The Sick Rose Shaking Street + The Double Shot Ep

(Finally released on Cd an italian garage cult band from the 80s!
That’s their 2nd album for this great combo from Turin.
Along with that a double 7″ released two years before and called ‘Double Shot’ and two unreleased songs!)

Finally released on Cd an italian garage cult band from the 80s!
That’s their 2nd album for this great combo from Turin.
Along with that a double 7″ released two years before and called ‘Double Shot!

But go on to get a real introduction by Roberto Calabrò…

The CD you are holding in your hands represents an Italian underground
piece of history.
It is the first digital issue of Shaking Street, the second LP by
the most devastating garage band Italy has ever encountered: the Sick Rose.

Way back in 1989, when this album was released, originally on Claudio Sorge’s Electric Eye label,the Italian and the international underground r’n’r scene was evolving very fast.
A strong wind from the USA was bringing harder and more aggressive rock and roll sounds, that within a few years will
develop into a phenomenon that today is known as grunge.

At this point of their career also the Sick
Rose was moving to a much more guitar oriented sound, partly abandoning the original garage-punk
with folk and psychedelic influences of their beginning (the legendary 7″ Get Along Girl! and the
seminal debut album Faces), getting closer to the classic American rock’n’roll bands like MC5, The Real
Kids and The Flamin’ Groovies.

Besides the natural evolution of the band, a further contribution to
the style change was given by a line-up turnover that saw the replacement of the farfisa organ player
Rinaldo Doro by a second guitarist Jacopo Arrobbio, the group’s former roadie.
With this new line-up – Luca Re (vocals), Diego Mese and Jacopo Arrobio (guitars), Maurizio Campisi
(bass) and Dante Garimanno (drums) – the Sick Rose recorded Shaking Street.

An explosive album, with
an absolute balance among original songs (Little Girlie Pearl, She’s Got, Like The Other Kids, A Kiss Is Not
Enough) and three perfect cover versions: the title-track stolen from the MC5 repertoire, Raining
Teardrops by the obscure mid Sixties Australian band Sir Barrington Power Pack and Up Is Up by The
Real Kids from Boston.

Two years before the Sick Rose had released, again on Electric Eye, a double 7″
that you can also find for the very first time on a CD.
“It was a “buy-one-get-two-records” deal, that is the explanation for the title “Double Shot”, recalls Luca Re
today.
Two originals and two covers: the opening track that displays a heavy, very much guitar oriented sound
(It’s Hard), followed by an outstanding synthesis of garage sound and Hammond beat (When The Sun Refuses
To Shine) and two vibrant remakes, Nothin’ by the Canadian Ugly Ducklings and My Time by the Golden Dawn
from Texas.
The new CD is completed by two previously unreleased bonus tracks, two unreleased demo
recordings from 1989 done on a small 4 track recorder: a fascinating acoustic version of Shaking Street and a
cover of Yesterday Numbers by The Flamin’ Groovies, at that time one of the band’s major influences.

The second phase of the extraordinary artistic adventure of the Sick Rose can be found in its entirety here.
All you have to do now is to turn on your cd player and play these song at maximum volume!

Roberto Calabrò
author of “Eighties Colours. Garage, beat e psichedelia nell’Italia degli anni Ottanta”
Coniglio Press

TRACK LISTENING:

1. Little Girlie Pearl
2. Like The Other Kids
3. Shaking Street
4. She’s Got
5. Raining Teardrops
6. A Kiss Is Not Enough
7. Don’t Keep Me Out
8. Little Sister
9. Up Is Up
10. Teenage Nightdrive
(taken from ‘Shaking Street’ Lp)

11. It’s Hard
12. Nothing
13. My Time
14. When The Sun Refuses To Shine
(taken from ‘the Double Shot’ Ep)

15. Shaking Street
16. Yesterday Numbers
(Bonus tracks: recorded on a four track machine
down in the basement February 1989)

REVIEW

Alan Brown – Shindig! Quarterly #3 – 07-09/2011

At the ’80s drew to a close, The Chesterfield Kings weren’t the only ’60 garage revivalist to

reign in the psychedelic and flok-rock influences, crank up the roadhouse rock’n’roll, add some

’70s punk attitude and ditch the organ. The Sick Rose out of Turin had a similar idea on a

second album that’s got more in common with The Flamin’ Groovies than The Seeds.
Originally released in 1988 and now making its debut on CD, Shaking Street – a

faithful MC5 cover provides the record with its title track – is bolstered by two unreleased

demos and the resurrection from the vaults of the Italian quintet’s Double Shot EP

that includes an excellent reworking of the Golden Dwan’s ‘My Time’.
Altough the album proper doesn’t contain anything widly original, there are some enjoyable

moments, including the moody ballad ‘Don’t Keep Me Out’ and ‘Little Sister’ with its ravaged

barrelhouse piano blues-punk smarts.