Live Review: Kill City Dragons, Marquee, 5th June, 1990

Tonight, the KILL CITY DRAGONS were in top form and the Marquee was about 2/3 full with totally tarty sleaze-queens. If it is yet another new HANOI ROCKS they are after, they ain't gonna find it here. I say "not quite" for singer Billy G Bang (who could forget a name like that?) in certain lighting and with squinty eyes (mine, not his), is a not-quite-as-pretty ringer for Mike Monroe, minus peroxide and pant-splitting ninja high kicks.

There is also the obvious Hanoi influence to be heard, but this isn't to be criticised, as it hangs in there well with the band's own songs, along with the covers that they bash out, one of these being LOU REED's "Sweet Jane" and a non-stop set which culminates in a heart-wrenching tribute to their old mate - STIV BATOR (RIP) with kick ass versions of LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH's "Holy War" and THE DEAD BOYS' "Sonic Reducer." Excellent!

The already fairly well established Kill City Dragons have chosen a good time to come out of their cave, and hopefully we'll have the big boys a-knocking in no time. So, come on guys -- give the Dragons a break. It's about time we had a good, signed, British-based, sleaze/glam band and the Kill City Dragons might just be the ones to fill that slot.

Allison Burke
Riff Raff
July 1990

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!