The Botox Frankenstein Archival Series>Old Skull & Soundgarden Reviews

As previously published in this space were archival interviews I did with Old Skull & Soundgarden. For today's installment, I'd like to present to you dear readers, the actual reviews of both bands I wrote for Variety. I believe the Old Skull review was published, but I 'm not sure if the Soundgarden was. Enjoy!

Old Skull Chicago Lounge Ax (400 seats); $8 top ticket. Promoted by Old Skull. Reviewed Feb. 25, 1990

Kiddy acts appear novelish and most often a fad, but Old Skull dispels that myth quickly with rip-roaring guitars and an edge on melody that most music-bound kids don't even learn until their late teens. The crowd stood spellbound as 10 year-old guitarist and lead singer JP Toulon, nine year-old bassist Jamie Toulon and 10 year-old drummer Jessie-Collins Davis, unshackled their constructive forms of childish nightmares mixed with a heaping tablespoon of grown-up attitudes, concocting screeching industrial/punk, yet enjoyable sounds.

Much of the evening's material stemmed from the trio's Restless Records debut, "Get Outta School." The songs carry grade school textbook imagery, coupled with thoughtful, intelligent lyrics that realistically reflect some of society's greatest issues at hand, like the band's and pulsating, yet homey title track "Get Outta School," the slightly off-beat artless "Skate Or Die," the slow yet raunchy "AIDS" or the profound ear-leaping "Jesus Died On The Cross." The set's last song "Hot Dog Hell," created an all-out war of flying bits of raw hotdogs aimed at surprised audience members, who responded back by throwing hot dog pieces among themselves and at Old Skull.

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Soundgarden Chicago The Old Vic Theater (1,400 seats) Jan. 14, 1990; 17.50 top. Promoted by Jam Productions. Reviewed Jan. 14.

The current tendency of heavy metal to sound and act like nothing more than mid-1970s constipated hard rock and roll is shattered by Soundgarden's fresh screaming rhythms and blistering raw guitar grunge.

Their nearly two hour sold-out set was well-received by the predominately teenage crowd, that behaved for the most part like a group of frenzied sharks, waiting for the first drop of blood to spill.

The crowd went out of control instantly, as lead singer Chris Cornell, who resembles a "hippied" John Cougar Mellencamp, unleashed Soundgarden's gut-wrenching yet likeable rip-roaring timbre upon the adrenalin-overdosed crowd. Much of the evening's material stemmed from the group's A & M Records debut, "Louder Than Love;" songs with cryptic messages, that carry little or no significance, like the slow, yet poppy "Loud Love," the screechy "Full On Kevin's Mom" or the intense "Gun," in which band members Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Jason Everman and drummer Matt Cameron played soldiers, marching across the stage in time to the beat.

At one point during the performance, Cornell dived headlong into the crowd while the band played on. He was passed around like a tray of food atop the crowd and eventually log-rolled himself back to the stage. Later, Cornell challenged the audience to come up onto the stage and dive, which resulted in an over-eager response of sweaty bodies attempting to appease their beloved heroes, only to be caught and dragged out by security guards.

Towards the end of their set, a member of the audience taunted and intimidated a security guard who attempted to stage-dive. The security guard then went after him, only to find himself dragged down into the crowd. The stage-diver was immediately ejected from the theater. The set ended without further incident.