The Golden Rulers - The Price of Admission

John Ramirez has been a staple of the LA scene for - hell - decades now, as a member of Toothpick Elbow, the Streetwalkin' Cheetahs and more and I finally caught his new band with John as frontman guitarist/singer, the Golden Rulers, when they played with the B Movie Rats last month. I dug their guitar-heavy, punk'n'roll sound and the hard'n'rockin' rhythm section of Mike Alvidrez (bass) and John Collinson (drums - also in the Motorcycle Black Madonnas). Live, they have just added a second guitarist who does not appear here, but the recordings still have plenty of power!

Lots of influences/similar sounds come creeping in, such as Union Carbide Productions in "Creepy", choppy power chords in "Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah", slower, riffy blues rock in "Getting Over Being Under", a little AC/DC-ish in "Love on the Line", some Motorhead in the 70's riff-rocker "Nowhere in Time", maybe a touch of Black Sabbath in "Feeding the Hand That Bites" (reminiscent of something else that is nagging at me, but I can't put my finger on). Jeez, I feel like this is a obscure rock'n'roll quiz and I'm failing cuz I can't place where the influences behind "One Foot in the Grave" or "Drain" are coming from (and those opening power chord bombardment from "Drain" are buggin' the hell outta me cuz I know that tune!), but there's some wild guitar work here, especially the fantastically noisy solo in "Drain". More metal-isms in "Poor Little Man" and "Death of a Clown" (John is in the Judas Priest cover band, Nudist Priest, after all) and they top everything off with a heavy-duty cover of Bowie's "Moonage Daydream".

In-your-face, hard-punk-rock in the mold of 80's groups like the Powder Monkeys, Union Carbide, Twenty Second Sect and their ilk. I don't get enough of this kind of rock'n'roll any more, it seems!