BACKGROUND...A LITTLE THEN AND NOW
It was 1976 (or thereabouts) and the New York City music scene was undergoing a MAJOR transition. The bands that began coming up along Bowery and Bleecker were not of the normal, safe, garden variety that local clubs (and club goers alike) had come to know.
Seemingly overnight, gone were the bell-bottomed, flower-haired, peace and love ethos...the overblown guitar and drum solos...and the poetic platitudes that accompanied the Woodstock and early 1970's groups.
This new breed of New York's Finest was different. Like the previous generation, they had something to say in their music. But they were young. They were talented. And they were bored. Jesus H. Christ, were they BORED!!! So when Moses (or was it Peter Crowley) came down from the mountaintop with the first New York Dolls album in 1973, the trend toward that which was just now being called "Punk Rock" had started to come into it's own.
Before you could watch an ENTIRE Ramones set (for the unitiated, we're talkin' seven, eight minutes at MOST), hundreds of new groups began to ooze of out of sidewalk cracks, sewer grates, cellar doors and long-deserted alleys to seek out ANYPLACE where they could churn out this new, urgent and maniacal brand of Rock and Roll....enter the aforementioned Ramones, the Dead Boys, the Heartbreakers, the Fast, Wayne County & the Backstreet Boys, the Voidoids, Television, Suicide, Patti Smith, Blondie, Tuff Darts...must I continue? New York was now besieged by this tribe of former outcasts and musical spectators, playing new songs, preaching a new religion, and battling the politics of boredom (the ONLY homage you'll see to Malcolm McLaren here).
Four guys in leather jackets and mops of long black hair are gathered in a suburban New York City recording studio, putting the finishing touches on their latest album...or is that "CD" now? The guitarist tweaks the volume on one of his 100-Watt Marshall heads in an attempt to squeeze another drop of buzz saw drone that pours from his 1964 Mosrite Ventures II. The drummer is in the corner, surrounded by plexiglass, laying down his patented 4/4 beat, peppered with machine gun 8th notes over the top. The bassist slams and hammers at his precious Fender P Bass with power and precision that are both awe inspiring and exhausting to watch.
The vocalist is set up in a private booth just yards from the rest of his comrades. He adjusts the music stand upon which the lyrics for this sessions songs are laid out. Big black cross-outs, where earlier versions of less inspired lyrics once appeared. He struggling to find that one last clever line that will complete the high-energy, whirling dervish track about being committed to the local looney bin. Just two minutes and nine seconds later, "Mental Hell" is pressed into its new magnetic home, awaiting a rewind and a playback. Those gathered listen intently, and decide "it's a keeper".
FAST FORWARD TWENTY-TWO YEARS
FAST FORWARD TO TODAY
ASYLUM 66 knows what it take create genuine punk rock mayhem at every gig. Their shows are basically a runaway train of power chords, pummeled bass lines, solid, rock steady drumming, lyrics about anything from Imbeciles to Lost Souls, and the results of having Gone Too Far! Anyone that's ever heard their songs on the radio, bought one of their CD's, or caught on of their live shows knows that ASYLUM 66 is all about Loud, Fast and Aggressive Fun.
Just like their Forefathers who blasted out the beat twenty-five years ago for all the Beaten Brats, Teenage Lobotomies and the entire Third Generation Nation...ASYLUM 66 plan to keep on providing their fans with plenty of slam dancing, pogo hopping, feedback screaming, crowd surfing memories!!
