Kurt Cobain’s favorite Scottish group, the Vaselines, are best experienced through this compilation. The peak songwriting of guitarist/vocalists Frances McKee and Eugene Kelly occurred on early EPs Son Of A Gun (1987) and Dying For It (1988), with somewhat diminishing returns happening on 1989 debut album Dum-Dum. You can hear all of these recordings, plus a bonus disc containing live performances and demos of the Vaselines’ best-known songs and a middling cover of Gary Glitter Band’s “I Didn’t Know I Loved You (‘Til I Saw You Rock ‘N’ Roll),” on Enter The Vaselines.
The album—and the Vaselines’ career—kicks off with “Son Of A Gun,” an unbelievably catchy blast of adrenalized biker rock/sunshine pop. This song established the Vaselines’ dual-vocal magic, with Kelly’s deadpan cynicism and McKee’s dulcet coos forming an ideal opposites-attract dynamic. Nirvana reverently roughed it up in their Incesticide rendition. The epitome of jubilant, gland-powered pop for hedonistic youth, “Dying For It” and “Teenage Superstars” tear recklessly thorugh some forgotten ’60s garage, emitting squeals of echoey guitar that whoosh through your hair like a farfetched simile. They’re sublimely debauched songs, to be sure, and the former is one of the greatest songs of the ’80s—so good that Nirvana knew it was pointless to cover it. “Molly’s Lips”—which Nirvana did cover—slips into a gentler shimmer of guitar and features bicycle-horn squeaks and McKee’s enchanting, minty-cool vocal. Another Kurt fave, “Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam,” will leave you dewy-eyed and giggling with its viola and resigned girl/boy voices wringing dumb poignancy.
By contrast, “Rory Rides Me Raw” is a slow-rolling janglefest about being relentlessly fucked, while “You Think You’re A Man” is a saucy cover of Divine’s sneering, trashy hi-NRG banger from 1984. The latter was certainly a quirky choice for a Scottish rock group to tackle. The handsome, burly rocker “Sex Sux (Amen)” was as close as the Vaselines came to gr*nge. Similarly, the raunchy “Monsterpussy” cockily struts like fellow Scots Jesus And Mary Chain ca. Automatic, but with higher estrogen. More heaviness comes on “Dum-Dum,” flame-broiled biker rock with a self-explanatory title, and “Let’s Get Ugly,” whose chaotic hard rock that reveals an affinity for Blue Cheer. The epic, marauding rock and roll of “Lovecraft” exudes an air of danger—plus sitar and tabla embellishments—that you’d never suspect from looking at photos of these cute Scots.
Countering that machismo, the Vaselines dip into some Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazlewood-like balladry on “Slushy” and “No Hope,” the latter being a conversational ballad about addiction/alcoholism. And with “Dying For It (The Blues)” a cool, sludgy, slowed-down version of their best song, the Vaselines show a heretofore hidden side and a willingness to not take themselves too seriously.
More than just a footnote in the turbulent saga of Nirvana, the Vaselines deserve their own prominent place in rock history as perhaps the best band named after a lubricant. -Buckley Mayfield
Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections.
