It’s quite possible that I could restrict my music-listening habits to include nothing but the extended family trees of the Screaming Trees and the Doughboys, and I could be perfectly happy. This album is one of the finest products of one such branch, and indeed this band is where the two musical families merged, albeit in distant enough fashion to avoid producing offspring with too many thumbs.
Why this album isn’t highly-regarded by everyone and his mum is an utter mystery.
All Systems Go! is a coming-together of two bands at the end of their respective tethers – the Doughboys’ John Kastner get together with Big Drill Car’s Frank Daly and Mark Arnold, and the first ASG lineup recorded their excellent self-titled debut. Soon after, Frank departed and the band floated about for a bit until they knew they had found the right replacement.
They found it in the capable form of Thomas D’Arcy from The Carnations (another fantastic band), who gave the outfit a whole new and exciting edge. Where ASG’s sound had previously been an extension of their previous bands, Thomas brought a mad, almost New-Wave flavour to Kastner’s well-established melodic punk rock blueprint. the result was Mon Chi Chi, and it seems to have been the band’s swansong.
The supporting castlist alone should be enough to grab people’s attention – vocal assistance from Melissa Auf der Maur (Hole, Smashing Pumpkins), Pete Stahl (Scream) and Leonard Phillips (the Dickies), Mathias Schneeberger (the ‘Third Gutter Twin’) on engineering duties, plus writing contributions from Greg Dulli and Ivan “Without Hats” Doroschuk should be enough to get the most hardened record nerd foaming at the mouth, yet – similar to previous endeavours – this seemed to pass under most people’s radars.
It’s a tremendous album, swapping back and forth between Kastner’s and D’arcy’s compositions and vocal leads, and this curious competition between songwriters/frontmen brings out an aggressive streak not found in either performer’s previous canon. The album begins with Taking Up Space, heralded by ex-Doughboy (and now of the excellent Bionic) Jonathon Cummin’s scream and is a full-tilt blast of Stooges-like energy, followed immediately by the maniacally-quirky All These Things. The album flips with each subsequent track, and as it progresses, it’s as if the two alphas of the band start to influence each others’ work. John’s Tell Vicki has eighties pop sensibilities, and Thomas’ Sweet Revenge contains the sort of seventies riffing and potent energy more associated with his opposite number on this record.
It ends with the downbeat and heartbreaking Meagan’s Law, BUT only if you get the standard release. There is a Canadian disc knocking about that includes (count ‘em!) twelve bonus tracks – this edition is definitely one to track down, as there are some fantastic tracks bolted on here.
There’s several reasons why I include this here.
First and foremost, it’s a bloody good record and the hope is that if someone passes through here and sees this, then they might have a gander for themselves.
Secondly, it’s a great example of something that can be both viscerally immediate and exciting, yet also interesting and fascinating enough for me to rave about it seven years on.
Also, it’s sadly an example of the occasional gulf between producing something utterly brilliant, and not catching the imagination of (or simply not being given a chance to be recognised by) the record-buying public, which is a terrible shame.
The connection between Doughboys and Screaming Trees came about around five years or so ago, when John played guitar on a track on Mark Lanegan’s Bubblegum opus, and Mark reciprocated by lending his vocals to an ASG cover of Slow’s Have Not Been the Same for a film soundtrack. Unfortunately, very little of this song appears on the film itself, a soundtrack CD doesn’t seem to have ever been released, and – even sadder – All Systems Go! appear to have, well, gone. Still, they leave behind this album which reminds me of a summer of the best chaos I can remember, and as another summer approaches, still fills me with anticipation and the desire to go nuts in the sunshine once more. And I can’t recommend anything much higher than that.
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