Sunday, 3 February 2008

SOUNDGARDEN – RUSTY CAGE (A&M RECORDS)


SOUNDGARDEN – RUSTY CAGE (A&M RECORDS)

Not the most obvious selection from Badmotorfinger as a single, part of me thinks that it was chosen just because the track is short and contains a bit of pace.  And even then the version of the song here is an edit.  Time was of the essence.

“Rusty Cage” is a multi layered Soundgarden song.  It opens with a sense of twinkling and a new day rising before an explicitly Geezer Butler-esqe rumbles through proceedings and the track speeds off.  Then in drops Cornell’s voice exclaiming how he is “going to break my rusty cage and run”.  Fair enough.

Towards the end it all begins to limp which kills the song slightly but by this stage the band has done enough.  They’re justified even if I still have no idea what their rusty cage actually is.

The second track on the disc is “Touch Me” which features the vocal talents of Stephanie Barber, whoever she was (it turns out she was the wife of Bruce Fairweather of Green River and Mother Love Bone).  It is a cover of an old band called Fancy that nobody in the right mind will ever recall.  All in all it just appears one big excuse for a shout while hardly harbouring a nod to either Mudhoney or The Doors.

Finally “Show Me” closes the release which, despite being written by Ben Shepherd, manages to sound like a Guns N’ Roses song mostly thanks to the vocal projection of Chris Cornell.  It’s not strong.  Then again they were touring with them.

Other releases of the single featured cover versions of “Earache My Eye”, “Girl U Want” and “Big Bottom” as b-sides.  We were screwed in the UK.

Johnny Cash later covered the track.  He was wrong.

It is funny to note the single attached to the CD single that states that this is a limited edition release of 5000 (although for some reason the number stamped on the back of my copy is 5244).  How green was their fucking valley?

Thesaurus moment: mishap.

A&M Records

No comments: