Live Review: Electric Boys, The Borderline, April 1992

A couple of years ago Phonogram were touting the ELECTRIC BOYS as their next big thing. Then the band had a few problems, the DAN REED NETWORK came along, and priorities got shifted. This sees the start of another concerted effort to break the band, and the Borderline is becoming increasingly popular for events such as this. Small enough to always look packed, enough bar space to please the music biz types, and enough of an atmosphere to get what could be called 'pleasantly sweaty.'

The electric boys cod-ZEPPELIN/KINGDOM COME stance is at its best on the new "Mary in the Mystery World," when the band manage to evoke a genuine 60s feel. A ridiculously good guitar sound and the fluidity of an eight-string bass are best used on the textured songs and not their straight-ahead rockers.

After a good start, the middle is a bit of a let-down. From the WRATHCHILD-a-like "From Rags to Riches" to the dull rocking cliches of "Lips and Hips" (which part of America is Sweden actually in?), the band loses the plot, and the Blues encore is a total bore - all tasteful guitar and facial ticks. Why is there only one blues song in the world, and why do rock groups insist on 're-interpreting; it when they want to show off their musicianship?

The Ferrari of an opening became a Volvo of an ending. When a band only plays a 45-minute set, they should really be able to keep the excitement all the way through.

Chris Collinwood
Riff Raff
July 1992

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!