The Miracle Workers
Overdose

Anyone who is around forty years old probably remembers the boom of the garage-punk revival in the mid-eighties: it was unavoidable. The leading magazine (at the time) in the field overwhelmed us with reviews of anything with a sixties flavor that was published; everything, in fact: from masterpieces to frankly debatable works. Not that I'm criticizing them, personally it allowed me to discover a magical sound. It had the effect that punk probably had on fifteen-year-olds in 1976 drowned in prog and glam rock: a breath of fresh air, a gust of wind that suddenly cleared the sonic horizon largely occupied by bands cooking the same dish with new ingredients (the new wave that was stagnating). On one hand, the average fifteen-year-old didn't really grasp the quality of the music (that still happens now: in these dull periods, people go to Scaruffi's site, note down the indispensable albums, and force themselves to like them: they must be masterpieces!) on the other, there was a need for something new and different. Garage wasn't new, but it was certainly different: finally true music, untreated, not challenging, neither noise nor yes or no wave, just clean music, gushing from a pure spring. You can imagine (or maybe you can't) the surprise when I finally put an album like "Inside Out" by the Miracle Workers on the turntable: it was punk but at the same time it wasn't: direct music, no frills, captivating, real! Then, slowly, you find out what the original garage-punk was (Claudio Sorge explained it well to us) but that is entirely secondary: the wave of neo garage-punk was an absolute novelty for me.

The Miracle Workers represent the purest, most original, and genuine part of this return to the roots. A band from Portland, Oregon, which geography condemned to be the heirs of Sonics and Wailers - cult bands responsible for a pure and uncontaminated garage punk from the British Invasion - but which will later be remembered for their originality and the freshness of their music. Initially grouped with the Unclaimed, Greg Prevost's Chesterfield Kings, Mike Stax's Tell Tale Hearts, they quickly distanced themselves, driven by a punk impetus and an adolescent urgency unknown to their praiseworthy colleagues: the legendary Unclaimed of the problematic and contentious yet charismatic Shelley Ganz never managed to fully demonstrate their potential: condemned to search for the perfect garage sound, they slowly wore themselves out in this arduous task, leaving little sonic evidence when considering their original ambitions (their top is the four-track EP on Moxie Records). The Chesterfield Kings cautiously devoted their first steps to the sacred source of the masters: their first album entirely made up of covers of unknown sixties groups is famous; and even the Tell Tale Hearts will hold a reverential fear of the classics, Pretty Things first and foremost.

From this point of view, the Miracle Workers started with an advantage, having among their ranks a survivor from the golden age of garage punk: keyboardist and guitarist Denny Demiankow, from the Aftermath, an obscure band from the sixties (one of their tracks on "High In The Mid-Sixties" vol. 20), and with bassist Joel Barnett, also devoted to the sixties spirit, responsible for the best pieces of the early period. Along with the historical core of the Workers - Gerry Mohr, Gene Trautmann, Matt Rogers - they recorded a handful of albums marked by a contagious garage fury. Songs like "Waiting", "Hang Up" (by the Wailers), the devastating "Infected With You" (on the compilation "The Rebel Kind" - 1983 Sound Interesting Records) "Strange Little Girl", the cover of "Psycho" are pure punk essence, softened by Demiankow's Manzarek-like keyboards and Rogers' fuzz guitar. The peak of that period is the masterpiece "Inside Out", their first album released by Voxx remembered not only for the punk-oriented tracks - "Hey Little Bird", "Already Gone" - but also and above all for the captivating ballads: the title track and the milestone "You'll Know Why", a classic of their repertoire.

Then came the first major change. I don't know if by choice or necessity, the main creators of the garage sound left; Demiankow permanently and Barnett replaced by bassist Robert Butler from the Untold Fables (an album on Dionysus Records that I re-listened to for the occasion. "Aesop's Apocalypse" is a good, varied collection of all possible garage tempos: punk, blues, boogie, ballad, performed with skill and genuine passion; also a version of "Cry In The Night" by Dutch band Q65).

The Miracle Workers wanted to make a clean break with their sound, and they would be among the few groups (the others being the Chesterfield Kings with "The Berlin Wall Of Sound") that from garage-punk would make an irretrievable qualitative leap into a more evolved seventies sound. For this reason, they even came to Europe to record their second album, finding asylum with the German label Love's Simple Dreams, which released in 1987 their "Overdose" more rock, more acid, more everything. The usual Sorge (who at the time wasn't one to exaggerate) went so far as to define the Workers of this album as the only true heirs of the Stooges. How can you not agree?

At this point, garage is just a memory; you wouldn't even recognize them by their look now: they appear dressed in black leather and long hair on the back cover, and the music is no less. "Rock'n'Roll Revolution in The Streets part 2" is a sonic assault with a clean weapon: powerful distorted guitar riffs (the fuzz is gone) on a mighty rhythmic carpet and a devastating tail that is a delusion in crescendo, a sonic vortex of guitar/bass/drums that gives you goosebumps. Then the masterpiece "Lights, Camera, Action" (in Italian concerts dedicated to Federico Fellini, much loved by ours) a garage structure with a killer harmonica introducing an ultra-fast punk that is sure to hit. An engaging ballad "Just Can't Find A Better Way To Waste You Time" with the superb guitar of Matt Rogers always in the foreground. "Without Her Around" returns to the origins of their primal sound, the excellent "When A Woman Calls My Name" another fabulous ballad; "She's Got A Patron Saint" which will become their standout piece live and then the obligatory tribute to the Stooges with the cover of "Little Doll".

P.S. In the search for some video on YouTube (very little, alas) to attach to the review, I stumbled upon this version of "Kick Out The Jam" attributed to the so-called Miracle Workers. They are not for sure, but they are some of them (Robert Butler, drummer Gene Trautman) who have posted the comments!