in «Live At The Forum», no longer restrained by the inhibitions of the Sixties garage to hold back the passion, no more Danny Demiankow to flood the sound with abundant doses of fuzz and keyboards. From «Live At The Forum» onwards, starting from the exceptional «Overdose», it will no longer be garage but top-notch proto-punk and the names remain the same, the sacred trimurti Stooges-MC5-Groovies.

«Inside Out», however, comes before the deluge and is one of the cornerstone albums of the mid-Eighties garage revival, and unfortunately one of the least known, as the Miracle Workers certainly did not reach the "popularity" of bands like Fuzztones, Gravedigger V/Morlocks, or Tell Tale Hearts. And it’s a real shame.

The name borrowed from the classic garage par excellence, Our Heroes debuted in 1983 with a self-titled EP, followed a year later by «1000 Micrograms Of The Miracle Workers» and immediately set things straight, lining up ten tracks of vehement garage-punk that paved the way for the beautiful «Inside Out», released in 1985 by Greg Shaw’s Voxx.

Here the tracks are thirteen and swing between the fired-up sixties punk of anthems for modern cavemen that go by names like «Go Now», «Love Has No Time», «I'll Walk Away», «Already Gone», «Mistery Girl», and «One Step Closer To You» and more pop-leanings (in the noble, garage sense of the term) of the title track and «You'll Know Why», «Another Guy» and «Tears», almost reminiscent of certain tunes by the unforgettable Barracudas when they too frequented Voxx house.

And then there are the Stooges, and certain riffs forcibly drawn from «1969» or «No Fun», and still the sometimes exasperated heaviness of the rhythm section; and these are the moments that stick more than others, those of «That Ain't Me» (what a great track this is), «5.35», and «Hey Little Bird».

And finally, there are the spats with Greg Shaw, the breakup with Voxx, and a new path leading straight to a concert in Germany as extraordinary in content as the album cover that hands it down to posterity is horrendous: if not the ugliest in rock history, it’s pretty darn close.